This Web page has been archived on the Web.

1994 Report of the Auditor General of Canada

Assistant Auditor General: Ron Thompson
Responsible Auditor: Jeff Greenberg

Main Points

7.1 Two years ago we called for government to reform its departmental reporting to be more transparent. We suggested that Parliament should expect and receive a regular accounting for the exercise of the entire business of government: in a phrase, global stewardship. This year, we continue this theme of transparency by following up on our 1992 Report, and extend it to the sectoral activities of government.

7.2 As part of our normal follow-up process, we examined the government's intentions to reform departmental reporting as we recommended in our 1992 Report. We found that the government is developing concepts and proposals for a broad reform of its management systems, which would include departmental reporting, but it has not yet released its plans. With respect to implementing the pilot project to put the Part IIIs into electronic form, plans are currently under review.

7.3 This year, we went beyond departmental reporting and examined the extent to which government reports on its many sectoral activities. We did this because a considerable part of the government's business is delivered by more than one department. In such cases, reporting that is department-oriented does not give a complete picture of those activities. We found many examples of this in the sectoral audits we have reported on over the last few years.

7.4 We believe that there should be better sectoral reporting. This means that when a sectoral activity is identified, one department has to be given the lead responsibility to provide a summary-level report to Parliament for the entire sector.

7.5 But, in the end, reporting of any kind will not change soon unless Parliament is explicit in letting government know that current reporting is inadequate and that it wants it changed.

Introduction

7.6 In our 1992 Report we took a fresh look at departmental reporting to determine whether the existing reporting framework, developed in the early 1980s, was meeting reporting needs of the 1990s. The study findings were based on substantial input from members of Parliament, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts and senior bureaucrats. The first part of this chapter summarizes the action taken by the government in response to the findings and suggestions we presented in our 1992 chapter.

7.7 The second part looks at sectoral reporting. In that part of the chapter the focus is on the many activities of government ' such as food safety, search and rescue, and immigration, to name a few ' that are being delivered by more than one department. The concern is that reporting oriented exclusively to departments will not give a complete picture of those sectoral activities. Our focus for this review is to examine current government policy for reporting on sectoral activities and provide suggestions for improving that reporting.

Follow-up of 1992 Chapter

1992 Chapter on Departmental Reporting

7.8 In preparing the 1992 chapter we noted two overriding concepts: first, Parliament does not manage; that is the role of government. Second, the business of government must be open and transparent, irrespective of Parliament's use of the information government provides. In the context of these overriding concepts we made three recommendations to the government for the improvement of departmental reporting.

7.9 First, we saw that government is in the complex business of serving the public interest; the instruments it uses to achieve that mission are varied and go beyond annual spending ' for example, the use of loan guarantees and regulatory programs. We raised the notion of reporting on "global stewardship" ' the entire range of duties and obligations of departments, not just the activities reflected in annual spending.

7.10 We recommended that the policy for preparing the Estimates Part III be revised to emphasize reporting on global stewardship. We suggested a reporting framework consisting of four questions and three overall criteria. The criteria were relevancy, reliability and understandability, and the four questions were:

  • What are the department's mission and lines of business?
  • How does the department carry out its lines of business to achieve its mission?
  • What are the department's strategic objectives for realizing its mission, and plans for managing the significant public resources under its control?
  • How did the department do at meeting its objectives, and how much did it cost?
7.11 Second, we suggested that departments produce those stewardship documents on a multi-year cyclical basis in conjunction with in-depth cyclical review by parliamentary committees. We believed that the business of departments and the broader interests of parliamentary committees would be better served by the production of a cyclical accountability document on global stewardship, which would be based on the Part IIIs. We believed then, as today, that the Part IIIs should be useful at times other than at the tabling of the Estimates. Such an accountability document could be useful in helping find solutions to deficit and debt concerns and it could be useful to members of Parliament during the pre-budget consultation and formulation process.

7.12 Third, we also recommended that additional departmental information be updated annually and made available through electronic libraries with easy, flexible access on request, in either electronic or hard copy form. We also suggested that an annotated bibliography of this additional information be tabled at the same time as the Estimates. The idea is to make the printed document smaller and less intimidating, with additional, more detailed information available in electronic form to serve the specific needs of users.

Comments at Public Accounts Committee Hearing

7.13 At hearings of the Public Accounts Committee on the 1992 departmental reporting chapter, members were supportive of the global stewardship concept. One member said that he "is not interested in knowing how much each department spent on paper, pens and pencils... but the focus should be on the goals set by the department initially and the results it obtained." This is precisely the point we were making in the chapter.

7.14 The Comptroller General agreed with the concept of global stewardship but indicated that it differed from the concept of Part III Estimates in the scope of operations covered. That is, global stewardship covers financial activities that are not necessarily limited to annual expenditures, such as loan guarantees and regulatory programs. He indicated that the Part IIIs had been designed as budget support documents and that, although change is needed, the documents should evolve toward the concept of global stewardship. He explained, "A continuing frustration in this whole area has always been the lack of visible use and demand by parliamentarians for improvement in these documents...I need hard questions in estimates committees when a document is found lacking. My experience has been that when that happens, on the rare occasions that it does, the document improves."

7.15 We believe that our 1992 chapter, which included what we saw as a clear summary of parliamentary frustrations and concerns about departmental reporting, could be seen as the demand for improvement in departmental reporting that the Comptroller General was seeking.

7.16 He also told the Committee that he was "very interested in the information technology... getting information onto a data base that parliamentarians or their research staff can access, because, quite frankly, the more I can put information in this sort of form, the less of these [Part III] I have to print, and that's a saving to the taxpayer of Canada."

Government Follow-up Status

7.17 In June 1993 the Office of the Comptroller General was merged into the Treasury Board Secretariat. That included responsibility for the form of the Estimates documents. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury Board became the Comptroller General of Canada.

Awaiting instructions of the new Parliament
7.18 In a letter to our Office outlining the status of the government follow-up to our 1992 chapter, the Treasury Board Secretariat indicated in January 1994 that:

...until the 35th Parliament and the newly elected government have had the opportunity to debate parliamentary reform and determine the nature and extent of change, it was and is deemed premature to implement recommendations which concern not only reporting reform but also imply significant changes to the role of Parliamentary Committees; the cycle and periodicity of the Supply process; and, information technology government-wide.
Accordingly, we have not implemented any specific reform recommendations from Chapter 6 of your 1992 report.
7.19 The Treasury Board Secretariat also pointed out that the previous Public Accounts Committee had failed to issue a report on the subject of departmental reporting before the dissolution of Parliament.

7.20 Our view is that even without parliamentary reform, such as changes to the role of committees or to the Supply process, there is still a need for changes to the Part IIIs.

7.21 For example, as we said in our 1992 chapter, there will always be a need for a document of record that describes the stewardship of individual departments and ensures that the activities of government are transparent. In these troubled economic times, with concern about government deficits and debt, parliamentarians need good departmental reporting to help them consider and assess performance and costs at any time during the year, not just when examining the Estimates.

7.22 In September 1994, the Treasury Board Secretariat advised us that the government is developing concepts and proposals for a broad reform of the resource management system, which would include departmental reporting. However, no specifics have been put forward nor has a timetable been presented at this time.

Reporting guidelines are no longer mandatory
7.23 The Comptroller General stated during the Public Accounts Committee hearings on our 1992 chapter that the Part III is a departmental document and that those who have felt constrained by the standard structure could restructure their documents in the interest of better and more meaningful disclosure. As a result, he said, the guidelines for preparing Part III Estimates would no longer be mandatory. However, departments would still have to comply with six principles of disclosure: relevance, reliability, objectivity, completeness, materiality and comparability. Departments were notified of this change in the instructions for preparing the 1994-95 Part III documents. However, no further guidance was provided, such as suggested models of reporting. We believe that guidance from the Comptroller General is needed to help departments move toward global stewardship reporting.

7.24 According to the Treasury Board Secretariat, only a small number of departments moved from the established guidelines in this year's reporting.

7.25 The only changes to the current Guide to the Preparation of Part III of the Estimates are those that encompass reporting circulars issued previously and changes in responsibilities due to government reorganization. For the most part, these revisions are technical in nature and do not change the overall reporting principles. The Treasury Board Secretariat reiterates that the current framework is based on Parliament's information needs as reported by the Public Accounts Committee almost 15 years ago, and updated with additional requirements for disclosure in response to specific committee requests. In our view, more fundamental changes are needed if Part IIIs are to evolve to meet the needs of users over the next decade.

Existing Part III format on CD-ROM
7.26 The Treasury Board Secretariat states in its follow-up status letter that it has "experimented successfully" with information technology to access Part III information. A pilot project to put a selected number of Part III Estimates on CD-ROM was carried out for the 1993-94 Estimates. The information was presented in the same format as the published Part IIIs but with the capability to search for words and phrases. Although this is a step in the right direction, it is not the more comprehensive electronic library we suggested in 1992.

7.27 The evaluation report on this pilot project concluded that text retrieval for the Part IIIs would be useful for Parliament and that cost savings could be realized through the reduced search time for users. It recommended that the project be continued and expanded for the 1994-95 Part III Estimates. However, the pilot CD-ROM was not used heavily by its intended audience. This is understandable, since it was a partial data base developed primarily to test the available technology. If the data base were expanded and covered a longer period of time, it would become more useful to parliamentarians as well as to government. But users would still have to be convinced that such a tool would be useful and easy to use. In September 1994, the Treasury Board Secretariat informed us that plans are currently under review to put the Part IIIs into electronic form.

7.28 We support the continuation of the CD-ROM project because we believe that people will increasingly make use of that technology. However, we are mindful that even the very best technology cannot make a text in need of change, in both form and content, any better.

Update of 1992 Departmental Examples

7.29 In the 1992 chapter we selected a number of departments and agencies and assessed their reporting against the criteria we proposed for departmental reporting. Since our observations were intended to serve only as examples, we did not direct any formal recommendations to those specific departments. However, in our follow-up we wanted to find out whether these same departments had modified their reporting in response to the chapter and to the relaxation of the government's reporting guidelines.

7.30 Overall, the results were mixed. In some cases, such as the RCMP, the Department of Natural Resources (then Energy, Mines and Resources) and the Department of National Defence, the department responded to specific observations by either including the missing information or modifying or deleting the information. In most of the other cases there was no significant change in the reporting.

7.31 Only one of the organizations, Correctional Services, moved away from the standard reporting format for Part III Estimates and added a section on its results, by corporate objective. We believe that this format is a move in the right direction and could provide Parliament with a better understanding of the organization.

Follow-up Status Summary

7.32 In summary, the government has released departments from the strict format for departmental reporting that existed in the past. However, it has not provided alternative reporting principles or formats to help them move from the old concept of program reporting based on annual spending to the stewardship concept presented in our 1992 chapter. In that respect, the government has not yet provided the leadership required to make reporting more useful to parliamentarians in the years ahead.

7.33 In addition, the electronic reporting project has not yet been developed beyond the pilot stage even though we have been informed that plans to do so are under review. We believe that electronic reporting should continue and that it should look beyond simply putting the existing Part III information and format on electronic media. There is a range of possibilities that could be considered, from simply rearranging data to take advantage of available technology to developing a sophisticated government-wide data base coupled with electronic access. We recognize, however, that the benefits of any particular option would have to be weighed against the costs of providing such a system.

7.34 Finally, the departments mentioned in our 1992 chapter have made some attempt to improve their reporting with respect to the specific observations we made but, in general, have made little effort to improve reporting overall with innovative reporting styles, including the reporting principles we had raised.

Departmental Reporting on Sectoral Activities

Parliamentary Concern about Sectoral Information

7.35 Control of deficits and debt is a major concern of this Parliament. The current government has restructured a number of departments, and is now carrying out program reviews that are intended to get at such fundamental issues as the role of government in selected areas, while at the same time identifying opportunities to reduce costs. Such reviews cannot look at individual departments in isolation, because many government activities are delivered by more than one department. This also means that, if Parliament is to assess government efforts in those areas, it will need the right kind of information. Sectoral reporting means providing, in one location, summary-level information on a sectoral activity overall, with references to where additional information can be found.

7.36 Over the years, members of Parliament have expressed difficulty in obtaining relevant and understandable information on sectoral activities of the government. For example, one MP at the Public Accounts Committee hearing on our 1992 chapter said, on the subject of agricultural expenditures, that he was:

...incapable of telling you exactly to what degree the government is involved and how much we spend in the whole area of Canada... since a number of different departments are involved. I think it is absolutely necessary that we be in a position to determine how much is being spent on agriculture in Canada and where those funds are being spent.
7.37 The Comptroller General concurred with the need for such information but pointed out a number of administrative reasons why he believed that it cannot be provided in the Estimates. For example, he said that the Estimates are not finalized until late in the process and it is often difficult to pull numbers together for even one department, let alone across departments.

7.38 More recently, a member of the House Standing Committee on Government Operations asked where she could find information on the infrastructure program. The President of the Treasury Board, who is the minister responsible for the program, said that the information could be found in the Part III Estimates of the individual agencies involved. This meant that the only way the MP could get the summary information she needed was to pull it together herself. In our view, this places an unreasonable burden on members of Parliament and other users of information.

7.39 The June 1993 government reorganization reduced the number of departments and grouped some related activities under one minister. But there are still activities, such as those we mention below, that continue to require the expertise of more than one department to carry them out. Our concern is that there needs to be a set of guidelines and reporting principles that will direct the government in reporting to Parliament on its sectoral activities.

Office Work on Sectoral Activities

7.40 In recent years, the Office has carried out audits to ensure that issues of a sectoral nature were examined as a whole, not piecemeal. Immigration (1990) and search and rescue (1992) are two recent examples. Our findings indicated that information on sectoral activities was generally lacking. In addition to the sectoral activities that we reported on in previous years, there are others that we report on this year. Some were included in audits described elsewhere in this Report, while others were examined for this chapter. The following are summaries of findings on a selection of sectoral activities.

Examples of Departmental Reporting on Sectoral Activities

7.41 Search and rescue. In 1992 we reported on the management of the search and rescue program. The audit focussed on the operational aspects of the program and did not report on the information provided to Parliament in the Part III Estimates document, or on the requirement to report.

7.42 The Minister of National Defence is the lead minister and spokesman for search and rescue matters. In 1987, the Treasury Board established the National Search and Rescue Secretariat to co-ordinate search and rescue by the federal government. This Secretariat is a distinct management entity within the Department of National Defence. Its responsibilities include co-ordinating the consolidated annual planning and decision making for search and rescue, as well as the related reporting mechanisms. That includes preparing a comprehensive multi-year operational plan. In addition, as part of the original terms of reference, all government resources devoted to search and rescue are to be reported separately in National Defence's Estimates Part III.

7.43 The consolidated information in National Defence's Part III contains an overview on all the departments involved, including information for each of the three rescue areas: air, marine and land. The program performance section gives the program costs for each of these areas, broken down by department. However, Parks Canada and RCMP do not separate their search and rescue costs by rescue area. That means that all of their costs related to search and rescue are included under land service, only because the bulk of their involvement is land-based.

7.44 But search and rescue information in the Part IIIs of the other departments generally is very limited. For example, the Department of Transport provides some search and rescue information, but only for the marine service, its prime responsibility. It does not mention the $875,000 it spends on air services, a figure stated in National Defence's Part III.

7.45 Also, the resources allocated to other departments' search and rescue activities are shown in the National Defence Part III but are not shown separately in those of the respective departments. Moreover, no departmental report refers to the summary information in the National Defence document, with the exception of Canadian Heritage-Parks Canada.

7.46 International Assistance Envelope. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) at the beginning of its Part III provides an introduction to Canada's International Assistance Envelope (IAE) program. It describes the rationale for the program, its overall funding formula, and the primary role of CIDA in managing the program and providing policy advice. In addition, it explains the IAE activities carried out by other departments, stating that further information is available in their respective Part IIIs. There is reference to the overall government strategy document, Sharing Our Future . The first two figures in the Part III provide financial requirements for the entire IAE program (in numbers and graph formats), including expenditures by other departments. This is an example of how information can be consolidated and reported in a lead department's document.

7.47 Immigration. In 1990 we reported that information provided to Parliament on the immigration program overall was incomplete and fragmented. While Employment and Immigration was responsible for most aspects of immigration activities, the former departments of External Affairs and Health and Welfare carried out immigration activities overseas. Information on the various components was provided in the respective departmental Part III Estimates, but there was no summary in any one document.

7.48 Since that audit, responsibility for overseas immigration activities has been transferred to the newly created Department of Citizenship and Immigration. As a result, reporting on the bulk of the immigration program is now provided in a single department's Part III. However, some significant immigration responsibilities are still carried out by other departments, principally Revenue Canada (inspection at ports of entry), RCMP/CSIS (prosecution of violators), and Foreign Affairs (provision of common administrative services at missions abroad). Complete summary-level information on those aspects of immigration is still not provided in the Citizenship and Immigration Estimates Part III, nor does that document specifically refer to other information on immigration issues in the Part IIIs of the other departments.

7.49 Multilateral relations. Our 1991 Report included a chapter on membership payments to international organizations. The chapter reported that accountability for multilateral relations was diffused among a number of departments. Foreign Affairs (then called External Affairs) had the lead role but we noted that its co-ordinating role with other departments needed clarification. We also noted that its reporting to Parliament did not give an adequate picture of Canada's multilateral activities overall. Resources used by Foreign Affairs and the other departments are not compiled and reported in total, nor is there any substantial information on outcomes and results. In the 1993 follow-up the Department advised that, in the face of resource constraints, it was asking for guidance from members of Parliament on their needs for additional information before it undertook to provide significant amounts of new published material.

7.50 Employee pension plans. In 1991 the Office reported on employee pensions. The three major government employee pension plans are administered by separate departments: National Defence for the military plan; RCMP for the force's plan; and Treasury Board Secretariat for the public service plan. Interest on the pension accounts is charged to interest on the public debt and is the responsibility of the Department of Finance. The chapter concluded that reporting of employee pension program costs and liabilities was weak. For example, it estimated that total pension costs exceeded $1 billion annually. But public service pension costs are allocated to each department and are reported in their individual Estimates, and there was no aggregate total reported in the Estimates. However, details of actual aggregate totals are fully disclosed in the Public Accounts. In addition, the RCMP and National Defence Part IIIs include little information on their pension costs, which accounted for a significant portion of their program costs.

7.51 Food safety. In Chapter 13 of this Report we outline our findings on food safety management by the federal government. As explained in that chapter, the sectoral audit concluded that the information contained in the various departments' Part III Estimates does not provide members of Parliament with an overall understanding of federal food safety activities or the results achieved.

7.52 For example, according to its Part III, Health Canada has primary responsibility for food health, safety and nutrition. Other departments with significant roles in this area are Agriculture and Agri-Food (inspection and regulation), Fisheries and Oceans (inspection) and Industry (consumer affairs). An interdepartmental committee of deputy ministers, chaired by the Deputy Minister of Health, co-ordinates federal food regulation and inspection. The Committee is required to report periodically to Cabinet. However, with the exception of a few references to co-operative initiatives, mention of that reporting responsibility is the only comment made on the sectoral nature of food safety and inspection in the lead department's Part III. The other departments do not provide information on the lead role of Health Canada or any clear indication that food safety is a sectoral activity.

7.53 Among the sectors we examined, the food safety sector was unique in that there is a designated lead department and a requirement to report. However, that requirement is for the interdepartmental committee to report internally, to government, not for the designated lead department to report externally, to Parliament.

7.54 Science and technology. Federal government expenditures on science and technology research and development are estimated by Statistics Canada to be more than $7 billion annually, with almost 60 departments and agencies involved. According to the February 1994 Budget, the activity is to be the subject of a comprehensive review that focusses on results. The Budget indicated that the Minister of Industry was preparing the Canadian Science and Technology Policy Paper, which will be the starting point for the review. The intention, as the Minister of Finance said in his Budget speech, is to put in place a more effective federal policy on research and development, including "a real review of results". Chapter 9 reports our findings on this area.

7.55 The chapter notes that, at present, there is no overall consolidated summary of science and technology research and development expenditures, objectives, plans and results. The various departments and agencies with research and development expenditures report separately on their own activities. While general questions in the House of Commons on research and development normally are answered by the Minister of Industry, there is no formally designated lead department for the collection and publication of overall information on science and technology research and development expenditures.

7.56 Canada Works Infrastructure Program. The Canada Works Infrastructure Program is one of the government's key economic policies, designed to pump $6 billion into the economy over the next few years for infrastructure projects. The federal share of the cost is $2 billion. The program was one of the first initiatives implemented by the government. The 1994 Budget also made prominent mention of the program. Responsibility for the program was assigned to the President of the Treasury Board. Actual funding for the program is handled through the three regional development agencies, along with Industry Canada and Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

7.57 Yet the Treasury Board Secretariat Part III makes no mention of the infrastructure program. During its review of the Treasury Board Estimates, the House of Commons Committee on Government Operations was told that information on the infrastructure program was available in the individual Part III documents of the various development agencies. However, the information in those documents was also limited.

7.58 In summary, these examples show that, in most cases, reporting on sectoral activity overall is inadequate.

What Is Needed to Make Sectoral Reporting Happen?

7.59 To make sectoral reporting happen, four things need to occur: first, the government needs to determine the sectors on which it wants to provide information to Parliament; second, once a sectoral activity is designated, one department must be assigned the lead role; third, there must be a formal requirement for the lead department to report externally on the sector; and finally, there must be a framework for reporting that includes a set of principles.

A clear government designation of a sectoral activity
7.60 A key issue is to determine first what constitutes a sectoral activity. In some cases, a sectoral activity can be a single program activity delivered by more than one department or agency. In other words, there are common objectives but the delivery of specific aspects of the activity is shared among a number of departments and agencies. Again, an example is immigration, where responsibilities for immigrant processing and settlement are carried out by various departments like Citizenship and Immigration, Foreign Affairs, Revenue Canada (Customs and Excise), Solicitor General (RCMP and CSIS) and Justice. In other cases, several departments and agencies carry out related activities; an example is scientific research and development.

7.61 The current government also uses the term "sector" to describe the broad expenditure groupings in Part I of the Estimates. We believe that this definition, which includes departments or programs in the same general sphere of activity, while useful for Part I, is too broad to give meaningful information on the delivery of a common set of services. For example, Heritage and Cultural Programs is a sector that includes Heritage Canada, CBC, several museums, the National Film Board, and the National Capital Commission. Those entities carry out diverse activities that range from communications to athletics to national parks, each with separate objectives. In addition, information on a sector may not include all the expenditures related to a particular program. For example, information in the Estimates for the Social Programs sector includes direct expenditures on immigration by the departments in that sector, such as Citizenship and Immigration, but not the related expenses of departments in other sectors, like National Revenue (Customs and Excise), Foreign Affairs, Justice, RCMP and CSIS.

7.62 In the context of information for Parliament, we believe that for any group of activities defined by the government as a sectoral activity and carried out by more than one department or agency, Parliament ought to receive a summary stewardship report on the entire sector. Such a report should be contained in one document and should be cross-referenced to the reports of the other departments and agencies that carry out specific components of the sectoral activity.

Establishing a lead department and a formal requirement to report
7.63 Some sectoral activities, like search and rescue, are reported on; others, like the infrastructure program, are not. In the case of search and rescue, the Treasury Board decision setting up the National Search and Rescue Secretariat required that the Secretariat submit a multi-year operational plan annually and report on search and rescue in the lead department's Part III document.

7.64 By comparison, although the President of the Treasury Board is the minister responsible for the infrastructure program, the costs of that program are borne by the three regional development agencies, Industry Canada and Indian Affairs and Northern Development. There is no requirement to bring the information together in one document. As a result, there is no mention of the infrastructure program in the Treasury Board Secretariat's Part III.

7.65 We can infer from these and other examples that there is a need for the formal designation of a lead department with authority to request information from the other departments. There is also a need to establish a formal requirement to report. Without this formal requirement, departments do not have a reason to provide the additional sectoral information to Parliament, information that we believe is needed to close the accountability loop.

7.66 In some instances, like the infrastructure program, a lead minister may be designated as the government's spokesperson for the sectoral activity ' in this case, the President of the Treasury Board. But the requirement to report on the activity often is overlooked in the creation of the sector, with the result that information is limited and dispersed over a number of departments' documents.

7.67 Responsibilities of a lead department may differ. In a clearly defined service like immigration, the lead department may be accountable for the overall objective but Cabinet may delegate certain aspects of the activity to other departments, through memoranda of understanding, for example. In other cases, like expenditures on scientific research and development, the individual departments determine their own objectives for their expenditures and the lead department may be responsible only for consolidating and reporting information on the entire activity.

7.68 In our view, each department remains accountable to deliver the specific component for which it is responsible, and to report on that delivery in its own departmental document. But regardless of how the accountability relationships are set up, there is a need for government to designate a lead department to bring together information on the sectoral activity overall and to report it to Parliament.

7.69 In this regard, we mean reporting summary-level information on a sectoral activity at the overall level, not detailed information at the operational level. As we said in our 1992 chapter on departmental reporting, detailed operational information should be readily available on request, but not necessarily in the printed stewardship document.

7.70 Ideally, such summary-level information should be available to Parliament at the time the Estimates are tabled. If, as the Comptroller General suggested, this is not feasible, the government should explore alternative methods of providing Parliament with such information.

A reporting policy for sectoral activities
7.71 According to the Treasury Board Secretariat, there are no reporting guidelines for sectoral activities. The Guide to the Preparation of the Part III Estimates provides guidelines for a department to report on its own responsibilities, but there are no provisions in the Guide that cover services delivered by more than one department. When such reporting does occur, it is as a result of a requirement in the enabling legislation, regulation or authority for the activity.

7.72 We believe the framework and principles for departmental reporting that we published in 1992 apply also to reporting on a sectoral activity. The major difference is the concept of a lead department. The framework we suggested for reporting focussed on four questions. The questions, modified for sectoral activities, are:

  • What is the sectoral activity and its overall mission?
  • How is the sectoral activity delivered to achieve its mission?
  • What are the sectoral activity's strategic objectives for realizing its mission and for delivering against it?
  • How did the sectoral activity do against its objectives and how much did it cost?
7.73 We also stated that information for Parliament ought to meet three simple criteria: relevancy, reliability and understandability. To be relevant, the information needs to be meaningful, complete and timely, and answer our four questions. To be reliable, the claims made need to be consistent from one information source to another and to stand the rigour of validation. And to be understandable, what is written must be comprehensible to anyone not versed in the language of the public service or in the details of the sectoral activity. This means using plain language and making information accessible. The four questions, combined with the three criteria, could become a framework for assessing whether government is providing members of Parliament with useful information on sectoral activities.

Recommendations

7.74 The Secretary of the Treasury Board & Comptroller General should inform Parliament of the timetable for the reform of departmental reporting. Such reform should include consideration of the concepts raised in our 1992 Report to reflect the entire business of departments and agencies and to take advantage of changing technology.

7.75 When a sectoral activity is established or identified by government, the Secretary of the Treasury Board & Comptroller General should ensure that a lead department is designated and formally required to report on the overall sectoral activity.

7.76 The Secretary of the Treasury Board & Comptroller General should develop a framework for the departmental reporting of sectoral activities.

7.77 With respect to reporting, it is clear that the government responds to specific requests from Parliament and its committees. We believe that Parliament could play an important role in the reform of reporting by letting the government know that current information is inadequate. The government needs encouragement from Parliament to review and propose changes to the type of information it currently provides, both in departmental reporting and on sectoral activities.