ARCHIVED - Government Response to: The Thirteenth Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts "Involving Others in Governing: Accountability at Risk"

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GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO: THE THIRTEENTH REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
"INVOLVING OTHERS IN GOVERNING: ACCOUNTABILITY AT RISK"

Table Of Contents

Responses to Recommendations

Recommendation 1

Recommendation 2

Recommendation 3

Recommendation 4

Recommendation 5

Recommendation 6

Recommendation 7

Recommendation 8

Recommendation 9

RESPONSES TO RECOMMENDATIONS

Alternative Service Delivery is the organisational and structural dimension of improving the delivery of programs and services to Canadians.

This objective is achieved by:

• Establishing the appropriate organisational arrangements within departments (for example, a departmental service agency, or special operating agencies such as the Passport Office), outside traditional departmental structures (for example, Crown corporations such as Canada Post, or legislated service agencies such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) or outside the public sector (for example, NavCan, local airports and ports authorities), in an effort to improve organisational performance and citizen-centred service delivery.
• It also entails the bringing together of organisations from across government, among levels of governments, or across sectors through partnerships, single windows, co-locations, or clustering of services to citizens, to provide a more seamless and citizen-centred service for Canadians (for example, Service Canada or the Canada Business Service Centres).

As the Government increasingly employs innovative means to create more flexible arrangements in the pursuit of improved service delivery performance, it must balance the drive for innovation with the need to preserve the federal public service as a vibrant and coherent national institution, supporting democratic government and Ministerial accountability.

The Government supports innovation in service delivery to Canadians by actively promoting and facilitating optimum organisational performance through innovative organisational arrangements, where they make sense and when they serve the public interest.

Regardless of how government organises and structures the delivery of programs and services to Canadians, there are key policy considerations that must be addressed to determine whether any particular organisational innovation is in the public interest

For both ministers and officials, upholding the public interest means working under the democratically established rule of law to achieve a continuous balance among three things:

• Ensuring fairness, equity and reasonableness of treatment to protect the broad interests of citizens;
• Providing effective and responsive service to clients - those who benefit from a Government of Canada initiative, whatever it may be; and
• Keeping a close eye on program affordability, cost-effectiveness and sound resource stewardship for the taxpayer.

The Government recognises that innovative organisational arrangements for service delivery to Canadians must also be balanced with Parliament's, the Government's and citizens' needs for openness, transparency, visibility and accountability for the expenditure of public money and the achievement and reporting of results.

The Government sees merit in the Auditor General's report, "Involving Others in Governing: Accountability at Risk" and agrees with the principles expressed in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts Thirteenth Report Tabled June 8^th, 2000.

Specifically,

• That new governance arrangements can be more flexible, efficient and effective but that the delivery of government programs and services entails a constant quest for balance between efficiency, results and adequate accountability.
• That Treasury Board Secretariat take the lead in the following areas:

The Government is committed to substantive actions that respect these principles. The following outlines some of the actions this Government is undertaking in support of these principles:

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Recommendations 1 and 2 deal with the development and application of a new guiding framework and how its implementation should be reported back to Parliament.

RECOMMENDATION 1:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat review and develop as quickly as possible a new general governance framework to ensure more consistent direction and to guide departments and agencies when they are establishing frameworks for their own governance arrangements. The Treasury Board Secretariat should report to Parliament on the status of this initiative in its Performance Report, beginning with the report covering the year ending March 31^st, 2000.

RECOMMENDATION 2:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat encourage departments to identify opportunities to review and renegotiate with their partners new governance arrangements that incorporate all essential elements of an effective governance framework.

Response

The Government is in the process of developing a new framework for alternative service delivery that will guide departments in developing appropriate organisational and structural arrangements for service delivery, including the most appropriate governance and accountability relationships for all forms of alternative service delivery initiatives.

This new framework will strengthen the management board role of Treasury Board Ministers in overseeing significant alternative service delivery initiatives across Government and is entirely consistent with Results for Canadians which:

• focuses on the achievement of results for Canadians;
• promotes discipline, due diligence and value for money in the use of public funds;
• ensures a "citizen focus" is built into all Government activities programs and services;
• affirms the importance of sound public service values

The Government will put in place the appropriate management processes that will ensure that the Treasury Board is appropriately engaged in oversight of significant ASD initiatives and their ongoing review and adjustment.

These steps will ensure that new organisational arrangements are in the public interest, and that appropriate governance and accountability arrangements have been implemented.

Recommendation 3 suggests how departments should report to Parliament on ASD arrangements.

RECOMMENDATION 3:

That departments which sponsor new governance arrangements review their governance frameworks and regularly report to Parliament through their plans and priorities reports. The report should include the departmental action plans and implementation timetables, as well as the financial, technological and human resources allocated to those efforts. Departments will have to inform Parliament of their progress on these initiatives in their Performance Reports, beginning with the report covering the year ending March 31^st, 2000.

Response

The Government is committed to improved reporting to Parliament on all forms of alternative service delivery, including new governance arrangements.

The Government's response reflects a new vision for meaningful reporting to Parliament, based on the Government's commitments outlined in "Results for Canadians". This vision is also supported by Report 37 of The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, "Improved Reporting to Parliament Phase 2, Moving Forward", June 2000.

The objective of improved reporting is to systematically link departmental activity and spending to results.

The principles driving the need for improved reporting to Parliament, especially with respect to ASD, are clear:

• Parliament requires comprehensive and open reporting on innovative organisational arrangements, especially with respect to their governance and accountability provisions as well as the achievement of results.
• Information must be presented in a manner that is easily accessible and understandable particularly with respect to their importance and the linkages and impacts on departmental mandate and broad Government policy.
• There is a need to simplify government reporting to Parliament and move beyond line item accounting for money spent and towards the linking of activity, spending and effort to results and outcomes achieved.
• Parliament must have the ability to focus its attention on what is important and significant in the area of new organisational arrangements, as opposed to being inundated with data on every governmental transaction, large or small, significant or unimportant.

The Government fully supports these principles.

The Auditor General in his report, "Involving Others in Governing: Accountability at Risk", acknowledges that improved reporting to Parliament in the context of new governance arrangements, will mean selective and strategic reporting.

Many important new governance arrangements have provisions for direct reporting to Parliament, such as the Canada Millennium Scholarship Fund and Canada Foundation for Innovation, as this was deemed to be in the public interest when these arrangements were put in place.

Other ASD arrangements such as NavCan and Airport Authorities do not report to directly to Parliament, as this was deemed by Parliament, to be in the public interest when it passed the enabling legislation for each of these organisations.

Parliament needs to have the flexibility to determine, as part of the governance and accountability issue, whether direct reporting to Parliament is the most appropriate means of ensuring accountability for results.

The annual Departmental Performance Reports, referred to in the Committee's recommendations, are another key strategic vehicle for outlining the performance story of how Government expenditure and activity, including those of its co-deliverers and partners contribute to its mandate and key result commitments.

To this end TBS has already updated its guidelines to departments for reporting in the Departmental Performance Reports, to make more explicit, the contribution of strategically important ASD initiatives to departmental mandates and key results.

Parliament should expect to receive in this year's Departmental Performance Reports, an accounting of how significant and strategically important new governance arrangements have contributed to meeting Government's mandates and key results.

TBS officials will continue to work with departments to make ASD initiatives an integral part of the departmental performance story.

Recommendations 4, 5 and 6 deal with ways to capture, organise and present information on new governance arrangements.

RECOMMENDATION 4:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat develop and maintain a database listing the number of new governance arrangements created, classified by basic form (co-operative arrangement, delegated governance, etc.) and the total amount of federal government funds committed annually by type of governance arrangement. This information will have to be submitted to Parliament in table form in the Performance Reports, beginning with the report ending March 31^st, 2000.

RECOMMENDATION 5:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat develop and maintain a database listing the number and type of new governance arrangements that include more than one agreement, and the total amount of federal funds committed annually. This information will have to be submitted to Parliament in table form in the Performance Reports, beginning with the report covering the year ending March 31^st, 2000.

RECOMMENDATION 6:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat publish all the above information on new governance arrangements as well as all other pertinent information in its annual report to Parliament entitled Crown Corporations and other Corporate Interests of Canada, beginning with the report covering the year ending July 31^st, 2000.

Response

The Government is committed to ensuring that the public service, as an institution, learns from past, present and future ASD initiatives, through the strategic oversight of the organisational performance and results of significant new models of service delivery.

The strengthened role of Treasury Board and its Secretariat in the oversight of ASD initiatives will provide an important window into the main activities of departments with respect to ASD. It will create an opportunity to strategically assess what is happening in departments with respect to significant ASD initiatives, not only at their inception and final approval but also in their ongoing performance as organisations contributing to government's strategic objectives.

The resulting learning about important, ground breaking and precedent setting ASD initiatives will be made available to the Parliament, citizens and government departments in the new ASD Practice Database through the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) Service and Innovation Website, currently under development.

The President of the Treasury Board's Annual Report to Parliament on Crown Corporations and Other Corporate Interests of Canada is based on a specific statutory requirement that Parliament enacted in 1984 as part of a comprehensive Crown corporation control and accountability regime. The ASD initiatives that have a legal corporate form will continue to be included in the aforementioned President's report as required pursuant to the Financial Administration Act.

Recommendation 7, 8 and 9 deal with Treasury Board Secretariat support for departments in implementing the Financial Information Strategy (FIS)

RECOMMENDATION 7:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat inform the Standing Committee on Public Accounts of the means and methods it plans to use to assist and encourage all federal government departments and agencies to implement the Financial Information Strategy (FIS) by the April 1, 2001, deadline, and that it provide that information by October 31^st, 2000.

RECOMMENDATION 8:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat report to Parliament on the status of the overall implementation of the financial Information strategy (FIS) on a regular basis through its Performance Report, beginning with the report covering the year ending March 31^st, 2000.

RECOMMENDATION 9:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat inform the Standing Committee on Public Accounts of the means it plans to use to encourage departments and agencies to include in their accountability documents plans and timetables for implementing the Financial Information Strategy (FIS), and that it provide that information by October 31, 2000.

Response

As stated in Results for Canadians, the Modern Comptrollership initiative is part of the Government's medium term agenda for managing change. Implementation of the Financial Information Strategy will contribute to this initiative by allowing costs to be closely linked to activities, operations and results. Senior deputy heads have been engaged in the effort through presentations and correspondence from the Secretary of the Treasury Board and additional financial assistance has been provided to a number of departments to achieve full implementation.

The success of the first implementation projects to connect to the central systems and introduce basic accrual accounting in 1999 and 2000 has instilled a positive expectation on the part of all participants that the goal is doable in the timeframe specified.

The Treasury Board Secretariat will:

1. Report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts by October 31^st, 2000, on the means and methods being used to assist and encourage all federal departments and agencies to implement the Financial Information Strategy by April 1, 2001.
2. Report on the status of the overall implementation of the Financial Information Strategy in its Performance Reports for the years ending March 31, 2000 and March 31, 2001
3. Include in its report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on the means and methods being used to assist and encourage all federal departments and agencies to implement the Financial Information Strategy information on the accountability documents, plans and timetables of departments and agencies.