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Section III – Supplementary Information

This section presents the financial highlights, lists some supplementary information tables relevant to OCOL, and refers to other items of interest.

3.1  Financial Highlights

Audited Financial Statements

OCOL’s audited financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2009 can be found on OCOL’s website at http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/finstate_etatsfin_e.php

Planned Spending, Total Authorities and Actual Spending

The headings Planned Spending, Total Authorities and Actual Spending displayed in financial tables earlier on in this report can be explained in summary form as follows:

• Planned Spending is the basic funding provided by Parliament at the beginning of the year by means of the Main Estimates.
• Total Authorities include both the Main Estimates (Planned Spending) for the year as well as any additional or supplementary funding provided by Parliament during the year.
• Actual Spending represents the cash related expenses and acquisitions of assets such as tangible capital assets made during the year and not the non-cash expenses incurred during the year as per the financial statements (i.e. services provided to us free of charge by other departments).

Parliamentary appropriations approved (Total Authorities)

Section II of this report presents the financial and human resources approved by Parliament and allocated to OCOL as per its Program Activity Architecture approved by the Treasury Board – refer to section 1.1 of this report.

In 2008-2009, Parliament approved $22 million. These appropriations are composed of $19.9 million in Main Estimates (Planned Spending) and a further $2.1 million in Supplementary Estimates. The $2.1 million include the carry-forward funding⁷ ($0.8 million), collective agreement settlements ($0.8 million) and parental leave and severance payments ($0.5 million).

In 2007-2008, Parliament had approved $21.2 million. The increase of $0.8 million in 2008-2009 is mainly related to the increase in Main Estimates pertaining to the development and implementation of the access to information and the internal audit functions in 2007-2008.

⁷ OCOL, subject to Parliament approval, may carry forward lapsed amounts of up to 5 percent of its operating budget (based on Main Estimates program expenditures) into the next fiscal year. OCOL lapsed $0.8 million mainly due to reengineering and staffing activities.

Parliamentary appropriations used (Actual Spending)

In 2008–2009, OCOL spent $21.2 million of the $22 million in parliamentary appropriations approved. The amount spent by program activity is reported in section II of this report.

Full-time equivalents used

The summary table of resources in section 1.2 of this report indicates that OCOL used 155.3 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in 2008–2009, which represents 87.5 percent of its planned 177.5 FTEs. Despite the ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff, this represents an increase of 4.3 (3 percent) in the number of FTE employees used from last year. In 2007–2008, OCOL used 151 FTE employees, representing 90.5 percent of its planned 167 FTE employees. The increase of 10.5 FTE from 2007‑2008 is related to 6.0 additional FTEs as a result of additional appropriations received for the development and implementation of the access to information and the internal audit functions. OCOL further increased the planned FTEs by 4.0 by reallocating resources originally planned for other operating expenses in order to meet operational requirements related to internal services.

Condensed Statement of Operations for the year ended March 31, 2009

	2008-2009			2007-2008
Operating Expenses	Compliance Assurance	Policy and Communication	Total
Salaries and employee benefits	$  7,744,279	$  8,740,267	$  16,484,546	$  14,853,928
Professional and special services	1,612,725	2,375,866	3,988,591	4,107,360
Accommodation	704,888	1,014,352	1,719,240	1,735,000
Transportation and telecommunications	447,606	713,370	1,160,976	1,068,184
Amortization of tangible capital assets	305,130	439,089	744,219	751,570
Other expenses (Note 1)	241,943	594,190	836,133	695,430
Net cost of operations	$  11,056,571	$  13,877,134	$  24,933,705	$  23,211,472

Note 1: Other expenses regroup utilities, materials and supplies, communication and printing, repairs and maintenance, rentals of photocopiers and other items. The increase from 2007-2008 is mainly related to new computer operating software for the network.

OCOL must report appropriations used (Actual Spending) which are displayed in the Public Accounts of Canada and not appropriations set aside for non-cash expenses.

The timing differences are reconciled as follows:

	2008-2009	2007-2008
Net cost of operations per audited financial statements	$  24,933,705	$  23,211,472
Add or Deduct: Non-cash expenses affecting net cost of operations but not affecting appropriations
Amortization of tangible capital assets	(744,219)	(751,570)
Services provided without charge by other government departments (Note 2)	(2,922,992)	(2,691,000)
Increase in accrued employee severance benefits	(501,834)	(180,223)
Other adjustments	(50,029)	80,017
	20,714,631	19,668,696
Add : Cash expenses not affecting net cost of operations but affecting appropriations
Tangible capital asset acquisitions	452,124	676,928
Current year appropriations used (Actual Spending)	$  21,166,755	$  20,345,624

Note 2: the Services provided without charge by other government departments refer mainly to the accommodations provided by Public Works and Government Services Canada for the Ottawa headquarters and five regional offices and three satellite offices ($1.7 million) – reported separately in the financial statements and contributions covering employers' share of employees’ insurance premiums and expenditures paid by Treasury Board Secretariat ($1.1 million) – reported as part of the benefits in the financial statements.

Cost of operations reported in the audited financial statements

In 2008–2009, OCOL’s net cost of operations was $25 million, as reported in OCOL’s audited financial statements.

This increase of $1.7 million (7 percent) from 2007–2008 is mainly due to increases in salary and benefits of $1.6 million explained by an increase of 4.3 FTEs from 2007-2008, collective agreement settlements, payments of severance pay, parental benefits and vacation pay, provision for accrued severance benefits and OCOL’s share of the TBS-employer’s share of insurance premiums. Other operating expenses have increased overall by $0.1 million. The latter includes Professional and Special Services. Being a small agency, OCOL does not have on staff all the expertise required to fulfil its mandate. These services much as in 2007-2008, represent the second highest expense after salaries and benefits: roughly 17% of the Net cost of operations. 

Allocation of cost of operations by program activity

The audited 2008-2009 Financial Statements displays OCOL’s allocation of the $25 million to program activities.

The Conformity Assurance Program Activity represents 44% of Operating Expenses whereas the Policy and Communications Program Activity represents 56%.

 

 

Allocation of cost of operations by expense categories

The audited 2008-2009 Financial Statements also report $25 million in operating costs.

Salaries and Employee Benefits represent 66% of Operating Expenses whereas Other Operating Expenses represent 34%.

 

 

3.2  List of Supplementary Information Tables

All electronic supplementary information tables in the 2008–2009 Performance Report can be found on the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Web site at the following address www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/dpr-rmr/st-ts-eng.asp.

Table 1: User Fees/External Fees

• OCOL is subject to the Access to Information Act starting April 1, 2007.

Table 1-A: User Fees – User Fees Act
Table 1-B: User Fees – Policy on Service Standards for External Fees

3.3  Other Items of Interest

Statutory reports, publications and other information are available from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 344 Slater St., 3rd Floor, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0T8; telephone: 613-996-6368 and on OCOL’s Web site at www.ocol-clo.gc.ca.

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