Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Premier spoke about Single Window Service Centre Pilot Project with Service Canada. Mr. Speaker, today I will have some questions regarding the statement. With the new duties, does this increase the government service workers' workload and hours of work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government services officers record all service contacts they have with community members, and we are closely monitoring the number of service requests in each of the pilot Service Canada partnership communities. We are not expecting a large increase because, prior to this arrangement, most of the GSOs were handling a lot of Service Canada requests, and I believe the smaller communities average about five requests in any work day. If we do notice an increase in workload, we are prepared to look at extending our service hours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Premier for that answer. It is great that we are tracking stuff. Do not get me wrong. This is a really great program. I think it is doing what it is supposed to be doing in the small communities. Does the federal government provide additional funds for the cost to run these three positions and offices because of the new duties?
For these three pilot programs, the federal government is operating on a fee-for-service basis. For the six programs that we deliver on for the GSOs, they are paying us an average of $25 per fee, so at the end of the pilot program we will evaluate the number of services and evaluate and determine the bill that was sent to Service Canada.
I thank the Premier for that answer. It is just a basic cost service approach, which is really good. With this being a 12-month pilot project, has the GNWT and the federal government developed an evaluation to see if this project is successful?
The government services officers and the three pilot Service Canada communities are recording all of their contacts, so after 12 months, we will sit down and evaluate all of the requests for the six program areas, and we will determine where we go, whether we go forward or not.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I am actually very happy to hear that we are tracking this. This is a very good tool to help. When this pilot project is successful, and I think it will be successful, do the GNWT and the federal government plan to extend these services to other communities with GSOs in place? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is our longer-term goal to extend all of these services to all of the 21 communities that have GSO services. After this pilot project, we will evaluate it and we are hoping to extend it, even though, for the other committees that have GSOs, we continue to provide services to federal government programs. We are hoping that we will be able to expand it to all of the GSO communities.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
