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ARCHIVED - A Guide to Preparing Treasury Board Submissions


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The 2014 Guidance for the Preparation of TB Submissions includes a revised submission form, the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, enhanced guidance on costing, tools for submission writers and new service standards for submissions. Departments and agencies have until April 1, 2014, to fully implement the updated guidance.

However, as communicated in the Guideline on Chief Financial Officer Attestation for Cabinet Submissions, a CFO Attestation letter must be annexed to all submissions that have financial implications, effective January 1, 2014.

Information Bulletin

Date: September 21,2007
To: Senior Financial Officers and Senior Full-Time Financial Officers of Departments, Agencies and Crown Corporations

The purpose of this bulletin is to provide further information and guidance with respect to the financial tables required when preparing submissions pursuant to the recently re-issued Guide to Preparing Treasury Board Submissions (Submissions Guide). Specifically, this guidance relates to section 9.4 and appendix B to the Guide.

The Submissions Guide does not require departments to provide any new financial information. However, it does require that financial tables be provided for each authority sought through a submission, and that this financial information be structured according to specific formats required by the Management, Resources and Results Structure Policy, as well as the new Budget Office Systems Renewal Project.

In order to assist departments with the completion of these required financial tables, a sample Treasury Board submission, encompassing a wide variety of financial authorities, has been developed for illustrative purposes and is attached for your reference. This submission, as well as Excel spreadsheet templates of costing tables are also available on the TBS website in the section dealing with the Guide to Preparing TB Submissions.

Based on feedback received from departments, tables in the sample submission have been modified slightly in structure from that described in the Submissions Guide. As a result of these modifications, we have been able to delete the requirement for two tables that had been proposed in the Guide.

The Submissions Guide will be formally updated to reflect these changed requirements. In the meantime, you are requested to use the format of the tables as they appear in the sample submission when preparing your submissions for Treasury Board approval.

Summary Financial Tables:

The following summary financial table is required to be included in the Cost and Source of Funds section of a TB submission:

  • Summary Table by Estimates Vote Structure (Table 6 in the Submissions Guide)

The format of this summary table has been modified as illustrated by the Cost and Source of Funds section of the sample submission. The first section of the table should include any incremental funding being requested through the Annual Reference Level Update, Supplementary Estimates (including transfers from other appropriations) or through an adjustment to a vote-netted revenue authority. The second section of the table should include, where applicable, any existing departmental resources that may be used to partially fund a particular initiative.

In cases where existing resources are being used to partially fund a proposed initiative submitted to TB for approval, this must also be noted in the narrative part of the Cost and Source of Funds section. This will serve to clarify the overall total cost of the program/project, including funds from existing reference levels, as indicated in section 9.4 of the Submissions Guide.

As a result of this modification, both the Summary Table by Program Activity (Table 7 in the Submission Guide) and the Summary Source of Funds Table (which appears between Tables 6 and 7 in the Submissions Guide) are no longer required. Departments are asked to simply indicate the source of funds in the narrative section of the Cost and Source of Funds table.

Detailed Financial Tables:

As noted in the Submissions Guide, each proposal paragraph seeking an incremental funding authority will require at least one of the following supporting funding tables, where applicable.

  • Budgetary Costing Table (Table 1 in the Guide)
  • Capital Project (accrual basis) Costing Table (Table 2 in the Guide)
  • Transfer Table (Table 3 in the Guide)
  • Non-budgetary Costing Table (Table 4 in the guide)

The format of these detailed funding request tables can be modified (as is the case in the sample submission) to reflect only the specific authorities being sought (i.e. those detailed tables (or parts thereof) which are not required to support a proposal may be eliminated). It should be noted that the format of the Budgetary Costing Table and the Transfer Table has been modified slightly as indicated below. All of the above detailed tables are only to be used for incremental funding authority requests. The requirement to provide information by program activity includes identification of the portion related to the Corporate Services (or equivalent) program activity where applicable.

As illustrated in the sample submission, each of the detailed costing tables in this section must be specifically linked to an identified proposal paragraph. The Summary Table by Estimates Vote Structure represents the arithmetic total of all of the detailed financial tables that appear in the annex to the submission. However, the numbers displayed in that summary table may not necessarily correspond exactly to the amounts indicated in any individual proposal paragraph. For example, proposal #2 in the sample submissions seeks, inter alia, an increase to Vote 1 (Operating expenditures) of $2,000,000 in 2007-08, yet the amount indicated in the Summary Table by Estimates Vote Structure only shows an increase for that year of $1,880,000. The reason for the apparent discrepancy is that the summary table reflects not only the $2M increase requested in proposal #2 (supported by the detailed financial table on page 13 of the sample submission), but it also reflects the $120,000 transfer requested in proposal #10 (supported by the detailed financial tables on pages 21 and 22 of the sample submission).

With respect to the Budgetary Costing Table, it should be noted that a separate budgetary costing table is required for the PWGSC accommodation charge proposal paragraph, as illustrated in the sample submission. In addition, the structure of the budgetary costing table that appears on page 13 of the sample submission (in support of proposal #2) has been modified to incorporate the requirement to establish a special purpose allotment (SPA). In those situations where SPAs are not required, the table would not require such a modification and would, instead, resemble the format of the table as it appears on page 14 of the sample submission.

With respect to the Transfer Table, departments should attempt to restrict inter-vote transfers to those from one personnel sub-allotment to another personnel sub-allotment or from one non-personnel-related vote or sub-allotment to another non-personnel-related vote or sub-allotment. The transaction illustrated in the sample submission involves an inter-vote transfer from the personnel sub-allotment of one vote to the personnel sub-allotment of another vote. You will note that a new column has been added to the Transfer Table to reflect statutory employee benefit costs (EBP), where applicable. The proposal paragraph seeking authority to transfer the funds must request an amount including EBP (see proposal #10 in the sample submission).

The Centrally Managed Fund Table, which originally appeared as table 5 in the Guide, was included for information only and is only to be used by Treasury Board Secretariat. No other department or agency is to use this table.

In addition to the tables indicated above, two new tables (both of which are identical in format) are required, where applicable for,

  • Access to TB Vote 5; and
  • Frozen Allotments

These new tables are to be used when seeking access to TB Vote 5 (Government Contingencies) or when establishing or releasing a frozen allotment, respectively. An example of each of these tables is included in the sample submission. The frozen allotment table is required not only in cases where new funding is being requested, but also in those cases where such allotment restrictions are to be applied to a portion of a department's existing resources.

Other

A separate Preliminary Project Approval Costing Table has been included in the Cost and Source of Funds section in the sample submission. The information in this table is required to support any proposals seeking preliminary project approval (PPA) or effective project approval (EPA) and must include an amount for the Goods and Services Tax (GST). A separate PPA table has been included in the sample submission because of the lengthy list of authorities being requested in this example. However, if the information required to support a request for PPA and EPA authority can be readily incorporated into the Summary Table by Estimates Vote Structure, then a separate PPA or EPA table would not be required (i.e. two tables providing essentially the same information would not be required if the information can be incorporated into one table).

In some cases, submissions to Treasury Board contain proposals that, if approved, do not result in changes that impact the above-mentioned processes or tables. Therefore, no financial tables are required for the following types of submissions or proposals:

  • Authority to list a grant;
  • Authority to make a grant payment;
  • Authority to approve terms and conditions for a contribution or a class grant,
  • Authority to enter into a contract

In the past, TBS required organizations to request an authority to include a $1 item in the Estimates for certain authorities where no new appropriatedfunding is being requested (e.g. vote transfers within orbetween organizations, increases to existing grants funded from within existing reference levels, debt write off, etc.). Forthese types of authorities to be considered and approved by Parliament they must be included in the appropriation bill. If the organization is not seeking any new incremental funding through the Estimates, a $1 item must be requested in order to include these items into the appropriation bill. To simplify the process and reduce workload, TBS will, from now on, seek TB authority for the inclusion of these $1 items (where required) during the annual reference level update or Supplementary Estimates processes on behalf of all organizations.

Inquiries

Departments are requested to address any queries regarding the TB Submission Guide to their Program Analyst.

David Moloney
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector
Treasury Board Secretariat

Phil Hurcomb
Assistant Secretary, Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs
Treasury Board Secretariat