ARCHIVED - Evaluation of the Treasury Board Submission Process

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Appendix F: ADM Working Session Questionnaire

(note: this is an example of the questionnaire used for the ADM Working Session)

The Evaluation of the Treasury Board Submission Process

Government Consulting Services (GCS) has been engaged by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) to conduct an evaluation of the Treasury Board (TB) submission process. The purpose of this evaluation is to examine if the process continues to be relevant, if the intended results of the process have been achieved, and whether it is cost-effective and any improvements could be made.

For the purpose of this evaluation, the TB submission process within TBS is defined by the following five steps.

1. Awareness: TBS provides awareness and education regarding the TB submission process to all stakeholders.
2. Guidance: TBS provides initial pre-submission guidance, planning, and strategies to federal organizations.
3. Analysis: TBS provides advice, consultation, and due diligence on draft submissions presented by federal organizations.
4. Recommendation: TBS writes the submission précis and provides advice to ministers at briefings and meetings of the Treasury Board.
5. Decision: TBS documents and communicates the decision and establishes the tracking of conditions.

Please note that the scope of the evaluation focuses only on "Part A" submissions and excludes "Part B" submissions.

The purpose of this questionnaire

As part of this evaluation, GCS is conducting a working session with assistant deputy ministers (ADMs) from TBS as well as from some federal organizations that have submitted a TB submission within the last year.

To ensure that a maximum amount of time is focused on discussions, a short list of questions has been prepared in survey format to ensure that key details have been addressed.

We thank you for taking the time to answer this short questionnaire and to return it to us at the end of the session.

The questionnaire should not take more than a few minutes to complete. Please note that the responses you provide will not be attributable to you and that the results will be reported in aggregate form only.

1. Please identify which group you are representing:

• TBS
• Federal organizations submitting TB submissions
• Other, please specify: _________

2. Please identify to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements in terms of the TB submissions you have seen over the last few years:

Statement	Disagree	Somewhat disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Somewhat agree	Agree	Do not know / Not applicable
Follow the Guide to Preparing Treasury Board Submissions	•	•	•	•	•	•
Have risk and mitigation strategies identified	•	•	•	•	•	•
Ask for the right authorities	•	•	•	•	•	•
Include the appropriate level of justification	•	•	•	•	•	•
Contain accurate information	•	•	•	•	•	•
Are written in a clear manner	•	•	•	•	•	•
Have the risk criteria consistently applied to them	•	•	•	•	•	•
Are correctly rated for risk	•	•	•	•	•	•
Have a risk rating aligned with Treasury Board's interpretation of risk	•	•	•	•	•	•

3. Please identify if the following items have improved, remained unchanged, or worsened over time:

Item	Worsened	Somewhat worsened	Unchanged	Somewhat improved	Improved	Do not know/ No answer
Completeness of the submissions	•	•	•	•	•	•
Your level of confidence in the advice/recommendations provided by TBS analysts	•	•	•	•	•	•
Respect of timelines associated with submissions	•	•	•	•	•	•
Overall quality of the submissions	•	•	•	•	•	•

4. Please indicate what impact you believe the following measures could have on the efficiency of the TB submission process:

Impact	Significantly less efficient	Somewhat less efficient	No change	Somewhat more efficient	Significantly more efficient	Do not know / No answer
Ministerial renewal of terms and Conditions - Authorizing ministers to extend expiring terms and conditions for up to three years within certain parameters, which include strategic reviews, evaluations, and audits	•	•	•	•	•	•
Increasing departmental delegated authorities - Program sectors review delegations for departments to determine if adjustments are warranted	•	•	•	•	•	•
Chief financial officer (CFO) Sign-off - CFO or delegate to sign off on all draft TB submissions before TBS review to signal appropriate quality and completeness	•	•	•	•	•	•
Managing low-risk submissions differently - Flag and process TB submissions based on combined risk rating	•	•	•	•	•	•
Altering the submission calendar - Emphasize prerogative of TBS to determine scheduling of submissions	•	•	•	•	•	•
Streamlining supply processes - Review the Estimates processes, looking at each activity through lenses of accountability, duplication, and value added, including options to reduce the overall burden of preparatory work for Senate briefings	•	•	•	•	•	•

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