Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Finance and I’d like to put some questions to him on the Program Review Office.
We got notification this last week that the Program Review Office had established two standing offer agreements. They were for program monitoring and evaluation services and for program design. I look at the Finance website under the Program Review Office and it says, “The office was established to help advance the goal of effective and efficient government by conducting a systematic review of government programs and services.” The other paragraph says, “The GNWT has established the Program Review Office as an internal resource to support the ongoing review and reporting of all government and activity.”
I look at this notice of standing offer agreements, one for program monitoring and evaluation services and the other one for program design, and it makes me ask the question, what is the Program Review Office staff doing? Why do we need these two standing offer agreements? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Program Review Office I think has, if my memory serves me correctly, four people. We have 5,000 employees, about 11 or so departments, quite a number of significant sized other agencies, colleges, power corporations, Crown corporations and the sheer volume of things that need to get done require that we need to bring in, from time to time, outside resources because it’s physically impossible for that small number of people to do all the work that’s needed, the work that they’re currently doing as well as try to address some of these bigger, broader issues. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister and I guess I thought it was a rather larger little section than that, only four people. My recollection is that the budget was something like $800,000, but I could stand to be corrected on that.
So, I guess I’d like to know from the Minister, then, in the area of program design, and I presume that goes to making things more efficient and presumably saving us money, which is what this office was intended to do, what role does the Program Review Office play in program design and increasing efficiency in program services? Thank you.
When they are asked to be involved or they are involved, they work with the host department or agency and they look at being efficient, not necessarily to save money but to make sure that they are designed in such a way to put the money they do have to the best, most efficient and effective use, and that’s one of the functions they provide. They provide a coordinating function; they provide a function where they can link in and get the people they may need to help work with the departments, to do the detailed planning in terms of the effectiveness of the design, the horizontal and vertical issues with reporting relationships, communications and those types of things. Thank you.
To the issue of the standing offer agreement for program design, it’s to provide assistance with the design of new programs and re-design of current programs, so I’m still struggling to understand why this is not the job of the Program Review Office.
So, to the Minister, I’d like to know, in the same vein, what is the role of the Program Review Office in monitoring and evaluation of departments and/or their programs and services. I thought that’s why we established the Program Review Office in the first place. Thank you.
The Program Review Office was initially designed to address a need for a large corporation, an almost $2 billion corporation, to have some capacity for that internal overview program supervision in terms of design, implementation and audit type function to work with other parts of government to make sure that we do deal with the issues of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. That’s what their role is intended to be and that’s what it is and it’s evolving as we look at it. It’s a very small operation and they need to have these types of agreements or standing offers so they can bring in expertise. The four people are not necessarily experts in every area, but they are able to manage, coordinate and collaborate. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can be short and I thank the Minister for his answer. I would like to know from the Minister if he can estimate for me and this House what he estimates the cost in the 2015-16 budget year of these two standing offer agreements. Thank you.
I’ll get that detailed information for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
