:
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you today.
The chair has introduced Karen and me. It's our pleasure to appear before you today to answer your questions on the 2015-16 main estimates for the Privy Council Office as well as its report on plans and priorities for the same fiscal year.
The PCO is seeking $118.8 million in the 2015-16 main estimates. This is an overall increase of $26,000 from the amount the PCO sought in last year's main estimates.
The PCO's main estimates increase for this year is mainly related to the following.
First is an increase of $2.1 million in funding for the operations of the Canadian Secretariat to the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council. The goal of the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council, or the RCC as we call it, is to better align both regulatory systems to benefit industry, regulators, and the public, and boost North American trade and competitiveness. As part of the initial RCC action plan announced in December 2011, tangible results were achieved in such areas as product approvals, joint standards development, product reviews, and compliance and enforcement efforts. That action plan represented a significant first step in deepening regulatory alignment between Canada and the United States.
Budget 2014 reiterated Canada's commitment to the RCC for an additional three fiscal years: 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17. The strategic direction for the next phase of Canada-U.S. regulatory cooperation is outlined in the RCC joint forward plan, which was released by both governments in August 2014. That plan responds directly to stakeholders' priorities and includes commitments by counterpart Canadian and U.S. departments to develop cooperative work plans across 24 broad areas of regulatory work. The additional funding will allow the Canadian RCC secretariat to continue its efforts to work with U.S. and Canadian partners to advance regulatory cooperation.
Second is an increase of $1.2 million for the creation and operation of the central innovation hub at PCO. To explain this investment, it's important to understand that the context in which policy-makers operate has shifted dramatically in recent years, and because of that, the public service must leverage opportunities to increase the speed and effectiveness of the advice and options it delivers.
Last year, in May 2014, the Clerk of the Privy Council's Destination 2020 report announced several initiatives intended to respond to this challenge, including the establishment of a central innovation hub at PCO. The hub will provide departments with expertise and advice on applying new approaches to complex policy and program challenges. The hub will also help test, document, accelerate, replicate, and scale up successful innovation across the public service. Locating the hub at the Privy Council Office will amplify and align successful initiatives across departmental lines.
Third is an increase of $0.3 million represents the portion of wage and salary increases to be paid to employees during fiscal year 2015-16, in accordance with specific collective agreements that were ratified in 2013-14.
At the time of the tabling of these estimates and PCO's report on plans and priorities, we projected a decrease of $3.4 million related to three sunsetter initiatives, namely, the coordination of government-wide information for Canada's economic action plan; the Office of the Special Advisor on Human Smuggling and Illegal Migration, headed by Mr. Ward Elcock, the special advisor to the Prime Minister on this matter; and the Beyond the Border action plan, which gives effect to the 2011 declaration signed by Prime Minister Harper and President Obama, establishing a new long-term partnership accelerating the legitimate flow of people and goods between both countries while strengthening security and economic competitiveness.
Sunsetter initiatives are those initiatives that have time-limited authorities and/or funding because they are developed for a specific purpose and timeframe. They are periodically reviewed and often renewed to ensure that the intended goal is accomplished.
Subsequent to the tabling of these estimates and PCO's report on plans and priorities, Budget 2015 has confirmed the availability of funds for all three of these sunsetter initiatives, and in due course PCO will seek approval of all required authorities to access these funds.
Fourth, there is a decrease of $0.3 million in funding for the implementation of various government-wide initiatives, including the continued consolidation of pay services, the implementation of the Canada School of Public Service's new business model, the elimination of wasteful spending on late fees and interest charges to suppliers, and the web renewal initiative.
Fifth is a $1.3 million decrease to PCO's planned voted expenditures and a corresponding $1.3 million increase in statutory expenditures due to an internal budget transfer from the operating fund, which falls under the voted expenditures, to the employee benefit plans, which fall under the statutory expenditures, to better align PCO's reference levels with its actual spending profile. The transfer has no impact on PCO's total authorities.
In addition, PCO's statutory spending is being reduced by $80,300. Following the July 2013 cabinet shuffle, there was a machinery of government change where the Hon. Denis was appointed Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec. The salary and motor car allowance were moved to the office of Infrastructure Canada and therefore no longer appear under PCO's statutory forecasts.
[Translation]
This completes the explanation of PCO's 2015-16 main estimates.
I will turn now to PCO's report on plans and priorities for fiscal year 2015-16 to give you a brief overview of PCO's planning highlights.
To begin, it is important to note that PCO's sole strategic outcome is to ensure that the government 's agenda and decision making are supported and implemented and the institutions of government are supported and maintained. In this regard, PCO will continue to play a central coordination and advisory role to support the government in furthering its objectives pursuant to its mandate to provide professional, non-partisan advice and support to the and cabinet. PCO plans to meet this strategic outcome by focusing on four key organizational priorities during the year.
PCO's first priority is to support the and portfolio ministers in exercising their overall leadership responsibilities. PCO does this by providing professional, non-partisan advice and support on the entire spectrum of the government's policy, legislative and government administration priorities. This includes, among other things, advice on social and economic affairs; regional development; foreign affairs; national security; defence; governor-in-council appointments; intergovernmental relations; and, the environment.
The second of PCO's priorities will be to support the deliberations of cabinet and its committees on key policy initiatives and coordinate medium-term policy planning. In order to meet this priority, throughout the year, PCO will provide advice to cabinet and its committees on the overall communications strategies necessary to support the govemment's priorities. It will also provide guidance to and perform a rigorous challenge function for departments to advance policy, legislative and government administration proposals that are high quality, prepared in a timely manner, and focused on addressing priority areas identified by the government.
PCO's third priority is to enable the management and accountability of government. PCO provides strategic advice on whole-of-government transformation initiatives, public service renewal and other major management reforms, which will ultimately contribute to sound government administration, enhanced productivity in the public service, and improved services to Canadians.
To this end, the PCO will support the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Deputy Minister Board of Management and Renewal in the identification of whole of government proposals to advance the government's priority for improved efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, PCO will actively engage and collaborate with implicated departments and other central agencies in the implementation of these proposals.
In line with the major transformational initiatives taking place across the Public Service, PCO's fourth and final priority is to strengthen the department's own internal management practices. During the year, PCO will continue to implement and support the Employee Performance Management Program at PCO to meet the requirements of the Treasury Board of Canada's new Directive Performance Management, in order to promote a commitment, shared by managers and employees, to sustaining a culture of high performance in support of government priorities.
With respect to information management, PCO will enhance digital record keeping and information use and sharing practices across the department, and support ongoing compliance with the Government of Canada policy framework.
PCO will also complete the transfer of the department's pay services to the Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi, New Brunswick, in support of the government-wide Consolidation of Pay Services Project and the Pay Modernisation Initiative.
Finally, PCO will address security and emergency management priorities by strengthening the governance structures and organizational culture related to security and emergency management and business continuity management; and strengthening the expertise of Security Operations personnel.
[English]
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to explain the initiatives related to PCO's 2015-16 main estimates and report on plans and priorities.
We would be pleased to address your questions.
:
Thank you for the question.
[English]
I'd be happy to try to help.
What I'm going to do is to talk about PCO's role and the function that we fulfill out of the RCC, the regulatory cooperation council.
The RCC was created in December, 2011, falling out of the agreement that was signed by the Prime Minister and the American President at the same time they signed the Beyond the Border action plan. The RCC was created to better align both country's regulatory regimes with a view to eliminating the unnecessary duplication. The reason why that work was possible was that both countries have highly efficient regulatory systems based on compatible outcomes. But over time the way they've done it has evolved differently, and it's creating the problems to which you've referred.
When putting together the initial work plan that was announced at that time, 29 initiatives were laid out with a very focused effort on stakeholder engagement because, as you say, that conversation really infuses the work that has to be done. What followed, I think, exceeded a lot of expectations in terms of the productivity and fruitfulness of those conversations.
During the first part of that work, which took place every number of years, key initiatives included the creation of the common electronic submission gateway whereby both countries can submit applications for approval of pharmaceuticals and biological products to both Health Canada and its American counterpart, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This was a new enhancement to the Canadian regulatory system, and I think helpful to industry.
Another example of something positive that came out of it was regulatory oversight of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, where a pilot project was conducted that included 10 pilot ship inspections to explore various joint approaches. Building on those pilot projects was really kind of an incubation work where people got to test and succeed or fail.
The new joint forward action plan was released in August of 2014 and said that we're ready to mature this. We're ready to institutionalize work plans in Canadian federal departments and their American counterparts in 24 broad regulatory areas, and there will actually be public servants on both sides who are accountable for making progress.
There are a couple of interesting files that they're working on that I find useful to know. One is on the lack of common labelling for paint. We use paint here in Canada and in the United States, but the labelling is not common and the regulation around that is not common. It creates between $38 million and $50 million worth of inefficiencies for every 15 months that this misalignment persists. Imagine what industry could do with that money if they had it.
Another example is lipstick. Currently, to produce a lipstick in Canada or the United States, you need three pieces of paper and $600 in the United States or $1,000 to apply in Canada. If you want to add sun screen to that lipstick, an SPF factor, it doesn't change in the United States but in Canada it turns lipstick into a drug. The cost to get the regulatory approval for that lipstick with the SPF is anywhere between $100,000 to $200,000. That's an example of the kind of work that the RCC will be supporting departments on both sides to pursue.
:
I can't speak directly to your question but I do have some context that may be helpful to you, so let me take a stab at that.
As I said, the work of the RCC started in December 2011. It started because there was a fair amount of common ground between the two countries in having highly evolved regulatory systems. Here we are in May 2015, and I think the folks at PCO would tell you that they've learned lessons out of this exercise. They've obviously worked with their American counterparts, but they've also worked closely with industry in both countries.
First of all, they've learned that relationships, coordination, and planning matter, so in both the initial action plan in 2011 and in the forward action plan announced last August, you're going to see an emphasis on that. Following on that, it's really important to work together to pick and choose the priority areas of work and then take a comprehensive approach. When I was here before, I talked about the 29 working groups, and this time I'm talking about 24 areas of broad regulation.
[Translation]
It's not by chance.
[English]
These are conscious choices of areas that folks across the board want to work on because they think that they can make real differences, and I gave a couple of areas of possibility with paint and lipstick earlier.
Stakeholders are key, which means that transparency is a must, so you're going to always see posted on various websites updates on what's happening. For instance, the stakeholders met, I believe, in the fall to talk—and you're always going to hear what we heard and what we discussed. I think that's helpful in having conversations with other stakeholders.
Finally, one of the big lessons learned when you're working on this kind of structural progress is that you need a high level of commitment, which is why our organization and the RCC is based out of PCO. It reflects the government's priority on this, and in the United States it's based out of the White House. There's attention being focused on government-to-government considerations on perhaps less interesting but really important things like information-sharing and funding mechanisms. When push comes to shove, how are we actually going to work together?
:
Thank you for the question.
[English]
I think I can be helpful on that, and I'll try to be concise as I give you my explanation. I may run out of time in getting to all your questions, so let me start.
PCO's role in government advertising and public opinion research and media monitoring is set out in the communications policy, which is one of the policies from the Treasury Board suite of policies. It's a broad and long policy. It's about 50 pages long and it sets out the roles of various departments and pieces of government and, in particular, the PCO's role in all Government of Canada advertising and public opinion research. PCO's role is designed to comply with that policy.
Let me speak to one very important or foundational tenet of that policy and then I'll start with government advertising in particular.
The policy says that the government has a duty to advise Canadians and to communicate what it's doing on its priorities and the actions it is taking. Based on that, decisions around how government advertising is conducted are played out pretty much like decisions for any other government priorities. It starts with cabinet; cabinet makes a decision on advertising priorities, what the priorities are, and what level of funding should be attached to them. Departments work with Treasury Board Secretariat to get the required management approvals to implement advertising activities. Then the line departments are individually accountable for carrying out those advertising activities. They are assisted in that by the Department of Public Works, which helps them with what I would call accountability mechanisms.
For instance, on an annual basis the Department of Public Works publishes the amount of money spent for the fiscal year before. The other thing that Public Works does is that for major communications advertising files it has guidelines in place before you go out on how to make sure you're going to get the best value for your money. And then after the fact, it has standard evaluation criteria. So all advertising campaigns are evaluated through the standard criteria. You can see that there is the usual rubric of accountability mechanisms around the expenditure of public funds.
In terms of how much was spent, I have an overview for the last five years. Again, you'll find these figures on Public Works' website. In 2009-10, during the global economic recession and the government's expenditure campaign as well as an H1N1 pandemic that required extensive advertising—I think that was the high-water mark—$136.3 million was spent on government advertising. The next year in 2010-11 those expenditures dropped to $83.3 million. In 2011-12 they decreased to $78.5 million. In 2012-13 they were $69 million. In the last report published, which was 2013-14, and I believe that report was just published in April of this year, they are reported as $75.2 million.
With respect to finding information on public opinion research, departments file that information in a place that you might not necessarily think to look, so I'll highlight it for you, and that is Library and Archives Canada. Information is publicly available on that.
Finally, to talk about media monitoring at the Privy Council Office, the Privy Council Office has as part of our main work a branch called PCO communications. Pursuant to the communications policy, it supports the government in implementing its priorities. It provides communications advice and coordination, and to do that it obviously has to monitor the media cycle, which as everybody knows is 24/7.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to appear before the committee, along with my colleagues, Jean-François Fleury, Vice-President of Learning Programs, and Geofredo Garay, Deputy Chief Financial Officer.
I would like to take a few minutes to describe the mandate and activities of the Canada School of Public Service.
[English]
The school is the central learning and training institute for federal public servants, providing training in both official languages across Canada.
In 2013-2014 we launched a strategic directions initiative, which is a comprehensive review of our learning services, performance, and business model. The review was needed to ensure that the school continued to be relevant and responsive to the learning needs of the public service in a time of significant technological change and resource pressures.
At the same time, the public service developed a vision and a plan to meet the challenges of the future, an initiative led by the Clerk of the Privy Council called Blueprint 2020. It was in this context that the government adopted a public service-wide commitment to learning to ensure the public servants are supported to do a better job today and build the skills and knowledge needed for tomorrow.
In our 22nd annual report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, released last week, the clerk made specific mention of the importance of learning, including the school's role. She stated "To better meet learning and training needs, the Canada School of Public Service is revitalizing its curriculum, and modernizing its delivery of learning as part of the new enterprise-wide approach to learning."
[Translation]
Working in partnership with departments, with communities of practices and other stakeholders, the school is transforming. Our efforts are focused on designing and delivering learning that is common to all federal organizations, regardless of their mandate. For public servants, this means increased access to training on common knowledge, skills and functions. For departments and agencies, this provides a framework to support talent and performance management, and allows them to focus on their mandate-specific training needs.
At the public service level, this new approach to learning will help foster a culture of high performance and innovation, and reinforce the importance of continuous learning.
[English]
To support the new approach, the school is moving from a funding model based on appropriation and cost recovery to one that is fully funded from appropriations. Implementing this new business model and full delivery of the new common curriculum will be phased in over three years. We have just begun the second year of this transition.
At this point, I would like to provide the committee with details of the school's financial position. The school's current sources of funding are derived from appropriation, revenue generated from cost recovery—
:
As I mentioned, the school is moving from a blended-funding model to one that is fully funded and requires no new dollars. The old model emphasized revenue generation, whereas the new model allows the school to focus on developing the core competencies of all public servants. Under the new fully funded model, overall funding will go from $41 million provided through the main estimates in 2014-15 and increase gradually to $80 million in 2018-19. The funding will be sourced from client departments' reference levels based on their number of employees. Departments included in this new funding model are those in schedules I, IV, and V of the Financial Administration Act.
To better and more directly reflect the school's operations, beginning in 2015-16, we are adopting a new program alignment architecture that is simpler and clearer and that aligns with our new business model. The school also has a new single strategic outcome, which is that federal public service employees have the common knowledge, skills, and competencies to fulfill their responsibilities in serving Canadians.
ln 2015-16, the school is projecting to spend $91 million, and in the 2015-16 main estimates it requested approval for expenditures of $71 million. The school plans to fund the difference from unspent revenue carried forward from 2014-15. Under subsection 18(2) of the Canada School of Public Service Act, the school has statutory authority to carry forward any unspent revenue to the next fiscal year. Unspent revenue carried forward is reported in the public accounts. Fiscal years 2014-15 and 2015-16 are the first two years of a three-year transition plan from the old model to the new funding model.
Expenditures will remain within the $90 million range through 2016-17 to complete transformation initiatives that include modernizing the school's curriculum, increasing learner accessibility through technology-enabled solutions, modernizing classroom facilities, and optimizing office space including investing in Workplace 2.0.
Once the transformation initiatives are completed, the school's spending will reach steady state at approximately $80 million. To illustrate overall savings to the crown, using 2013-14 as a benchmark, the school spent $85 million the last full year under the old model. The projected spending level in 2017-18 will be $80 million, the first full year under the new model. ln other words, there will be a savings of $5 million.
During the transition to the new model, we are endeavouring to minimize impact on indeterminate employees. The school is leveraging existing resources within the public service by using a risk-based staffing strategy, thereby avoiding increasing our permanent salary envelope. Spending in non-salary dollars is expected to increase from $21 million in 2013-14 to $25 million in 2017-18. This increase reflects our intention to invest in continuous renewal and in updating our curriculum, and to keep pace with changes in technology. Ensuring that the school has the necessary internal capacity to undertake the transition to our new model is reflected in both our corporate risk profile and our integrated plan.
[Translation]
To deliver this new common curriculum for all public servants, we are building what we call an “ecosystem” of learning accessible anywhere, anytime and at no individual charge.
This rich, diverse collection of learning resources is increasingly available in a wide variety of formats and methods, and offers formal training via instructors or through online courses, as well as performance support, job aids, and opportunities for informal and collaborative learning.
Learning and technology will be synonymous. In this new ecosystem, learning will be delivered in the most efficient and effective way possible. Face-to-face learning will be experiential, whereas foundational training, such as authority delegation training, will be offered online to ensure timely and equitable access across the country.
[English]
We have already begun to see results in our transition to the new model. Last fiscal year, the school delivered training to more than 212,000 registered participants across the country, of which almost 169,000 were online. This represents a 4% increase in the overall number of learners and an 11% increase in the number of online participants, in comparison with the previous year.
[Translation]
Recent performance results show leadership and significant progress in several areas because of the strategies the school has put in place to strengthen our management of human resources, procurement, information management, internal governance and project management.
We are particularly proud of the results of the recent public service employee survey which confirmed significant progress has been achieved in developing a highly engaged and high-performing workforce.
[English]
In closing, Mr. Chair, I would like to say that this is an exciting time for learning in the federal public service. The school takes pride in the opportunity we have to lead the new public service-wide approach to learning. Creating a culture of continuous learning and development is a critical step in equipping all employees, new recruits and seasoned experts alike, with the knowledge and skills they need to continue to serve Canadians with excellence.
We'd be pleased to respond to your questions.