ARCHIVED - Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat - 2012–13 Departmental Performance Report

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Internal Services

Program 1.6 Internal Services

Internal services are groups of related activities and resources that are administered to support the needs of programs and other corporate obligations of an organization. These groups include the following services:

• Management and oversight;  
• Communications;
• Legal;
• Human resources management;
• Financial management;
• Information management;
• Information technology;
• Real property;
• Materiel;
• Acquisition; and
• Travel and other administrative services.

Internal services include only those activities and resources that apply across an organization and do not include those provided for a specific program.

Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS)

The Secretariat participates in the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and contributes to its Greening Government Operations targets through the Internal Services program. The Secretariat contributes to the following target areas of Theme IV, Shrinking the Environmental Footprint – Beginning with Government: electronic waste, managed printing devices, paper consumption, green meetings and green procurement.

For additional details on the Secretariat's activities in this area, please refer to the supplementary information in Greening Government Operations.

Financial Resources ($ thousands)

Total Budgetary Expenditures (Main Estimates) 2012–13	Planned Spending 2012–13	Total Authorities (available for use) 2012–13	Actual Spending (authorities used) 2012–13	Difference (Planned vs. Actual Spending)
74,946	75,564	90,075	80,221	(4,657)

In 2012–13, the difference between Main Estimates and Total Authorities is due to the receipt of funding for the Human Resources Modernization (HRMOD) initiative and cyber security, and to transfers for severance and parental leave. The $9.9 million surplus at year-end (difference between authorities and actual spending) is mostly due to a $7 million frozen allotment for litigation costs and to efficiency gains from information technology projects.

Human Resources (FTEs)

Planned 2012–13	Actual 2012–13	Difference 2012–13
677	642	35

Performance Analysis and Lessons Learned

Through the Internal Services program, the Secretariat continued to pursue greater efficiency and effectiveness in its internal operations by implementing a range of plans set out in its 2012–13 Report on Plans and Priorities. The Secretariat, for example:

Contained Costs and Achieved Savings

• Successfully met its departmental cumulative savings target of $9.7 million outlined in the 2010 Strategic Review results. The Secretariat is on track to achieve the total ongoing savings target of $11.5 million by 2013–14.
• Identified $7.6 million in savings through increased efficiencies to operations in the Secretariat in response to the departmental spending review highlighted in Economic Action Plan 2012.
• Implemented the last year of the three-year freeze on departmental operating budgets announced in Economic Action Plan 2010, which required departments to absorb salary increases within existing budgets.

Improved Operational Effectiveness

• Began implementation of an information management system to replace the legacy system, which will improve corporate information management and facilitate automated correspondence management through an automated workflow management tool.
• Completed the Paperless Pay Campaign to successfully modernize compensation service delivery, leveraging technology for e-access to pay and pension information in lieu of paper options.
• Reduced costs by replacing inefficient printing and copying devices with multi-function devices capable of performance reporting, which resulted in planned savings of $364,000 per year.
• Piloted an initiative to replace approximately 1,700 telephone lines with BlackBerries.
• Used Skype to conduct interviews across Canada and abroad for the 2012–13 University Recruitment Campaign. This innovative approach reduced campaign costs by 97% over the previous year.
• Continued to centrally manage language training for the Secretariat’s employees, resulting in a decrease in annual language training costs to $844,000. This represents a 59-per-cent decrease in annual language training costs since 2009–10.
• Began the implementation of activities identified in the Departmental Evaluation Plan to build performance measurement capacity with the objective of increasing the quality, utility and efficiency of future evaluations within the Secretariat.  

Advanced Modernization of the Workplace

• Launched a four-year Workplace Renewal Initiative focused on three interrelated areas: technology renewal, workspace renewal and back office renewal. In 2012–13, the implementation of the Secretariat's long-term accommodation plan involving the adoption of Workplace 2.0 concepts commenced. The Secretariat introduced the “Pathfinder” demonstration workplace, which highlights office designs that are flexible and that maximize the use of space and enabling technology, with the objective of enhancing collaboration, productivity and sustainability, and attracting and retaining employees.

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