PACC Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES COMPTES PUBLICS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

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[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau— Labelle, Lib.)): Good afternoon. First of all, I'd like to welcome our witnesses. We're pleased to have you here.

Before we begin, since the Chair and Vice-Chair of the committee are not in attendance, I would ask the clerk to read the instructions. Go ahead, Madam Clerk.

[English]

The Clerk of the Committee: I wish to inform the honourable members that owing to unavoidable circumstances, the chair and vice-chairs are unable to attend this meeting. However, I have received a fax, dated October 15, 2001, addressed to all the members of the committee, from Mr. Mac Harb, stating that Mr. Robert Bertrand will serve as acting chair of the committee for this particular meeting.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance): Agreed.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Thank you very much.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), we have consideration of chapter 19 (Reporting Performance to Parliament: Progress Too Slow) of the December 2000 Report of the Auditor General of Canada. And pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), we have consideration of chapter 20 (Managing Departments for Results and Managing Horizontal Issues for Results) of the December 2000 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.

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We are going to be hearing this afternoon from people of the Office of the Auditor General and Treasury Board. We have with us Maria Barrados.

They way we usually do it is that you have five minutes to make your presentation, and there are five minutes for whoever else has a presentation to make. Ms. Barrados, could you introduce, before you start your statement, the people who are here with you. We will ask the same of Madam Santi.

Madam Barrados, the floor is yours.

Ms. Maria Barrados (Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity of being here to discuss these two chapters from our 2000 report. I have with me today Dr. John Mayne, the auditor responsible for these two chapters.

These two chapters are related. Good performance information to Parliament ought to be based on the information used to manage programs within departments. Since we audit on behalf of Parliament, providing good quality information to Parliament is of utmost concern to us. Parliament needs fair and reliable information to fulfil its role of scrutinizing the government and holding it to account.

In both chapters we followed up on similar work reported in 1997. We expected to see that good progress had been made. However, for both reporting to Parliament and managing for results, we were disappointed.

In 1997 we identified a number of shortcomings in how information from departments was being reported to Parliament, including a lack of clear and concrete statements of what was expected and limited information on what was being accomplished. For the most part, these and other weaknesses are still evident in current reporting. Reporting has only modestly improved. Performance reports to Parliament should tell a clear and credible performance story.

The government has sought Parliament's concurrence for its “Improved Reporting to Parliament” project, but it remains a project that is not sanctioned by legislation. Since our 1997 audit both Quebec and British Columbia have passed legislation requiring performance reporting to their legislature and requiring departments to manage for results. In our view, the federal government should seriously consider introducing similar legislation, to ensure that performance reporting is placed on a more stable footing. Passing such legislation in a very public manner would highlight the importance of good reporting.

Such legislation would be helpful, but other things are also required if improved reporting is to be realized. These include the following. The Treasury Board Secretariat needs to play a stronger oversight role in setting out clear reporting guidelines and challenging the information provided by departments. Enhanced challenge by parliamentary committees would also help to reinforce the importance Parliament places on performance information. It is essential that Parliament review estimates documents to motivate departments to improve their reporting.

In its recent eighth report, Mr. Chairman, your committee recommended that our office do more audit work on the departmental performance reports. We agree that this too would encourage departments to work harder to improve the information they provide to Parliament.

[Translation]

Since our 2000 chapter on reporting performance, the Treasury Board Secretariat has set out clearer reporting principles for this year's performance reports and provided a common lexicon of terms for departments to use. We will be monitoring the performance reports for this year and for future years and are hopeful we will be able to report significant progress.

Chapter 20 examined the extent to which departments are measuring what they have accomplished—their results—and are using that information to manage. Since 1995, the government has been emphasizing the importance of managing their results.

In our 1997 study, we identified several programs that had made good progress in managing for results. Last year, we found those programs continued those efforts. However, more generally in the five major departments we examined, progress was slow or stalled. Many departments were caught in a stage of perpetually planning to manage for results but never actually getting on with it.

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While “results” are referred to in many government documents and pronouncements, we noted in Chapter 20 that the Treasury Board Secretariat had provided little concrete direction and practical guidance to departments on managing for results, and there was no coordinated effort in the Secretariat for moving departments ahead.

And, since 1995, the government's program evaluation expertise had been allowed to atrophy, just at a time when evaluation ought to have been a leading tool for measuring results.

[English]

We concluded in chapter 20 that a major push by departments and the Treasury Board Secretariat would be required to move government to a management approach based on results and get beyond the rhetoric.

Chapter 20 also looked at the challenges faced when trying to manage a policy area that cuts across several departments, that is, a horizontal issue. We felt that this is an increasingly important management issue, one that is receiving more attention by government and parliamentarians. In chapter 20 we presented a framework for managing horizontal issues and discussed challenges. We will continue our work in this area.

Mr. Chairman, in our view, significant changes are needed if reporting to Parliament is to meet its potential. The committee may wish to consider a number of questions.

Is the government considering introducing legislation to put reporting to Parliament on a more stable footing? What is being done concretely to ensure departments provide a more balanced and forthright report on performance against expectations? What incentives have been put in place by the government to encourage good reporting, not just safe reporting, to Parliament? How will departments be encouraged to move past just planning to manage for results?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'd be pleased to answer any of your questions.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Thank you very much.

Now we go to Madam Santi.

Ms. Roberta Santi (Associate Deputy Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before this committee.

[Translation]

I am here today to address departmental reporting and managing for results issues raised by the Office of the Auditor General in Chapters 19 and 20 of its report, tabled in Parliament last December.

With me are Lee McCormack, Executive Director, Results Management and Reporting Directorate, and Judy Watling, Senior Director, Results Based Management Division.

[English]

Working with colleagues in the Treasury Board Secretariat and in departments to lead the move towards results-based management is a new responsibility of mine. I have been working in the area for about four weeks. So I look forward to the views of the committee members today as we advance our results-based management agenda.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make three main points. First, the government is committed to improving its capacity to manage for results. The Treasury Board Secretariat is actively working with managers to strengthen their ability to design programs with the right performance measurement systems at the start, to evaluate, learn, and adjust based on performance information, and to report results to parliamentarians and to Canadians in clear and understandable language.

Second, delivering on results-based management will require sustained effort over an extended period of time and a change in the management culture of government. Our goal is to develop a culture where every manager has the tools and knowledge to manage for results, and we are making good progress on this front.

Third, this cultural change does not happen by wishing it so. We have listened to parliamentarians, to managers, and to external advisers. We have a plan and we are taking action.

Today I will outline some of the main changes we have made since the Auditor General began his audit in early 1999. I will also highlight some of the changes we intend to make in the future.

[Translation]

Creating a results based management culture requires a clear statement and message to all managers that designing programs properly, measuring and evaluating performance, learning, and reporting on results are critical elements of their work.

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In March 2000, several months before Chapters 19 and 20 were published, the government tabled in the House its new management framework, Results for Canadians. This document confirms the Government's commitment to developing a management culture that is citizen-focused in the management of its programs and services; that is focused on the achievement of results; that is guided by responsible spending; and that applies sound public service values in all its work.

[English]

While Results for Canadians marks a clear commitment to the principle of results-based management, any framework needs to be reinforced by clear action. As I said earlier, we are working collaboratively with departments to make this happen.

In June 2000 the Treasury Board introduced a new transfer payments policy. Each transfer payment program coming before the Treasury Board for renewal now requires a results-based management and accountability framework, a document that clearly indicates the objectives, activities, and outputs of the initiative, the performance information to be collected, the evaluation to be undertaken, and the strategy to report on results. This policy is already having a positive impact by ensuring that our programs are reconsidered and designed with the right performance measurement strategies at the outset.

Sound evaluation is a critical element of the culture I spoke about earlier. In April 2001 the Treasury Board dramatically strengthened its evaluation policy and made significant new investments in building departmental evaluation capacity. A new centre of excellence for evaluation is being developed, and it is directly assisting departments to build capacity. Some $11.4 million will be invested in the evaluation function in this and in the next fiscal year.

The scope of the evaluation has also been broadened to include programs, policies, and initiatives, including those that cross departmental lines.

Finally, we are asking evaluators to play an important role in advising, supporting, and training departmental managers as they develop the results-based management frameworks required by our transfer payments policy.

[Translation]

Mr. Chairman, we are explicitly strengthening evaluation and beginning to use it more strategically as a tool to help leverage change in the way that managers manage for results.

We also believe that learning is a critical element of making cultural change and that one of the best ways to learn is to highlight best practices.

In the fall of 2000, the Treasury Board Secretariat launched the Collective Results Seminar Series, creating a forum for departments to find out what works, and what does not, based on practical experience.

[English]

The secretariat has also established a collective results website that includes a database of over 60 horizontal initiatives, as well as reference material to support ongoing work on horizontal initiatives.

Mr. Chairman, the final element of this cultural change revolves around better public performance reporting. Chapter 19 noted the need for the Treasury Board Secretariat to provide leadership in setting guidance and standards for departmental performance reports. Treasury Board agrees, and this past July a new guide for departmental performance reporting was introduced. It adopts a citizen-centred approach, and it calls for departmental performance reports to be organized using strategic outcomes, the long-term, enduring benefits that departments provide to Canadians.

Our new guidance adopts six reporting principles, which are largely derived from the work of the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation. These principles encourage departments to provide performance reports that are coherent and balanced, are focused on outcomes, not outputs, are linked with prior commitments, put performance information in its context, link resources to outcomes, and use credible methodologies and data. We believe that over time the departments will make further progress towards meeting these principles.

Very shortly we plan to introduce new guidelines as well for the departmental reports on plans and priorities that reinforce these principles.

[Translation]

Since the publication of Chapters 19 and 20, we have focused additional energies and our limited resources in those areas that we feel will provide the greatest return in our movement towards results-based management.

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[English]

The Office of the Auditor General noted the need for standardization of language and terminology. We agreed, so we developed a lexicon of results-based management terminology for use across the government.

Treasury Board Secretariat is now working directly with the Office of the Auditor General to develop a results-based management capability model and an accompanying guide that clearly describes what it means to manage for results in a federal setting.

I should note that the actions we are taking to improve results-based management are also linked to a number of initiatives aimed at implementing modern management practices across government. Our implementation of the financial management strategy, the integrated risk management framework, our modern comptrollership initiative, and our new internal audit policy are examples of these.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the value of these two chapters. They make an important and timely contribution to our efforts to implement results-based management across the government.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions at this time.

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms. Santi.

[English]

We now go to the first round of questions. As all members know, it's eight minutes per party.

We will go with Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you very much, and thank you for being here and giving us your reports.

I would like first to ask the Auditor General's department, Ms. Barrados, what the government used in their reporting before you came up with the idea of actually basing it on the results achieved. They must have been reporting. Was it simply a reporting of the amount of money spent, and that was it?

Ms. Maria Barrados: No. There's a bit of a history here, and the government has been at this for some time. What we had, starting in the late 1970s, was the introduction of the part IIIs of the estimates, which was the first effort to build into estimates a report on performance. Then the “Improved Reporting to Parliament” project, which was led by the Treasury Board and supported by our office, was to improve the amount of information and the type of information that was in those reports, and at that time you had the division of part III of the estimates into two documents, one the plans and priorities, the other the performance report in the fall. So it's an evolution.

Mr. Ken Epp: So did this idea originate with the Auditor General's office, or did it begin its evolution from the Treasury Board Secretariat?

Ms. Maria Barrados: It has a long history. It goes as far back as the Glassco royal commission in the 1960s. It has always been an effort to try to improve the information to Parliament, and it has always tried as much as possible to shift the kind of information that is being given from activities to results, ideally the final results or outcomes. This is the kind of report and the kind of management that we agree with Treasury Board about.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay.

It seems to me eminently sensible that this should be done, that you don't only account for the money you spend, but you somehow account also for what you achieved with that money. And if you spent billions of dollars.... As a matter of fact, I did a little quick calculation here. You're responsible—and I think you are responsible—for the total expenditure of the Government of Canada in one way or another. It's $6,000 per second, and to manage that is no small feat. This seems so eminently sensible, and yet, although from the Auditor General's report 1997, this 2000 one, from your statements here today, I hear we're making progress, yes, we're working on it, it's going way too slowly. Why? What is the holdup?

Ms. Roberta Santi: I think that in both the private sector and the public sector, managing for results is considered to be largely a cultural change process. It's not a process you can move into overnight. When we launched heavily into this a number of years ago, the thinking was that it would probably take some three to four years to get there. I think now, when you look at other provincial governments that have probably been at this even longer than we have and recent discussions with the Office of the Auditor General, it's more like a seven- to ten-year timeframe.

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The bottom line is that we are, in fact, making good progress. We are shifting in the way we define the results we're going after, if you look at some of the data we have available. I agree with Ms. Barrados that we have to report on outcomes and we have to link these outcomes with our expenditures. But government's largely been able to move out of this way of describing only its activities, and it's now largely describing what its outputs are, and in some areas where its outcomes are. I think it means that we need to work with departments to build the skills and the tools to actually establish those frameworks and to manage with results. It is a longer-term process, it is a cultural process, and over the last couple of years we've been trying to put those tools in place to support it.

A good example of that is what we're doing with our evaluation policy. We've significantly revised our evaluation policy to ensure that programs and policy initiatives are reviewed and the outcomes of those evaluations are actually built back into our program.

So there's a lot of investment going on at the planning stages and at specific parts of the life cycle of managing for results that I think is actually strengthening this whole focus across government.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

I have a very important question, though. When I read the Auditor General's report and hear the things you said today, as well as perusing some of the work we got from the library, it seems to me that what we have is a problem of incentive. If you are going to make this thing work, you have to report not only on your successes, but also on your failures. I don't think any manager would want to do that, because included in the pay plan is also an incentive for managers based on their meeting their objectives. So why the dickens would any manager in his report say he failed to meet these objectives, because it simply means he doesn't get the bonus?

I don't know if you could tell me this now or whether perhaps you could provide it to the committee later, but I'd like to know, where there's a salary attachment to meeting incentives, what proportion of managers actually achieve those. Or is that just a way of topping up the salary? That's maybe a unfair question, but I think it's a fair question. It sounds unfair, but I think it is fair.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I don't have the data in front of me on that, but I can say that is truly one of the incentives we have now within the public service to manage for results. If you look at the evolution of some of those management accords, even over the last three or four years, they are becoming much more focused on results, much more focused on targets, with much more of an assessment at the end of the year of what's been achieved. They're incentives in regard to pay at risk etc., but I think the incentives really are defined by public service commitment, putting citizens first.

When you look at some of the new principles we have developed for departments for performance reporting, the first principle is actually to make sure we have balanced reporting in these performance reports. I think there's a recognition that in respect of results that you plan for, life is never perfection, you never reach those results. There are some good reasons why you don't reach those results, there are some reasons that aren't so positive as to why you reach them. But the important thing is to be honest and open about where you are with specific outcomes. When you look at our integrated risk management policy, if we're talking about evolution of management practices in the federal government, it puts an emphasis on clearly identifying risks, upsides, and downsides. If you look at our evaluation policy or an internal audit policy, it's the same focus. There's a focus on transparency.

But you raise an important point about incentives, because I think when you report honestly about outcomes, it puts the onus on a lot of institutions to deal with that in a mature way. I think there is an issue of trust that we face in all our institutions, and as to how we enter into the debate around the information that is made public. So I think it is in the best interest of Canadians that we report performance to them in a clear and a concise way they can understand, but that we also have debates that can move us to the next step of correcting and strengthening our results focus.

Mr. Ken Epp: Mr. Chairman, I have a lot more questions. Maybe in the next round you can come back to me.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Okay.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thanks.

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The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Mr. Bryden.

Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, Lib.): My question is really for the Treasury Board. Are you looking at these report-based management reforms in the context of reforms to the Access to Information Act? There's a task force at work, as you know, on that subject. It seems to me they're complementary.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I'm going to ask Lee to respond to that issue.

Mr. Lee McCormack (Executive Director, Results Management and Reporting, Treasury Board Secretariat): The two principal policies that relate to this would be the audit and evaluation policies. We've come out in April of this year with two policies related to both of those important functions. Those policies completely respect the Access to Information Act and laws. What we're trying to do, however, is ensure that the reports for both evaluation and audit, as with the departmental performance reports, put the findings in context, that they're also balanced, and that there is an explanation for failures that may have been uncovered. In particular, in respect of audit reports, we're looking to include in the report the management action plan that shows how the deficiencies will be dealt with. So the access to information law is extremely important, and all our work on results-based management respects that law.

Mr. John Bryden: Actually, though, the task force is looking at the access to information law with some prospect of changing it and making government more transparent. I just wondered whether there was any dovetailing of your results-based management with the actual consideration of reform of the Access to Information Act. It's more an information thing for me, if you will.

Ms. Roberta Santi: As you know, all the performance reports are publicly available, as are the plans and priorities. In fact, we also have a number of fairly well developed websites that are accessible within the federal government and to the public on the Internet. So there's a vast array of performance information that is available to the public. We don't really see that changing with regard to any changes to the act that may be considered.

Mr. John Bryden: Let me narrow it down a little, if I may. This business about the new transfer payments policy, I take it that's directed towards non-governmental organizations, other levels of government perhaps, but primarily NGOs.

Ms. Roberta Santi: That's largely our grants and contributions programs.

Mr. John Bryden: When you're doing results-based assessment of how that money is spent, can I expect, either under the present access to information legislation or after it, that information to be available?

Mr. Lee McCormack: Yes, you can. That policy requires at the front end that a results-based management accountability framework be put in place, which would define the objectives of the initiative, what would be produced, the measurement strategy, including the evaluation that would be done over the course of the program, and the reporting on that program.

Typically, grants and contributions programs are reviewed by the Treasury Board on a five-year cycle. When a program comes back for renewal, the Treasury Board and its secretariat would be looking for performance information on the results of that initiative, typically done through a program evaluation, which would be public.

Mr. John Bryden: If I recall correctly, the way it works with grants and contributions is that the minister's discretion determines whether or not the documents pertaining to grants and contributions, the actual organizations seeking the money, are made public. So it's in the act, it's discretionary. The minister releases it on her own decision, which caused all that kerfuffle a year or so ago.

What really interests me is whether, when a ministry does a review of a non-governmental organization that has received a transfer, the results of that review will be available to parliamentarians and the public. I'm not talking about a general overview of whether the program worked or not. I want to know whether or not a specific organization has been assessed after a year or so, whatever is appropriate, and what that assessment by the department is. Is that going to be available?

Mr. Lee McCormack: That's a very difficult question to answer in the abstract, without knowing the specific circumstances of the case.

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Mr. John Bryden: Then I'll give you another specific, CIDA. I just saw a report from CIDA this last week or so, and CIDA is now undertaking, and has been undertaking for some time, an attempt to evaluate the programs, and they go out and do audits. But what was interesting in the documents I was looking at is that there's still a lot of controversy about the expense of program evaluation, which is the essence of my next question to you.

It would appear that even with CIDA, a decision has not been taken absolutely about assessments of NGO projects that may be occurring overseas somewhere—and this is particularly relevant in the current situation where we find ourselves. I'm not certain that there is a real commitment on the part of Treasury Board to ensure that organizations like CIDA make sure there is a program review, because of the expense. There's controversy. Furthermore, it's very necessary for me to actually see the results of that review. I take it that this is not a direction we're going in currently.

Mr. Lee McCormack: Any overall program evaluation on a CIDA program done by the evaluation directorate in that organization is a public document. Under our policy that document is to be posted on the department's website, it's to be made available to the public. It's also to be made available to Treasury Board.

Mr. John Bryden: What about privacy? I've run into problems with privacy legislation very much again. I've tried to obtain documents pertaining to organizations that have received transfers. The women's program is one of the classic ones that is very difficult to get information on, and they always cite privacy.

Again, are these things that we are looking at? It's one thing to have results-based management, but I'm worried that if it's only the department that's assessing results-based management, and not the public at large or parliamentarians, you're not going to achieve the target. I'm not sure where we're going on this. Perhaps it's something you would like to come back and explain further.

Ms. Roberta Santi: Perhaps we could just try to answer your question another way. As Mr. McCormack has indicated, all these evaluations are publicly available and have to be provided. There could be an evaluation review involving some commercial information. There could be some privacy information included in the evaluation. There could be something related to national security. So before releasing such a report, you would have to make sure it's in sync with the Access to Information Act, but it would not give you the authority to totally remove that report from the view of the public. You might have to eliminate some pieces of information, but it's not that you wouldn't put out the evaluation report. My understanding from the evaluations we've had in the last year is that those circumstances would actually be quite exceptional.

Mr. John Bryden: So if I understand—

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Ms. Barrados wanted to add something to that.

Mr. John Bryden: Yes, please.

Ms. Maria Barrados: I just have a comment. We really expect results-based management in departments to be linked with the reporting, we don't expect them to be divorced or independent. So if you have strong results-based management in a department, we would expect strong reporting.

Mr. John Bryden: Public reporting.

Ms. Maria Barrados: Public reporting and parliamentary reporting.

Mr. John Bryden: Okay, excellent.

I take it, then, to come back to my point, you haven't seen a need to look at any changes to the Access to Information Act or Privacy Act in the context of your results-based management program at this time.

Ms. Roberta Santi: We haven't. We've reinforced the role of evaluation in managing for results through a number of the recent activities, the principles we've put out for performance reporting, our evaluation policy, and our new requirements to ensure that these are made public.

Mr. John Bryden: Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Okay, now we go to the second round.

Mr Epp, four minutes.

Mr. Ken Epp: You have an internal audit system that's new, according to the reports here. How is that different from what you did before, and what use is made of the information?

Ms. Roberta Santi: Lee has been very active in the internal audit policy, so I'll pass that over to him.

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Mr. Lee McCormack: What we have done recently is update our internal audit policy, and we're putting a good deal of new investment money into internal audit to strengthen the capacity to do internal audits.

We're also going to be using the results of internal audits at the centre, at the Treasury Board Secretariat, to look at strengths and weaknesses and the control frameworks of departments. So we're going to be actively reading those audits.

Mr. Ken Epp: Is the purpose of these internal audits to head off the Auditor General? What are you doing?

Mr. Lee McCormack: Not at all. It's good management. Good management says that managers ought to be taking a look at the quality of their management practices and controls on a regular basis.

Mr. Ken Epp: Are these audits now results-based?

Mr. Lee McCormack: With internal audits you're looking less at the results of a program. That's more the ambit of program evaluation. In the audit framework you're looking at the quality of the management practices and controls in this program. Are resources well managed? Are they well controlled? That's good management practice, and each department and agency has an internal audit unit that does that.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay.

Another question—and this was mentioned by the report from the Auditor General—is a question we need to ask you. What kind of incentives are you putting in place so that what we get is not only good reporting, but replaces what we have now, that is, safe reporting—in other words, we report in such a way that we don't get into trouble?

Ms. Roberta Santi: This was the main objective of the new revised internal audit policy, and it is not only a new policy in respect of how the function should operate within departments, it also has a component of building a much stronger capacity for internal audits across government.

Also, within the Treasury Board Secretariat we're currently in the process of developing a centre of excellence to build good practices in this area and to ensure that these practices are shared across government. We see internal audit as a really important part of identifying where management practices are strong and where they are weak, and also as an important instrument to develop management action plans to correct areas where practices are weak.

Mr. Ken Epp: How many departments are now engaging in these internal audits?

Ms. Roberta Santi: All departments are involved in the internal audit.

Mr. Ken Epp: All of them are? Would it be possible for you to provide us, perhaps at a future time, with a sample or two of those internal audits, so we can look at them?

Ms. Roberta Santi: Certainly.

Mr. Lee McCormack: They're available on the individual department websites.

Ms. Roberta Santi: Yes. All internal audits and their management action plans are available for the public. They're on websites provided to the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, then scrap the request.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): I believe Ms. Barrados had something to add.

Ms. Maria Barrados: I would just like to add a comment on our expectations for internal audit. We're very happy at the Office of the Auditor General to be able to rely on internal audit, because we can't cover everything and there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the departments. There are a lot of new things that are going to be required now of internal audit in the area of assurance, with the work that is being done on the shift to accrual accounting, the move to departmental financial statements. We're also suggesting there's a role for them in ensuring that there's a quality in the departmental performance reports.

Mr. Ken Epp: So I'm wrong when I have in my head this idea that an internal audit is a department auditing itself. It's like when the police commission audits itself, and then tells the public, no, we're not doing anything wrong. Do I have a wrong perception of the meaning of internal audit?

Ms. Maria Barrados: You're quite correct. They are internal to the departments, but they sit apart from the operations. They report directly to the deputy. There are standards set up by Treasury Board, and we, as the external auditor, work with them.

Mr. Ken Epp: Do you think people working in the department have a genuine fear of this auditor?

Ms. Maria Barrados: It is harder for the internal auditor to be as fearless as the external auditor.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you. Again my time is up, Mr. Chairman. I'll go the next round.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Mrs. Leung.

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentations. I have two questions for Miss Santi and Mr. McCormack.

You report that in the fall of 2000 you launched a collective results seminar series to create a forum. I'm very interested to know of your findings. Is it all on your website? Do you have a written report on that? That's one part.

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Ms. Roberta Santi: To begin to answer that question, the Treasury Board has been very active in trying to support accountability and performance measurements in horizontal initiatives. As you know, increasingly, many of our initiatives are not tied to one department, but they're shared amongst different departments, and that calls for new ways to develop performance results and accountability systems. We've been very active, I think, in approximately 16 horizontal initiatives, helping the partners develop these frameworks, to guide their focused results for Canadians. We have a very well developed website that lists over 60 horizontal initiatives currently going on within the federal government. This website is available to the public, and it's hot-linked to other more detailed reports. Someone's now asking where can you get that, and I'm going to ask Judi to explain where on our website we can actually find that.

Mr. Lee McCormack: I don't know if the members can see this example, but this is our web page, and if your staff were to go to the Treasury Board website, they would find it.

Ms. Sophia Leung: I have a second question. You report that in April this year you established a new centre of excellence for evaluation—that's good news. Could you quickly explain how that works? I guess it's still new. Do you have any report or evaluation?

Ms. Roberta Santi: As I said earlier, the centre of excellence in evaluation is a really important part of building the capacity for results measurement across government. Lee is responsible for developing the centre of excellence, and he'll be able to tell you about the activities it's currently undertaking.

Mr. Lee McCormack: The centre is in the Treasury Board Secretariat. We have officers who work with departments and agencies to help them develop an evaluation capacity. They're involved in investing a little over $11 million in evaluation capacity over the next two years. They help the departments work on these results-based management and accountability frameworks. We're also involved in designing a recruitment and retention initiative for evaluators. We partner with the Canadian Evaluation Society to do training of evaluators. So what that centre is about is creating capacity to evaluate programs in the departments. It's not there as a control function, we're trying to build capacity in departments.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I'd also like to add that it plays a very important role in working with departments that have transfer payment policies, grants and contributions, to develop the more rigorous performance results and accountability structures that are required now for those programs. So they play a very strong role on that front as well.

Ms. Sophia Leung: I'd like to have Ms. Barrados comment on her impression or evaluation of the centre. How are they performing?

Ms. Maria Barrados: Mr. Chairman, we haven't had the opportunity to look at the centre, but we're very supportive of the initiatives the Treasury Board is taking to try to increase the capacity of both evaluation and audit in government, because we have done government-wide audits on both those functions and have raised concerns that they are not strong enough.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Ms. Leung, I believe Ms. Watling had a comment to make on your first question. I was just wondering if she still wanted to make it.

Ms. Judi Watling (Senior Director, Results-based Management, Treasury Board Secretariat): There is a website devoted to estimates, performance, and planning information that has the collective results information on it. I believe there's a direct connection to the Intraparl site that is available to all parliamentarians.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Mr. Epp, four minutes.

Mr. Ken Epp: I don't know whether you'll accept this, but Mr. Desrochers gave me the proxy for all his times. It might not meet an audit here.

I want again to ask the Auditor General's department whether the Auditor General is satisfied with the initial work in the various departments. When they state their objectives, it's results-based performance. In other words, at the beginning, presumably, of each fiscal year you would say, this is what we hope to achieve. Have they had a look at all at how the departments come up with what they want to achieve, which is the first step in this process?

• 1625

Ms. Maria Barrados: In fact, we make quite a point in the report that we're not very satisfied with how the objectives are stated. They aren't sufficiently clear or sufficiently concrete. We have good examples in the reports, but unfortunately, there are more bad examples. As you point out, it's very hard to assess performance if you don't have some kind of base to make that assessment against, and that has to be a clear statement. We use the terms clear and concrete of those objectives.

Mr. Ken Epp: It just seems to me that this has to be a huge challenge in an organization as large as the Canadian government, in fact, in an organization as large as almost the smallest government department, to actually come up with a viable set of objectives at the the beginning of the year.

The other thing I want to ask you is, what kind of incentives would you suggest the departments use to achieve their objectives in an efficient way? I'm thinking of the example where, in the evaluation, the internal audit and everything, the department actually finds out that they're way overstaffed. They've spent way too much money on what they've achieved. What kind of incentive could you possibly come up with that would permit a department to say, yes, we need to downsize ourselves by 20% or something? It seems to me that's against human nature. How would you achieve that?

Ms. Maria Barrados: You pose some very difficult questions.

We would like to see this thought of in terms of managing well, instead of individual self-interest. Departments are given mandates by Parliament, they have their legislation, they have their directives from Treasury Board, so there's a basis for starting to define things more concretely for the management of the department.

You asked specifically about incentives. This whole thing has to matter. It has to matter to the people in the departments. We have some suggestions about how this could be made to matter. Certainly, it is important that Treasury Board ask questions about what is in the performance reports, what is in their performance framework, and use the information that is provided. A key to all this is that the information is used and officials feel that it matters, because if you are asked to go to a great deal of difficulty on a report, and nobody is using it, it doesn't really matter, the incentive is not there to continue to put the effort into it, and put the effort into something that is not always that easy.

We also feel it is important that review be built into that whole process on the internal audit side, and we have committed ourselves, following your committee's direction, to do more work in this area. To put some continued pressure on that is important.

There are two other things we feel to be very important. We're encouraging parliamentarians to ask about these reports and to use them in their scrutiny. On a number of occasions this committee has done this, and it is a very clear message to departmental officials that it matters a lot what's in that report, because parliamentarians are asking questions about it.

The last thing we have suggested is that it be institutionalized much more than it is, and we're suggesting that legislation be considered.

Mr. Ken Epp: Yes, I picked that up.

Thank you, and I'd like another round if I could.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): John.

Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have three questions here, and I'll try to be brief, because I think some of them have almost been answered.

I'm looking at page three of the Auditor General's presentation. It says:

In our 1997 study we identified several programs that had made good progress in managing for results. Last year, we found those programs continued these efforts. However, more generally, in the five major departments we examined, progress was slow or stalled. Many departments were caught in a stage of perpetually planning to manage for results but never actually getting on with it.

Could you tell me what you learned? Did you find any common factor, or more than one, for those departments that were doing it? They seemed to have found it satisfactory, because three years later they were still doing it, while the others never got started.

Ms. Maria Barrados: Mr. Chairman, I'll ask John Mayne to elaborate on the question.

• 1630

Initially, two years before, we had looked for programs that showed good practice. So we were only looking for good practice. The first question we put in this particular report was, are those that were good back then still good? Even though they had management changes, organizational changes, they were. That's the comment. Those that were doing it well continued to do it well, despite other changes to them.

Then we asked the next question, a little more broadly: In other departments, how is this going? That's where we were saying it wasn't as strong as we thought and there was an awful lot of planning.

John, maybe you want to add a comment on some of the common factors.

Mr. John Mayne (Principal, Audit Operations Branch, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Thank you.

To reiterate, the 1997 work was looking at a couple of small programs inside departments, while in the 2000 report we were looking at the whole department and how it was making progress. So even in the departments we did look at, there were parts that were doing okay, but the broader perspective was where the stalled planning seemed to occur. There had been changes in senior management that had caused things to be rethought several times. There was a change in direction of the whole department that had, again, caused a rethinking of what was going on. That broader level is where we saw this stalling going on.

We were trying to say in 1997, and we're still saying, this is not an impossible dream, this can be done, and there are examples around of programs that are doing not a bad job in getting going. It's proven even more of a challenge for a whole department to get on track and get moving in that direction. We talk about some of the reasons for that.

Mr. John Finlay: As part of your centres of excellence you've concentrated on trying to find out what kept these parts or these cells going on, because obviously, it's not infecting everybody else. It's either through lack of leadership, lack of commitment, or lack of capacity.

Mr. John Mayne: It's sort of episodic evidence, but in those cases where they had got into the managing for results mindset, as was suggested earlier, and were actually out there measuring, it had become part of a routine way of managing, so that even when they had changes in management, they continued that as their modus operandi. That's what we're hoping to see occur on a much broader scale. Getting to that first stage, getting over that hump of seeing, measuring, and learning as a central part of good public management, that is the challenge and where, as we found in our 2000 study, a lot of departments were having a struggle.

Mr. John Finlay: My second question is, will you adopt a results-based management assessment on this $11.4 million you're going to invest in the evaluation function this year and next year? It seems to me that would be an obvious model for you. That's to Treasury Board.

Mr. Lee McCormack: It most certainly is, and it's an explicit part of our policy. We are doing one of those frameworks right now. We'll do an evaluation of the policy at 18 months, and we'll do an evaluation of the policy at five years.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I would also add that this is a feature of Treasury Board policies more generally within the last year to 18 months, that we're building right into the policy statements routine evaluations and review of them, to make sure we know what the impacts are and whether there's a requirement for further adjustments.

Mr. John Finlay: I'll save the last one for another round, if there is one.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Oh yes, you have enough time.

Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

I would like Treasury Board briefly to give us one good example where this new plan is working on a horizontal issue.

Mr. Lee McCormack: You've asked a very specific question, so I'm going to give you a little context, and then I'll give you some examples.

We're now working, as Ms. Santi said earlier, with departments on a number of collective frameworks. We think some of the better ones are—and these were noted, in fact, in the Auditor General's chapter—the Rural Secretariat and the Federal Disability Agenda. Those are certainly two strong frameworks. We also have information on some 60 on our web page that's available to parliamentarians. We think there is improving results information on some 36 of those 60.

• 1635

Mr. Ken Epp: Then I have a second question. I'm thinking, for example, of a horizontal issue that goes across with the provinces. Maybe the question should be directed to the Auditor General people here. How does the federal government account for results-based management and accountability when it involves transfer payments to provinces? Is that a weakness in our system?

Ms. Maria Barrados: It's a challenge in our system, because there has been an effort on the part of government to develop new ways of delivering service that often involve partnerships with other levels of government, not only a province, but sometimes also a municipality, or other agencies, sometimes even the private sector. It's not impossible, however, and we have done other pieces of work where we describe some of the same themes as with these horizontal issues. It's very important for the partners to agree on what it is they're doing, who is responsible for what, and what kinds of results they are to achieve, and then to be sure they measure those results. That can be done.

Mr. Ken Epp: It can be done, but is it being done at all?

Ms. Maria Barrados: There are cases we have seen where there has been work in some of these areas. Infrastructure works was a program where we did audits several times, and there was an evaluation of that program. That was an evaluation agreed to by the partners, as to how they would do it. There are other programs.

John, you may have some other examples of that kind of thing.

Mr. John Mayne: One that comes to mind is the National Child Benefit program, which is very much a federal-provincial arrangement. It publishes an annual report on its performance. They've had out two now, or maybe three, and they're increasingly of better quality. They're trying to report back on what's been accomplished with this money.

Again, those are arrangements that are set up for a specific purpose, and there are quite a few of these collaborative arrangements going on now, to be distinguished a bit from straight transfers. The regular transfers to provinces are not accounted for in the sense you're saying.

Mr. Ken Epp: In other words, in the line of actually having them use it for the intended purpose and that type of thing?

Ms. Maria Barrados: Yes. And these reports give you the expenditures and the results.

What you can sometimes have difficulty with, though—and I think this is something people have to get used to—is that you can't then parse the results by the federal contribution and the provincial contribution and the municipal contribution. You expect an explanation of the expenditures and the efforts linked to those contributions, but you probably can't divide it all up.

Mr. Ken Epp: I'm thinking, for example, of the infrastructure program, which is another example of where we in the opposition party at least, and maybe the government members too, have citizens out there writing us letters and saying, hey, I'm a taxpayer, and I'm funding this? They're really upset about it. Who sets those criteria, and how do we manage as a government, both politically and administratively, to restrict, shall we call it, stupid government spending?

Ms. Maria Barrados: The infrastructure program was a joint, three-level government program. It was a grants and contributions thing, so that the terms and conditions were approved by Treasury Board. The first round on infrastructure was very loose and allowed a lot of things to qualify as infrastructure. The second round did a lot of tightening up, as did the third round. So I would expect that when we look again at that third round, we'll see it much more clear on what is in and what is out.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Mr. Shepherd.

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): To follow up on Mr. Epp, I think you mentioned the status of the Social Union Framework Agreement and how you're getting along with your provincial counterparts in doing those sorts of assessments.

Ms. Roberta Santi: As you know, the Social Union Framework Agreement sets out some principles for transparent reporting to the Canadian public, and we're very actively engaged with federal departments in developing that framework for our reporting on those results. I could turn to Judi Watling to talk about where that works stands. We are playing a leadership role in trying to build the framework for that reporting.

• 1640

Mr. Alex Shepherd: That really wasn't my question. I'm more interested in societal indicators. This was quite the buzzword about a year ago. What are we doing? I know we've developed societal indicators. How are they becoming part of our performance reporting?

Ms. Roberta Santi: Societal indicators, I think, are a very important element to pursue, especially when you look at the nature of government we have, where we have federal, provincial, municipal levels of governments, and we have other players who contribute to the well-being of society. The Treasury Board has been working on this idea of societal indicators and outcomes, because one of the things we would like to develop over time is a better appreciation of what the federal government's contribution is to those societal outcomes. I think we've done some fairly significant work over the last year, taking the recommendations of parliamentarians, outside organizations, and the public, and work is advancing on that front quite well.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Are they going to start to appear in our performance reports?

Ms. Roberta Santi: I think you will see these increasingly appear in performance reporting.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Are you happy with the level of performance reporting by the departments?

Ms. Roberta Santi: When you talk about the level, do you mean the quantity of the departments involved or the quality?

Mr. Alex Shepherd: I mean the quality of the performance reports that are now delivered by individual departments. Some are good and some are awful.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I think since this audit took place in 1999—it's almost two years since that took place—the quality has improved. I think there is steady progress. I don't think we've reached perfection, and we still have a long way to go, but I do think we're getting there. We're actually looking forward to the next round of departmental performance reports, which are due for release in November, so we can really take stock of where we're at. I think they will be an important set of reports, in that they will be the first reports after our putting in place a number of significant tools by means of new evaluation internal audit policies and new principles for reporting.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: The Auditor General is suggesting that we should seek a legislative solution to this. Presumably that's a specific comment on your department's inability to create performance standards among departments, so that perhaps we have to go to a legislative framework. Do you think that's necessary?

Ms. Roberta Santi: The government response to this particular audit indicated that it wasn't willing to pursue legislation at this time. There is an ongoing debate at the provincial level and at the federal level about the pros and cons of pursuing legislation. I think there are some concerns about the rigidity legislation could provide, especially when one looks at the whole world of managing for results and how the concepts have really evolved in the last few years, and the limitations that legislation would provide.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: As I understand it, the Province of Alberta and, I think, the Province of Ontario have such legislation. Do you find it defective? Does it affect their reporting framework?

Ms. Roberta Santi: We're finding in our discussions with them that it hasn't been a panacea, they haven't reached perfection by virtue of the fact that they have legislation. But we are looking at their experience, and we're trying to learn from that. It is something we're looking at in a ongoing way, and we're looking as well to the practices of other governments. As you know, the United States has legislation, and so does Britain. So we are tracking their experience and trying to learn what the upsides and downsides of that are.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: To the Auditor General's office, what can members of Parliament do to improve their orientation towards this whole file? There have been various suggestions around here—I know they're political more than anything—about estimates committees and other functions that maybe would help members of Parliament have more insight into the reporting system and have more impact on changing it.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I'm not so sure we have anything to contribute about the structure of committees. But members of Parliament can play a very important role in all their committees by actually using and asking questions on the reports. And there are different points where they can come in. So the report on plans and priorities and the stating and studying of expectations is a good basis for discussion with members of Parliament on what you're expecting to get out of these programs and how you would actually be measuring achievement. There could be very good input from members of Parliament on that, in discussion with officials. And then similarly, it provides a base to go back to when the performance report is in, so as to challenge those reports of performance and have the discussion with officials. As your committee has done here every now and then, you can bring the performance reports and ask officials about them.

• 1645

John is just reminding me, we did at one point give a document to members of Parliament suggesting the kinds of questions they could ask in reviewing the estimates, because these performance reports and the reports on plans and priorities are parts of the estimates process.

Do you want to talk about that briefly, John?

Mr. John Mayne: I would just remind you that in February 1998 we released this report, which was sent to members at the time. It described the reporting system at that time, and it made some suggestions on how committees could be more effective, the kinds of questions they might ask to challenge departments. I suspect that although some of the context has changed a bit, the same ideas are valid, as Ms. Barrados has said, about trying to get more parliamentary interest in the setting out of what is to be done with the money they are approving, which is the spring report on plans and priorities, and then at a subsequent date asking questions relating to what happened and value for money. Those, I think, would go a long way to putting some heat in the system.

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Thank you very much, Mr. Shepherd.

I see that all members on both sides of the table have had an opportunity to ask questions. Now, if I may, I'd like to ask a few.

With respect to performance reports, you mentioned in your presentation that these have been in place since June 2000. I assume that once you have these reports in hand, you're able to identify the shortcomings in certain departments. Who is authorized to requests changes to address these problems? Does the department review the report and identify problems in particular areas, or does Treasury Board inform the Department of National Defence, for example, that problems have been identified in a particular area and that corrective action is warranted?

[English]

Ms. Roberta Santi: The evaluation studies are actually done by a particular department for a program within that department, and the expectation in the context of managing for results is that they take the information provided in the evaluation and build that back into the program they have through further refinements of their programs, their policies, or their specific initiatives. We are informed of these evaluation studies and we're made aware of any major findings, but it's up to the departments to actually use these studies, to build them into their results-based management processes.

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): I understand that this has been in place only since 1999 or June of 2000. I can't recall the exact date. However, if the problem recurs year after year, will there come a point in time where Treasury Board will inform the department that after three or four years, the time has come to resolve the situation?

[English]

Mr. Lee McCormack: We do read all the evaluations in the centre of excellence for evaluation, and the comparable organization for internal audit reviews all the internal audits. We do have regular dealings. Our officers are in departments on a regular basis, and they're looking at strengths and weaknesses in management. A weakness that continually comes up would be raised with the department.

Ms. Roberta Santi: I would add that evaluations are used as well in the context of Treasury Board submissions, when there are submissions on the design of programs or adjustments to programs. A commonly asked question is, have you had an evaluation done on this program, or have you had an internal audit done on this program, and what has the outcome been?

So there are a number of uses that the evaluation reports are applied to.

• 1650

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): You're the one wielding the big stick. If the problem were to persist, could you not tell the departments, when they request funding, that because the same problem has persisted for two or three years, unfortunately, you will have to adjust their funding? Would this be one possible course of action?

[English]

Mr. Lee McCormack: With respect to both the evaluation and audit reports, as well as the departmental performance reports, our officers are reviewing those on a regular basis. That information goes into decision-making and the advice we give to ministers.

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Thank you very much.

[English]

Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

I would like to ask about a specific department or two. For example—what's it called, Sheila Copps' department?

Ms. Sophia Leung: Canadian Heritage.

Mr. Ken Epp: Canadian Heritage. Who sets the objectives in Canadian Heritage? Does the department set them, at the direction of the minister? You really don't have any input as the Treasury Board on how the money is to be spent in that department, do you? I'm asking a legitimate question here.

Mr. Lee McCormack: The Treasury Board reviews and gives program authority for all expenditures.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay.

Mr. Lee McCormack: So once cabinet gives a policy authority and once a source of funds is found for the program, before the department can in fact spend, they have to convince the Treasury Board ministers that the program is well designed and the department is able to manage it well.

Mr. Ken Epp: But if you think of results-based reporting, if they come up in Canadian Heritage with some sort of objectives, I for the life of me can't figure out how they would have measurable objectives. For example, one of our objectives is that everybody shall love CBC—

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Ken Epp: —or one of our objectives is that we all think the same, the way the CBC tells us. That's a dumb one, I didn't mean that. But how can you actually quantify the results in a department like that? I think it's impossible.

Mr. Lee McCormack: Results-based management—I think you've put your finger on an important factor—is not easily done. It's not easy to make a direct link between an individual government expenditure and a broad societal outcome. But what you can do is, at the very beginning of that program, understand the link between the expenditure that's about to be made, the activities, the outputs, the things that will be produced, and the expected change in behaviour as a result of that expenditure, in respect of individuals or companies or groups of people. You should be able to make a logical link. At some point you should be able to evaluate or assess whether or not those expected results have been achieved.

Ms. Roberta Santi: We would also add that some areas are much easier to develop results statements from than others. It's a little easier generally to do it in an operational area than it is in a policy area. One of the things we've been trying to do is pick out good examples, especially in the tough areas, to develop results and share best practices with folks in departments who are in similar kinds of areas. It's all part of this initiative to build capacity. That's why we can't get there overnight. It does take time, it takes commitment, it takes learning, and it takes refining over time.

Mr. Ken Epp: I have a question regarding another department. The Auditor General has pointed out in reports, probably over the last 20 years, that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has a lot of mismanagement. It's at various levels of government, so I guess in a way this would be one of those horizontal lines. We spend between $15,000 and $20,000 per native each year through this department and through other initiatives in the government, and yet we're told that these people live in abject poverty, they can't get their windows fixed, they can't get their sewer systems repaired. To do a little quick calculation, if you have a mum and a dad and two kids, that's an income of $80,000 per family. If they live on reserve, it's tax-exempt. And yet these people are living in poverty.

• 1655

That has to raise flags all over the place, I would think, in Treasury Board. What is going on in that department? Do you have any kind of control or input, beyond just saying, hey, we want you to do this, and please report back? Five years later the Auditor General says, they've started, but they're in perpetual planning and they don't ever do anything. How do we solve that problem? I would think the Treasury Board would be extremely concerned about that kind of overexpenditure. It's one of the largest ones in the country.

Ms. Roberta Santi: The board has the responsibility to set the overall management frameworks and the policies to guide the operations of departments. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is like no other, where they develop their plans and priorities and they report on those results, and they're publicly available. They can come to parliamentary committees and they can be accountable for those particular results. I think that's essentially the premise upon which the system works, that ministers are responsible for their particular departments and the results that accrue. We work closely with departments to help them build management frameworks and to support that, but the accountability is within each department.

Mr. John Finlay: Mr. Chairman, we've just hit upon something here. Mr. Epp has just pinpointed it. It always bothers me a little on this committee. I enjoy this committee, Mr. Chairman, but here we are, where we should be saying to Mr. Epp, that's fine, we hear what you're saying. Treasury Board is to deal with management, not aims, ambitions, requirements, needs, and evaluations of policy. What you say about aboriginal affairs is, of course, an exaggeration, and not necessarily true. I've been to first nations where everyone is housed well and where they're in advance—

Mr. Ken Epp: So have I.

Mr. John Finlay: —of some communities. It's a very broad area, 623 first nations. I shouldn't have to tell a member of Parliament.

Mr. Chairman, we will find various capacities in these places. If we stick to audits, that's fine. The Treasury Board is not apprised. I don't think it's their role or their job, or the Auditor General's.

Mr. Ken Epp: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, we have the Auditor General's office here, we have the secretariat of the Treasury Board here today. This is a management problem. If you look at it, one of the questions is, are we getting a return for our money? As taxpayers, we're putting large gobs of money into that department, and I'm asking the Treasury Board, is that a concern of theirs, and if not, why not? I guess I'd ask the same thing of the Auditor General.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Your time was up—

Mr. Ken Epp: Was up when I was interrupted, yes.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Mr. Finlay, you can go ahead and ask your question.

Mr. John Finlay: I don't have a question, I have a comment. Being one who's devoted a fair bit of time and attention to aboriginal affairs, I appreciate the director's answer, because I think it's the right answer. In 1994, as we know, it was one of the two departments that didn't have a budget cut, when everybody was being cut. The simple reason for it was that we had more aboriginal people each year than we had the year before, and we're responsible for certain needs that they have. We don't fulfil all those needs as well as we would hope, but we are filling them better as we learn more. I just think that if Mr. Epp wants to know about aboriginal affairs, we have a committee for that. We can call the minister and ask the questions.

Mr. Ken Epp: I will simply repeat it. It's a legitimate question, and I think it's a management question, so I would be interested in hearing the answer too.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Do you have a short answer?

Mr. Lee McCormack: I would just say that a good quality departmental performance report from any department, including the Department of Indian Affairs, will help elucidate public debate. We would agree with Ms. Barrados that getting good quality information in front of parliamentary committees makes sense.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Ms. Barrados, you had something to add?

Ms. Maria Barrados: I agree with what Mr. McCormack has just said.

The other thing I'd like to add is that we have a new Auditor General, as you know, and she is setting out her priorities for her term. One of her priorities is to do more work in the area of aboriginal issues. So you will have the opportunity to hear more of those issues at this committee.

• 1700

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): To come back to Mr. Finlay, do you have a question?

Mr. John Finlay: Mr. Epp practically took the question out of my mouth, but I want to ask it, because I haven't got a definition.

You say that the secretariat of this Treasury Board has also established a collective results website that includes a database of over 60 horizontal initiatives. I think I understand what a horizontal initiative is. When you say there are more than 60 of them, I have to ask you for an example or two. You gave one, I think in answer to Mr. Epp, as the National Child Benefit. Am I right that a horizontal initiative is one where more than one department is involved? Is that a simple definition?

Ms. Roberta Santi: Yes, I think that is a good definition. We have some examples of other horizontal initiatives, if you'd like us to provide you with some.

Mr. John Finlay: I think 60 is rather significant.

Ms. Roberta Santi: If you want five others or whatever—

Mr. John Finlay: Whatever. It seems to me this is the way the federal system is going to develop and must develop, if we're going to serve all the people of this country appropriately. We cannot have little boxes, so that this is only health, and this is only agriculture, and this is only something else. Maybe we should think about that. Maybe we should have departments horizontal instead of vertical.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Are there any more questions?

Mr. Ken Epp: I would like to follow up on this a bit.

First, I'd like to commend the new Auditor General for that initiative. And I want to assure all members present, including the members opposite, that my reason for asking this is a concern of the grassroots natives who come to us, the people who say, I'm supposed to get my housing provided, and I can't squeeze out of my local chief and council enough money to fix the broken windows in my house, and winter's coming. That is a management problem, if I've ever seen one. That's what I'm driving at. I hope all of us, parliamentarians and the executive of the management branch of government, including the Auditor General, can work towards improving that situation dramatically, because it needs to be done.

Those are all the questions I have today. It has been very interesting.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Robert Bertrand): Is there anybody else on the government side? If not, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the witnesses for appearing. It was most interesting. Your presentations and answers to our questions have been very informative.

The committee is now adjourned until 3:30 on Thursday, October 18, 2001, when the committee will consider draft reports to the House.