Rescinded [2018-03-27] - Guidelines for the Preparation of Summaries of Corporate Plans and Capital and Operating Budgets

These guidelines are meant to assist parent Crown corporations in the preparation and tabling of summaries of their approved corporate plans, capital budgets and operating budgets, or summaries of amended plans and budgets. Summaries are required to be submitted to the appropriate Minister for approval and for tabling before Parliament, pursuant to section 125 of the Financial Administration Act (FAA).

The guidelines relate to the form, content and tabling of summaries. They include and expand upon the requirements specified in the FAA and the Crown Corporation Corporate Plan, Budget and Summaries Regulations.

• The corporate plan is the centrepiece of the accountability regime adopted by Parliament for Crown corporations. The purpose of corporate plan and budget summaries is therefore to inform parliamentarians of the major activities, strategic issues and plans of a corporation for the planning period. These include benchmarks for reporting, through the summaries, on the extent to which corporate objectives have been achieved.

  In this regard, Crown corporations may wish to consider repeating salient extracts of corporate plan and budget summaries, such as performance against objectives, in their annual reports.

• Corporate plan and budget summaries encompass all the businesses and activities, including investments, of a parent Crown corporation and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, if any. The summary also sets out the major business decisions taken with respect to these businesses and activities.
• Each parent Crown corporation listed in Schedule III of the FAA is responsible for submitting a summary of each approved corporate plan and capital budget, or amendment thereto, to the appropriate Minister for approval. In addition, corporations listed in Part I of Schedule III are required to submit a summary of each approved operating budget, or amendment thereto, to the appropriate Minister for approval.
• Summaries of all approved corporate plans, capital and operating budgets, including any subsequently-approved summaries of amended plans and budgets, are to be prepared for tabling in both official languages, pursuant to section 8 of the Official Languages Act.
• The appropriate Minister is responsible for tabling each approved summary in both Houses of Parliament within thirty sitting days of approval of the document that is being summarized.

The guidelines apply to all parent Crown corporations listed in Schedule III of the FAA and to any wholly-owned subsidiary that has been directed by the Governor in Council to conduct its businesses and activities, or to report, as if it were a parent corporation.

Summaries of operating budgets are not required of Crown corporations named in Part II of Schedule III, pursuant to Section 123 of the Act.

Definitions in these Guidelines are the same as those in the FAA and in the Crown Corporation Corporate Plan, Budget and Summaries Regulations.

The following definitions have also been specifically adopted for the purpose of these Guidelines:

• "approved" means approval of:
  • Governor in Council, for purposes of corporate plan and amended corporate plans;
  • Treasury Board, for purposes of capital and operating budgets and amended budgets; and
  • appropriate Minister, for purposes of summaries of corporate plans, capital and operating budgets and summaries of amended corporate plans and budgets.
• "summary" means an abridged version of the approved original or amended document setting out all essential strategic and financial components of that document, including tabular information; and
• "segmented data" means financial and other quantitative data displayed according to division, activity, business or geographic breakdown, as applicable.

Corporate plan and budget summaries must take into account:

1. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Summaries must be prepared in a form that clearly sets out information according to the major businesses or activities of the parent Crown corporation and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, if any.
• Summaries are to be written in such a manner as to disclose to parliamentarians all information necessary for them to clearly understand the corporation's plans. However, summaries should not incorporate sensitive material contained in the approved corporate plans i.e., commercially-detrimental information referred to in Section 153(1) of the FAA. The omission of such information from the summary should nonetheless be noted in the introduction to the summary, and the reasons for the omission explained.

2. SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS:

A) TITLE PAGE

To facilitate the timely processing of summaries by appropriate ministers' departments and offices, and by both Houses of Parliament, the title page of each corporate plan and budget summary should include:

• the name of the parent Crown corporation
• the word "summary"
• the planning period (for corporate plans) or budget year (for budgets) which the summary covers
• the title of the approved document which is summarized

Example:

• Summary of 1994/95 - 1998/99 Corporate Plan
• Summary of 1994/95 Capital Budget
• Summary of 1994/95 Operating Budget
• Summary of Amended 1994/95 - 1998/99 Corporate Pla

Documents which are approved as a package may be combined in a single summary, but the title of each individually-approved document summarized must appear on the title page.

B) CORPORATE PLAN SUMMARIES

Summaries of approved corporate plans or amended corporate plans should set out the significant content of the approved original documents as required in section 5 of the Crown Corporation Corporate Plan, Budget and Summaries Regulations and the Guidelines for the Preparation of Corporate Plans. These should include:

1. a statement of the corporation's statutory mandate, its objectives for the planning period, the strategy to achieve those objectives, its expected performance compared to its objectives, and the extent to which past objectives have been achieved during the previous year;
2. a statement of the corporation's intention to borrow money, if any;
3. a summary of the financial statements, according to segmented data breakdown in the originally-approved document, for the corporation's financial year immediately preceding the current year, and as projected for the current year and for the planning period (seven years in all).

C) CAPITAL BUDGET SUMMARIES

Summaries of approved capital budgets or amended capital budgets should set out the significant content of the approved original document as required in section 11 of the Crown Corporation Corporate Plan, Budget and Summaries Regulations and the Guidelines for the Preparation of Corporate Plans.

These should include a summary of capital expenditures and commitments for the corporation's financial year immediately preceding the current year, the current year and the budget year, together with the total commitment (three years in all).

D) OPERATING BUDGET SUMMARIES

Summaries of approved operating budgets or amended operating budgets should set out the significant content of the approved original document as required in section 8 of the Crown Corporation Corporate Plan, Budget and Summaries Regulations and the Guidelines for the Preparation of Corporate Plans.

These should include: a summary of the operating results of the corporation for the corporation's financial year immediately preceding the current year, and the currently-projected results for the current year and for the budget year, with an explanation of major variations or shifts over the three-year period.

E) OTHER INFORMATION

• the statutory authority for incorporation;
• the main assumptions used in the preparation of the corporate plan or budgets; and
• for those Crown corporations whose financial year end differs from that of the Canadian government, a statement, for each of the years addressed in the corporate plan and/or budget(s), of cash transactions (identified as loans, equity subscriptions and budgetary payments) with the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the corporation's financial year and in the Government's financial year.

APPROPRIATE MINISTER

The appropriate minister is responsible for tabling each approved summary in both Houses of Parliament within thirty sitting days of approval of the document that is being summarized.

N.B. The thirty days are calculated from the actual date of approval of the original document.

Where budgets are approved as part of a submission which includes a corporate plan, the deadline date for tabling both budget and corporate plan summaries is within 30 sitting days of the date of Governor in Council approval of the corporate plan.

CROWN CORPORATIONS

In an effort to close the accountability loop and to assist the Crown Corporations Directorate (CCD) in the preparation of the annual report on the tabling of Crown corporation summaries and annual reports in Parliament -- required under section 152 of the FAA and published in the President of the Treasury Board's annual report to Parliament on Crown corporations -- Crown corporations are encouraged to forward a copy of approved corporate plan and budget summaries to their Crown corporation analyst.

For further information or comment on these guidelines, you are encouraged to contact your Crown corporation analyst, or the Policy and Corporate Information Division of the Crown Corporations Directorate, Treasury Board Secretariat and Department of Finance, at:

L'Esplanade Laurier, 8th Floor East Tower
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0G5

Telephone: (613) 957-0120
FAX: (613) 957-0160