Mr. Chair, that is good.
Moving on, I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow up with the one right below that, the home care. I was happy to see half a million dollars more resources towards that. I wondered if that was directed anywhere in particular or to any particular aspects of the program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Mr. Chair, I didn’t hear the Member, but I think the deputy has and I will ask if she can provide a response. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. DeLancey.
Mr. Chair, the home care, the enhanced funding is being allocated among health and social services authorities proportionately to increase their ability to keep up with costs of providing home care.
We are on page 8-30, 8-31, Health and Social Services, activity summary, grants and contributions, total grants and contributions, $69.941 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 8-32, Health and Social Services, information item, community health programs, active positions. Are there any questions?
Agreed.
Being none, page 8-33, Health and Social Services, information item, details of funding. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to point out here, the main estimates from 2011-12, 2012-13, for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority as well as Stanton Territorial Health Authority, they are both significant I think. One is just over $3 million and the other one is over $5 million. We discussed this earlier in previous discussions earlier today, but those are significantly high numbers. I just want to get confirmation whether the department will commit to addressing this issue that has been ongoing regardless of trends, but we need commitment that they will make commitments so we don’t continue to see these deficits as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.
Mr. Chair, we have agreed and we have agreement from all of the authorities that we will make deficit adjustments and that we will… The term alludes me right now but we will be taking money from authorities that have surpluses, and with the amount of money that each of the authorities that have surpluses are allowed to keep and then we will have the rest of the money moved around to put money where the deficits are greatest, make those adjustments. The plan at this time, if there continues to be deficits in Inuvik and Stanton, or in Beaufort-Delta, pardon me, and Stanton, we would continue to make those adjustments, moving money from other authorities.
Ultimately we are hoping to right the budgets to put the budgets in the right places so that we are not always making these foreseen adjustments so that we would try to work with the governance issue is one thing. The shared services, those are the type of things we wish to do in order to adjust the budgets to the appropriate budget in the future.
Mr. Chair, I am going to put this out there. We have already practiced that policy once, where we took money from other authorities. We put into Stanton, so we put into Beaufort-Delta Health Authority. Sure, they weren’t very happy that because they are doing good practices they were to give up some of their budget. Looking into the future, knowing what just happened from history and that money that they would be not spending will go to another authority, they might just take the initiative to spend all of their money. What does the department have as a plan of action should there not be any surpluses in other authorities to move that money around? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. DeLancey.
Mr. Chair, first of all, the Financial Management Board has approved the change to the Surplus Deficit Policy for the authorities, so authorities now have a very limited cap of how much of a surplus they can accumulate. That will prevent the situation that the Member is concerned about from occurring.
Secondly, we continue to work with the authorities on the analysis of their structural deficits. We have been coming forward piece by piece for base adjustments to address those deficits. You have seen some of that money in this year’s budget. We are working with the authorities on, as the Minister said, a plan to right-size the budgets we hope within a period of five years through the sustainability initiatives the Minister has mentioned, through increases to the Canada Health Transfer that we will be in a situation where authorities are appropriately funded.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Moving with questions, we have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions are on the same line as Mr. Moses. I, too, am quite concerned about the deficits that the health authorities, particularly Stanton Health Authority and the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority have incurred over quite a recurring number of years. It may not have been on this Minister’s watch, but it has been a number of years that we have been hearing about we are going to look at the operation of these two hospitals. We are going to determine what they really need in terms of funding. We are going to fix it, but it hasn’t been fixed yet. I have to agree with Mr. Moses that the Minister said that we are going to take surpluses from one authority and we are going to use it for the ones that are in deficit. As he said, that has been done already. I don’t think that is any way that we can plan in order to get authorities on an even footing.
I really think that there needs to be, and I presume from the DM’s response that there is, some work being done to try and figure out just exactly how much money is needed at these authorities so that they can break even, what services and programs they should be providing and that they should be funded to that level. Again, it has been a long time coming. I don’t hear that it is going to be coming in any short order.
I was struck when we were discussing the numbers for NWT hospitals. There was a reference to the revised estimates for 2011-12 were almost $95 million and the estimates for 2012-13 is about $88 million, so we have a difference of some $7 million, and the explanation was that is the surplus that we moved from the authorities that had extra money and we moved it into the ones that didn’t. But we are going to be left with a $7 million hole again in 2012-13. We know that it is costing us to run these hospitals more than what we fund them for. I have to ask the Minister – this has been asked of previous Ministers – what is the plan apart from, yeah, we’re looking at it? What is the plan and when is there going to be a definite plan and a solution to this problem of deficits within our health authority? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. DeLancey.
Mr. Chair, the plan is rolling out. There is a plan. The plan involves some fairly detailed financial analysis. One of the challenges we have which Members have heard about before is that we have eight authorities with different financial systems. It makes it very difficult and time consuming to do the financial analysis. We continue to work with Stanton and Beaufort-Delta. In both hospitals there have been numerous management changes made that have resulted in savings and efficiencies. We continue to look at the potential for shared services. We are continuing to analyze specific cost-drivers such as some of the ones that Mr. Elkin mentioned earlier, particularly in the Beaufort-Delta region, hospital and staff costs, it is unfunded staffing costs.
As we get business cases developed, we have been bringing those forward to the Financial Management Board. We know there are some areas in our structural deficit that are going to require additional funding. For example, the physician budget at Stanton Hospital which, right now, is being funded in part… More than a $2 million shortfall is being funded through THSSI funding. When THSSI funding expires, we’ll need to deal with that. The reality is that we are not able to get additional funding in the base budget for these authorities until we can provide a persuasive business case to the Financial Management Board. So we recognize that this is not going to happen overnight.
The other missing piece is something that was recommended, touched on in the Auditor General’s report, which is the need to have a funding model for the authorities. That work is also going on, but these two pieces of work are integrated and, quite frankly, it’s not something that can be done in a short period of time.
Thanks to the DM for that thorough explanation. I certainly would like to see what’s been done to date. I’d also like to see the cost-drivers that the department is anticipating attacking and going after. I would like to request that information, but would also like to request an update every six months on where things are at.
I think part of our problem is we see these numbers once a year and kind of freak out. It would certainly be helpful to us as Members if we realize that there’s, as you say, chipping away at the numbers and it’s gradually going down. So any information that we get, if it provides historical information as well as current information, that would also enable us to know whether or not progress is being made. Thank you. That’s all I have.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Page 8-33, Health and Social Services, information item.
Agreed.
Details of funding allocated to health and social services authorities. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 8-34, Health and Social Services, information item, lease commitments (infrastructure). Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 8-35, Health and Social Services, information item, lease commitments (infrastructure). Any questions?
Agreed.
Health and Social Services, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Any questions?
Agreed.
This would include up to page 8-39.
Agreed.
Committee, I would like to have you return to page 8-7, Health and Social Services, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $349.926 million. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that we have concluded final consideration for the Department of Health and Social Services?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank our witnesses here today, Mr. Elkin and Ms. DeLancey. If I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort them out of the Chamber, please. Thank you.
Noting the time, committee, we will take a short break and we’ll return after that. Thank you.
---SHORT RECESS
Welcome back, committee. Next on our list we have the Department of Executive. With that, we have Premier McLeod. Premier McLeod, do you have any opening comments?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Agreed.
Thank you. Mr. McLeod, go ahead.
I am pleased to present the Department of Executive’s main estimates for the fiscal year 2012-2013. The goals for the Department of Executive are centred on our role in ensuring effective coordination of government activities; supporting informed decision-making related to policies, planning and programming; and coordinating the implementation of strategic activities to advance the priorities of the 17th Legislative Assembly.
The overall proposed budget for the department is $22.862 million for 2012-13, which is an increase of $8.857 million or 63 percent from the 2011-2012 Main Estimates. The overall increase is due to $155,000 in forced growth and $9.301 million for other adjustments related to devolution negotiations and implementation planning, offset by sunsets of $599,000.
The Department of Executive provides overall coordination and support and ensures departments are moving forward in a collaborative, transparent and integrated way. A new committee of Cabinet structure has been established to support the vision, goals and priorities of the 17th Assembly. A key role for the department is to support evidence-based decision-making:
by providing information, advice and support to Cabinet through the Cabinet Secretariat;
by reviewing and evaluating program effectiveness and efficiency through the program review office;
by developing and distributing statistical data for policy and program development;
by analyzing key indicators, measures and outcomes to aid with informed allocation of resources and effort; and
by regularly reporting on our progress.
The directorate includes the office of the secretary to Cabinet and the office of devolution. The office of the secretary to Cabinet is responsible for providing overall leadership for the public service, supporting Executive Council decision-making, and coordinating the development and implementation of government-wide direction.
The office of devolution includes two branches: negotiations and implementation planning. Members will be aware that the Devolution Agreement-in-Principle includes funding for the Government of the Northwest Territories and Aboriginal governments to address a number of significant issues before a final agreement is reached.
The department anticipates revenue of $2 million related to federal government contributions to support activities between Devolution Agreement-in-Principle and Final Agreement. Although this amount is well below the Government of the Northwest Territories investment of $9.3 million this year, a critical lesson learned from the Yukon devolution experience was the need to carefully plan for the transfer of authority and staff and to make the necessary investments to ensure a smooth transition.
The executive operations branch includes the strategic planning unit, program review office, Bureau of Statistics and the regional operations offices for the Department of Executive. In addition to the core business activities, there are a number of priority areas that will be advanced during 2012-2013.
A key area we are focusing on is finalizing an ambitious work plan for program review, which will complement the planning work being done by strategic planning and be supported by statistical analysis from the Bureau of Statistics. Members have told us it is important to evaluate our plans on an ongoing basis to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness and we have heard them. The program review office will also support initiatives to reduce red tape, which is a priority of the Refocusing Government Committee of Cabinet.
Based on the success of the Single-Window Service Centre pilot project initiated in October 2010, the regional offices will be expanding government service officer positions into five new communities: Sachs Harbour, Tsiigehtchic, Tulita, Fort Liard and Gameti. This will bring the total number of single-window service centres to 13, thereby improving access to Government of the Northwest Territories programs and services, as well as increasing Government of the Northwest Territories employment opportunities in several small communities. Executive, together with Finance, is leading work on organizational design, to take into account opportunities for decentralization presented not only by devolution but also by reviewing all government operations.
Also included in these main estimates is the Cabinet support branch of the Department of Executive, which is responsible for ensuring systems are in place to support informed decision-making and successful implementation of Cabinet direction. The branch includes the Cabinet Secretariat, legislation and house planning, corporate communications, protocol, the women’s advisory office, and supports the Commissioner’s office.
Other key activities for the department that are reflected in these main estimates include the Ministers’ offices, which include the Premier’s office and support to Ministers.
That concludes my introductory remarks and I am prepared to answer any questions that committee members may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Premier McLeod, do you have witnesses you would like to bring into the House?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Can I get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the House?
Thank you. If you would be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the committee.
