2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
MINUTES AND HANSARD

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MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS Tuesday, May 2, 2000 8:30 a.m. Douglas Fir Committee Room Parliament Buildings, Victoria

Present: R. Thorpe, MLA (Chair); E. Gillespie, MLA (Deputy Chair); P. Calendino, MLA; R. Kasper, MLA; S. Orcherton, MLA; G. Robertson, MLA; D. Streifel, MLA; E. Walsh, MLA; D. Zirnhelt, MLA; G. Farrell-Collins, MLA; M. Coell, MLA; J. Weisbeck, MLA; J. Weisgerber, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 8:40 a.m.

2. The Chair advised the Committee of the receipt of a letter from Milton Orkopoulos, Member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales and Chair of the Public Bodies Review Committee dated April 28, 2000.

3. The Committee heard testimony from Stuart Culbertson, Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer, Information, Science and Technology Agency regarding the report titled �Final Y2K Report� by Action 2000, Information, Science and Technology Agency. The Committee discussed the report.

4. The Committee reviewed its draft report titled, �1999 Follow-Up of Performance Audits/Reviews: Management of Travel, Executive Severance Practices, Trucking Safety�.

5. The Committee discussed the format and content of its reports.

6. Resolved, that the Committee approve the draft recommendations contained in Section 1 of the draft report regarding �Management of Travel�. (Mr. M. Coell, MLA)

7. Resolved, that the Committee approve the draft recommendations contained in Section 2 of the draft report regarding �Executive Severance Practices�. (Mr. R. Kasper, MLA)

8. Resolved, that the Committee approve the draft recommendations contained in Section 3 of the draft report regarding �Trucking Safety�. (Mr. R. Kasper, MLA)

9. Resolved, that the Committee adopt the report. (Mr. M. Coell, MLA)

10. Resolved, that the Chair shall present the report of the committee to the Legislative Assembly. (Mr. M. Coell, MLA)

11. Resolved, that the Chair and Deputy Chair meet with the Office of the Clerk of Committees to review the content and format of reports of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. (Mr. R. Kasper) 

12. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 10:05 a.m.

Rick Thorpe, MLA Chair

Craig James Clerk of Committees and Clerk Assistant

 

Chair:	* Rick Thorpe (Okanagan-Penticton L)
Deputy Chair:	* Evelyn Gillespie (Comox Valley NDP)
Members:	* Pietro Calendino (Burnaby North NDP) * Rick Kasper (Malahat-Juan de Fuca NDP) * Steve Orcherton (Victoria-Hillside NDP) * Dennis Streifel (Mission-Kent NDP) * Erda Walsh (Kootenay NDP) * David Zirnhelt (Cariboo South NDP) * Murray Coell (Saanich North and the Islands L) * Gary Farrell-Collins (Vancouver-Little Mountain L) * John Weisbeck (Okanagan East L) * Jack Weisgerber (Peace River South Ind)

* denotes member present

 

Clerks:	Craig James Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Kelly Dunsdon (Committee Researcher)

[ Page 1473 ]

The committee met at 8:40 a.m.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Craig wants to make a short announcement here.

C. James: If I could just advise members that when they get their copy of the Blues for the committee proceedings this morning -- the Hansard -- and subsequently the final version, they will see at the beginning of each document that from now on you can see a copy of the committee's minutes in the Blues. If you have some disagreement or concern about the accuracy, you could contact my office as soon as possible so that we can make the appropriate change. We think that this will actually be a better vehicle for members to refer to in terms of what the committee has actually been doing over the past little while and will consolidate some of the paperwork that has, to date, been scattered hither and yon. So we hope that it's a process which enables members to better refer to the proceedings of the committee.

R. Thorpe (Chair): The next point is that I'd just like to take a second to advise all committee members that I received a letter dated April 28, 2000, from the Public Bodies Review Committee, the Parliament of New South Wales, thanking the committee and the members of this committee that met with them on March 1 in Vancouver. They found the meeting to be most informative, and they look forward to meeting with this committee and/or any individual committee members who find themselves in Sydney, Australia in the future. So we'll make sure that the Clerk's office circulates a copy of this. That program was all put together by Kate. Kate, thank you very much. Obviously they thought it was a very informative meeting.

The other issue that we're going to have to deal with, looking forward to May 23. . . . It's a Tuesday; it's part of a long weekend. I would like to suggest to the committee that we continue meeting, that we don't skip a week and that we move our meeting to the Wednesday instead of the Tuesday, because most members will travel back.

Interjection.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Yeah, I was going to suggest 8:30 a.m. till 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, so that we can keep meeting. Does anyone have any problems with that?

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Just a quick survey of my members here. I know that Wednesday morning is not possible for many members on our side, given that they have other commitments on Wednesday morning. I would like also to say at this point that on May 16, our members will not be available to meet, as we have a conflicting meeting that arises that day only.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thanks for advising us. What I'd like to suggest, then, is that on both of those days, if members would agree, I think it's important that we keep moving forward, because we have a huge agenda of items to get done. We need an evening, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- the same hour and a half -- on both of those Tuesdays. Unless we hear anything different from members, we'll try to meet from 6:30 to 8:00 on those Tuesdays that we can't meet in the morning.

Now, I guess we've got Mr. Culbertson here to talk about year 2000.

S. Culbertson: I'm joined today by Lois Fraser, the assistant deputy minister of the information technology services division within ISTA. I'd like to spend a few moments going through the Y2K final report. I mentioned, the last time I appeared here before the Y2K turnover, that I would like the opportunity to come and file this report, finally, with the committee. We've left copies of the report with the Clerk, and I believe it's being circulated at the moment. I'll basically try to summarize the report fairly quickly.

The report surveys the goals that we set for ourselves in Y2K -- the strategic activities that we undertook, the results of our Y2K efforts. It does a rollup of the estimated costs and then spends some time looking at what we call the legacy of the Y2K work -- how we have worked within existing structures within the government to address the Y2K issue. We actually made recommendations in here that are being acted on by ministries. This report has been filed with cabinet as well.

Just to summarize and remind, the three goals that we set for ourselves in our Y2K work were to minimize the impact of Y2K on the citizens of British Columbia, ensure that we have an informed public around issues related to Y2K and minimize the cost to taxpayers.

[0845]

We established a lot of standards and deadlines and provided centralized guidance and coordination through this. We very much built the whole model on a line of accountability that made line ministries accountable for Y2K success. It was centrally coordinated, monitored and publicized through our agency -- our Action 2000 office -- with leadership from the Premier's Office to hold the accountability in place through all the agencies of government.

We minimized legal liability. That was an important consideration for us. We engaged the Attorney General to set some standards on the information legal liability. We worked actively with the ministries to ensure that legal liability was covered, not only in the ministries' work but in the work that ministries may contract out to independent third parties or may actually be engaged in, in terms of setting licences and permits.

We focused on Y2K, particularly towards the end, as a business issue in government, not as an information technology issue. We made a big effort to engage senior executives of ministries to say: "This isn't just about your computer sys-

[ Page 1474 ]

Just to continue with this, on communications, we implemented a fairly aggressive communications strategy ensuring a policy of open and informative communications. We did this both inside and outside of government, and we had a number of publications and brochures that were circulated. The "RU Y2K OK, B.C.?" brochure and posters were actually, in the final months, translated into a number of languages -- Mandarin, Punjabi and French -- so that they could be distributed to those communities.

We tested with an increased emphasis on contingency planning, and we actually tested our business continuation plans. I'll talk a bit about this more in the legacy. As this committee and certainly the auditor general have reported before, the government may have been a bit behind on business continuation planning in ministries. We now have, for the first time, comprehensive, tested business continuation plans for every ministry and agency of the government.

We provided leadership throughout the management of the transition to Y2K and created the first cross-government emergency management plan. Again, we didn't reinvent the wheel here; we engaged existing authorities within government.

There was a lot of national and international issues tracking on this. I certainly found the actual two days of the transition to probably be the most extensive use of the Internet that at least I have ever seen, allowing us, in very real time, to know what was happening in New Zealand and Australia 15 or 16 hours before the transition to Y2K in B.C. It was extremely valuable to know what early successes looked like, not only in terms of general management but right down to understanding what was actually happening with equivalent pieces of equipment in our hydro-generating stations in New Zealand and Australia, by tracking that international monitoring.

[0850]

On the transition itself, on communications, we had a fairly comprehensive reporting structure in place at the transition. At the peak of it, we had about 500 reports being generated and received daily. These reports were fed in from various sources nationally and internationally, through the private sector service providers that we were working with, and fed out throughout B.C. through our provincial emergency preparedness program regional offices. We had 700 provincial staff on duty or on call throughout the province for the transition period. Our formal transition period was from December 30 through to January 4, but we wound up standing it down a couple of days early.

With respect to cost, we did minimize the cost to the taxpayers as best we could. I have some more details on that, but this is showing you that just by a national standard, an estimated average per-capita cost of $73 per citizen across Canada for Y2K remediation by governments. . . . We spent $66 per citizen on that front. This doesn't include Crown corporations.

The next part of the report talks about the cost; there are more details on this on page 14. As you will recall from discussions of the committee before, we did not establish a budget for Y2K. We basically compelled a reallocation of resources within existing ministry budgets to do the work.

The number you see there -- $105 million -- is our estimate of what we spent in government on Y2K from 1996 to the year 2000. I know I've been at the committee before talking about an estimate in the order of $80 million. The final estimate of $105 million had been adjusted because we did see, midway through the year, some confusion about what was being costed in and what was being costed out. So we engaged Arn and his staff of the comptroller general's office to give us a standardized accounting matrix of what would be accountable for Y2K costs.

The earlier numbers we had been giving you were really the incremental costs for Y2K that ministries may not have spent if it had not been for Y2K remediation. This final number reflects an allocation of costs that were performed with existing staff resources that could be allocated to the project, plus indirect costs over the transition.

Just a note: the $100 million supplied to health authorities in the budget of '99-2000 was the only real incremental cost budgeted for Y2K. In addition to this $100 million, we estimate that something in the order of $32 million was absorbed internally by health authorities within their existing budgets. So it was quite an extensive expenditure in the health area, both inside government within our own Ministry of Health, and outside.

I'd now like to talk about the legacy of the Y2K project and some of the things we learned from doing this that we have documented in this report, and about why I think some of our exercises were well in order.

First of all, as I have mentioned, ministries had actually been asked to complete business continuation plans and contingency plans in 1992. It wasn't until last year that we actually completed business continuation plans. A lot of effort was well-spent here, I think, on contingency planning and on having backup plans and business continuation plans.

My father, who was a master mariner, says: "Despite how good your ship might be, you never leave for sea without a lifeboat." I think that was very much the approach that we took. We had lifeboats securely in place throughout the ship of government, and we were able to use them.

[ Page 1475 ]

[0855]

We updated and replaced a lot of medical equipment in the health authorities, particularly with the $100 million capital expenditure, and a lot of IT equipment within government. So we're left with a better stock of IT equipment than we had going into Y2K.

I think that, importantly, we really underlined at the senior levels of government the importance of information technology and the ownership of information technology issues by business leaders in government. I think this has been very important consciousness-raising and sets a very good platform for us to launch the government's new information technology strategy, InfoSmart, which launched a week or so ago.

We standardized a lot of quality assurance protocols within ministries. We did as best as we could to coordinate a lot of the stuff so that we were doing it centrally, sharing best practices, sharing testing platforms, etc., which gave us a lot more consistency across government in the way that we manage information technology.

Finally, the existing Y2K model, which was based on government cooperation -- horizontal across ministries, vertical within ministries and coordinated by a central agency linked to central service providers in the extended public service and outside the public service -- is a very good model that will serve us well in the future for delivering any similar work.

The final bit of presentation focuses on our own recommendations to ourselves for processes of government. These can be found summarized in the report on page 20, and they are in four areas. The first recommendation that we are making in this report. . . . I should say that most of these recommendations are either underway or are very much under consideration in the responsible ministries and agencies. We dealt with the first block of recommendations around emergency preparedness and emergency management. I think the most important recommendation here is that any future emergency organization be coordinated and be based on provincial emergency program infrastructure.

We made a call early on to do this in B.C. Other jurisdictions actually invented their own sort of Y2K emergency preparedness infrastructures and then stood them down at the end of the exercise. In the Y2K exercise, we did give our provincial emergency preparedness program the biggest workout it's ever had, and I think we're better because of that.

One of the specific recommendations that we have endorsed and certainly have endorsed as a deputy ministers group is a project that's being sponsored by PEP, called the temporary emergency assigned-management system -- or TEAMS -- which is a process that would really provide a pool of on-call trained provincial government personnel as sort of a reserve available 24 hours a day, just in case we get into a big emergency. These would be engaged both in the PEP headquarters in Victoria and in the six provincial regional emergency operation centres located throughout the province.

When I mentioned that we had 700 staff working during the transition period, these were staff from several ministries of government working together, and we had several people volunteering to get involved in the operation. So we feel that if we ever do get into a very big emergency in B.C., we need a bit of a reserve force we can draw on, and we want to look at those now and get those processes in place.

We recommend that PEP implement new emergency management software both within the PEP headquarters and within regional headquarters. This is underway at the moment.

We've also recommended that we sustain the enhanced cooperation between the risk management branch in the Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for business continuation planning through government, and the provincial emergency preparedness program. That was a very important link throughout the Y2K experience, and it's one that, again, I think will serve government well.

[0900]

Finally, we've recommended that we expand threat training for PEP staff to include a comprehensive look at the implications, management and response to non-fiscal threats. We spent a lot of time, particularly in the last week of the last year, dealing with threats of cyberterrorism and widespread virus attacks. These aren't the same as physical or natural attacks but can cause the same level of emergency. So we're going to have a stronger focus in that area.

The second group of recommendations relates to business continuation planning. Again, there's a recommendation that the director of risk management branch in the Ministry of Finance take the lead in establishing all the necessary protocols across government to ensure that now that we have these business continuation plans formed -- all-hazard continuation plans -- these are kept up to date. We're recommending that these are exercised over a 12-to-18 month period, again engaging external contractors.

We recommend standardization across government as we develop an electronic template for business continuation plans. It was important that we had business continuation plans reporting into government, looking and feeling the same way so we could measure one against the other.

One of the important things that we did was rank government mission-critical programs for emergency response. We took a comprehensive look across government and said: "If this system crashed, what would be the programs and the areas that we would need to bring up first to get the government up and running again?" A comprehensive list was done, I believe, of the top 80 programs in the order that they would be brought back up to speed, and we think that's a very useful exercise to do in any emergency. That is something we're recommending as going to be continued and updated.

[ Page 1476 ]

The next recommendations deal with communications. We did a lot of communications, as I have mentioned, throughout the Y2K project. Our two recommendations here relate to government's communications staff itself -- that we establish mandatory emergency training for communications staff so that communications staff are ready to hit at a moment's notice and assist the provincial emergency preparedness program with communications when required.

Along with that we would develop emergency communications teams. These would be part of the provincial emergency preparedness program, a reserve that would themselves be on priority call-out if an emergency occurred. We would expect several ministries to be sort of front-line on these, including Environment, Lands and Parks; Transportation and Highways; Forests; and Attorney General.

The final set of recommendations relate to security. This is really IT security. The recommendations that we're taking on ourselves as the Information, Science and Technology Agency. . . . The first is that we establish cross-government IT inventories and security standards so we have consistent delivery and upgrades of the best anti-virus software that we can get to all government users. I should note that in this year's budget, while it didn't show up as a particular line item, Treasury Board has allocated something in the order of $900,000 to improve anti-virus protection across government desktops. This was put in government IT systems budgets. It's a significant increase. Whether it's ever enough, given the surge of viruses every day, we're trying to do our best to keep track with it, and there's some more funding being provided.

We're going to keep in place the IT emergency advisory structures that we created for Y2K. These are cross-ministry IT security structures, and we're going to keep those going.

[0905]

We also will enhance our coordination of our IT security staff in government with criminal justice resources. So we're plugged into the work that's going on through the criminal justice system and trying to keep pace of cyberterrorism threats and combat incidents. We'll also be enhancing our own security awareness for all staff, joining government in their orientation about dealing with security on IT systems and how important that is to government.

In conclusion, we entered 1999 setting some very clear goals for Y2K, which were to protect the interests of British Columbians by protecting the essential services that we rely on. I'm happy to report that we met those goals. We succeeded, built on what I feel to be an unprecedented level of cooperation and commitment within the B.C. public service. In my experience, I haven't ever seen this level of cooperation between ministries and Crown corporations really committed to focusing on the problem.

We did spend quite a bit of time earlier this year recognizing, with the Premier and the minister, the hundreds of IT staff and managers in government that worked on this project and brought it to fruition. I think we have left in the project, in the way we've documented, a legacy, both in terms of management systems and new processes that are going to benefit British Columbians for some time, in that we are better prepared now for an emergency than we ever have been to date in the government of B.C.

J. Weisgerber: My interest, I suppose, is with respect to caucus. You gave us some statistics -- $66. Was that per capita for British Columbians?

S. Culbertson: Per capita, yes.

J. Weisgerber: And $73?

S. Culbertson: Per capita for across Canada.

J. Weisgerber: Across Canada. I wonder whether, when you're bringing those figures together, you look at the G-7 countries to get some sense of what countries like the United States and Japan -- the major contemporary peer countries for Canada -- spent on this exercise.

S. Culbertson: We have comparisons. I can read them out now. These include the estimates for private sector expenditure, too, but one report that we did see on an international scale suggests that Canada spent, in the public and private sector, in the order of $500 per person on Y2K. That was compared with $690 per person in the United States and $1,500 per person in the U.K. That shows where we were in the pack of at least two important G-7 countries.

J. Weisgerber: Do you have a sense that the split between private and public are fair comparables?

S. Culbertson: It's difficult to determine. This is a very basket comparison, but even within Canada it's tough even to extend these things to Crown corporations, where we have a Crown corporation running the hydro system, and Alberta doesn't, or Saskatchewan has a Crown corporation running the telephone system, and we don't. So these are estimates at best, but I'm comfortable that they confirm where we thought we were in the pack.

J. Weisgerber: Fair enough. The other concern I have is that it seems, in government, that we usually approach with considerable thought the creation of new programs, new organizations, etc., but that we're extremely loath to ever see them die. You know, once you start them, it seems like you almost need a stake to drive through their hearts in order for them to cease to exist. With all due respect, I have the uncomfortable feeling that we're going to see this organization or this exercise continue, even though the year 2000 came and went without much of a blip worldwide. I wonder, in your recommendations, what kind of staff and what kind of costs you are projecting on an annual basis to continue with the kind of work that you recommend.

[ Page 1477 ]

[0910]

I think it's important, as I've emphasized in my presentation, that the existing processes of government were the ones that we built this on, and we're trying to strengthen the existing processes. We haven't created anything new here -- maybe one or two coordinating committees around IT security. Certainly the mandate that the provincial emergency preparedness program had or that the risk management branch had in their areas of authority are where these responsibilities will be delivered out.

J. Weisgerber: If I'm just to conclude, you're not proposing that there be some organization charged with this responsibility, with full-time committed staff. You're talking about interministry kinds of arrangements. Is that. . . ?

S. Culbertson: That's right. What we're saying in fact is that using the existing authorities the government has, and the existing organizations. . . . It was the right model, I think, for us to choose. We've made that point in the report, as a legacy -- to say that if we get into this again, don't reinvent organizations, except perhaps at the coordination level, or project organizations for a specific period of time, and then they're dissolved when the job's done.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I just want to follow up, and then I'll hand it over to someone else. Just one point, Stuart. Do I understand, when you answered Jack's question, that you believe that all of these recommendations here, although they have not been costed out, would be expenditure-neutral, and that these things should be able to be implemented within existing budgets and staff within the various ministries and Crowns? Did I understand that correctly?

S. Culbertson: Yes, that's right. The only one that I've been able to identify as an added sort of investment in government was the numbers I cited around investments in IT security around anti-virus protection for government desktops and servers.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): I have a couple of questions. A hundred million dollars was allocated to the health authorities. I believe at that time the health authorities claimed that was about one-third of what they felt they needed. I think you said that they spent an additional $32 million from within their own resources. Did you hear of any breakdown within the health authorities of the kinds of equipment that were being either replaced or upgraded?

S. Culbertson: First of all, I don't believe that it was one-third of what they requested. Again, perhaps the numbers vary here. We focused the $100 million on real mission-critical stuff within health authorities, equipment which was critical to the life and health of people in a hospital environment. Whether that was what a hospital or health authority would have said was its global ambition for capital upgrades, I can't say. But we felt that we hit the mark fairly well. We didn't hear anything -- at least I didn't -- from health authorities suggesting that that money had not been well spent or that there had been some gap left that wasn't filled.

In fact, the health authorities themselves had commented about the work that was done on Y2K and it's just a legacy for them, that they were better able to communicate among health authorities around best practices that were coordinated with the Ministry of Health. So if one health authority was saying, "We have this issue and here's how we've dealt with it, and it seems to have worked" -- that kind of communications best practices network that was built into this health case. . . .

The $32 million that I talk about is, again, an estimate of what the Ministry of Health feels that health authorities themselves absorbed out of existing allocations direct to Y2K costs, measured somewhat the same way that we did around direct, indirect and allocated costs.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): My second question has to do with the Ministry of Attorney General. Now I've heard -- and I'd like to hear from you whether or not this is correct -- that they turned their computers back so as not to have to deal with Y2K. What happens when the critical date comes forward for them?

[0915]

J. Weisbeck: One of our initial concerns when we started talking about the whole problem was staffing. I know that we had talked about Camosun College, which had trained 24 people to work on Y2K. What was the experience? Did we handle a lot of this material in-house, or did you have to do a lot of contracting? What was the relationship between the two, as far as percentages? How much was in-house, and how much was contracted out?

S. Culbertson: I don't have that percentage number, but I can tell you that there was a fair mix of use of new in-house staff and contracted staff. The contracted staff was in two forms: there might be an individual that was brought in on contract to work on Y2K within a ministry, or it might be a firm that was brought in as a project to do independent assessments of Y2K costs. I don't have that breakout with me, but it was a mix of both.

J. Weisbeck: On the same question, setting aside the Y2K problem -- and we spent an awful lot of money -- how was

[ Page 1478 ]

Secondly, I think one of our biggest problems in government is that we have no integration between systems. Was there any improvement in integration? Are ministries talking to one another? You said there was a lot of cooperation between ministries. Are we now talking electronically a lot better between ministries than we were when we first started this whole process?

S. Culbertson: I think that the answer to the first question is yes; there were a lot of information system upgrades done in doing this. Some ministries have got a considerably better capital stock of IT equipment than they had before the Y2K exercise, largely because in some cases it was cheaper to replace equipment rather than fix it. It was the same within hospitals.

As I mentioned, the cooperation that we struck here and some of the things that we watched going back and forth in the system have really set the foundation for the government's new information technology strategy, InfoSmart, that was released on April 20. That does fundamentally redefine roles and responsibilities in government about who does what -- what ISTA does, what ministries do. It is going to move us in a period of three years to changing a number of things such as e-mail systems, so that we move to one e-mail system, not a couple of them.

We did, in the course of the exercise, have some problems where some ministries couldn't electronically talk to each other as well as they might have, particularly if they were passing attachments back and forth between two e-mail systems. So we're taking that on now in the InfoSmart strategy. We're building it, strategically, on a fairly high level of sensitivity and knowledge now of what information technology systems mean to the business of government.

M. Coell: Just a follow-up on Mr. Weisbeck's question, because that's what I was interested in. The interrelationship hasn't been all that good for some time between different government ministries, agencies and Crown corporations. I'm encouraged to hear that some positive work has occurred because of the Y2K initiatives in that regard.

Will your agency be carrying on to drive that to a fully integrated system? I think I heard you say that that's part of what you're going to be doing in the future. If that is the case, then when would you anticipate that the government would be fully integrated in terms of the ability for difference agencies, ministries and Crown corps to be able to communicate effectively through their computer systems? Is there a time line that's been set?

[0920]

What we've done is redefined, really, what the common electricity of government should be in its information technology systems. It's not just data processors anymore; it's e-mails, servers, desktops -- areas like that. We'll be moving to a common standard of operability between all of those.

S. Orcherton: Just to follow up that one final question, does ISTA have the authority or the mandate to instruct different ministries on their purchasing for computer systems?

S. Culbertson: In some areas -- in the common areas. For example, on telecommunications networks and services, both voice and data, we are the only agency in the government that can contract that service from suppliers. If ministries had attempted, as they have in the past, to sometimes gauge their own contracting in that area, that's no longer permitted, and we have cabinet direction in that area.

S. Orcherton: Thanks.

R. Kasper: I was just curious. It deals with the Crown corporations. In what years were these expenditures made? Do you have a record of that? Then, my other question is: when would one get a breakdown for the health authorities, dealing with the direct incremental, direct allocated, indirect cost and transition cost? Or is the total figure, exactly, used for targeted capital funds costs? Do you have any idea of what those other costs are?

S. Culbertson: There are two tables. I believe you have them there -- pages 50 and 51 of the report. The first one, on the Crown corporation costs and the in-government costs -- these would be 1996 to the year 2000.

R. Kasper: So that's over a four-year period?

S. Culbertson: Over a four-year period. And page 51 sums up the total cost by health authority. I think your question is filling in the blanks around the incremental allocated and indirect costs. I could get back to you or the committee on that. I'm not sure. . . .

R. Kasper: Well, is there not a mechanism to sort of have a conclusion? Did the province allocate this money so there would be a follow-up or reconciliation of how the dollars were spent -- you know, accountability? Right?

S. Culbertson: Uh-huh.

R. Kasper: I'm assuming that. Okay, so I'm not in a panic to get it, but I'm assuming that you would get that information.

Now, going back to the Crown corporations, I have a little trouble understanding these terms: direct incremental costs, direct allocated costs, direct costs and then transition costs. I'll go with the latter. Transition costs, I'm assuming, are when the new system is up and operating both before and after. Am I correct?

[ Page 1479 ]

R. Kasper: Okay. You know, I have a hard time understanding the true meaning of these terms. Now, go to ICBC, and there's a $21 million cost. I'm assuming that that is a brand-new system. Am I right or wrong? Like a brand-new computer system for ICBC.

S. Culbertson: It might not be a brand-new system. ICBC has quite an extensive IT capital budget and electronic service delivery stock. So it could be an upgrade, remediation tests, new systems in some cases. These are all incorporated in the costs. I would doubt very much it's a cost that says: "Let's just get rid of our old system and bring in a brand-new system."

R. Kasper: Just out of curiosity, didn't ICBC spend $40 million on a new computer system some time ago?

S. Culbertson: Some of that might be incorporated in this cost.

R. Thorpe (Chair): You could ask that question in estimates.

R. Kasper: No, I just wanted to at least know if you knew that, Mr. Culbertson.

S. Culbertson: I don't have that information.

R. Kasper: Now, in your report you did say that the capital expenditure included. . . . Oh, let's see, with all the agents -- right? You know, to upgrade all the agents across the province with ICBC. . . . I can't remember what page it's on.

S. Culbertson: I think there is a reference in the report to some of the work that was done at ICBC and its agents. ICBC does run an integrated network with its agents throughout the province. If there were some upgrades that were required in that. . . .

R. Kasper: So if ICBC did go out and purchase a big brand-new system some time ago. . . . First of all, I'm assuming that they did spend a large sum of money. If they did spend a large sum of money, I find it odd that there was an additional $21 million spent in capital. Would this direct incremental cost relate to capital?

[0925]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Maybe what we could do, Rick, is that we could. . . .

R. Kasper: Well, you know, I could be wrong on the $40 million. It's just that. . . .

R. Thorpe (Chair): No, I remember that number myself, actually. Maybe we could just ask Stuart to follow up with ICBC on that particular question that the member asked and supply it through the Clerk's office, and we'll distribute it to the members. Thank you.

R. Kasper: And Stuart, you're going to give me an interpretation of what direct incremental, direct allocated, direct cost and transition cost mean, because I'm having a hard time at this stage.

P. Calendino: It's page 49.

S. Culbertson: I'm looking at page 48. I'm sorry; I've just been trying to find this, which is appendix 5.

R. Kasper: Page 49.

S. Culbertson: Pages 48 and 49. . .

R. Kasper: That's fine; I can read it myself.

S. Culbertson: . . . talk about how we did this. Again, we did this in an effort to standardize this across government so that we weren't getting an apples-and-oranges report. We worked with Arn and his staff at the comptroller general to figure out what would be acceptable costs in this area.

R. Kasper: Okay, that's fine. It's page 49.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Any further questions, Mr. Kasper?

R. Kasper: No.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Stuart, I have a couple of questions here. With respect to the recommendations that you have advised us would be costed, for the most part, on a neutral basis, what kind of follow-up procedure on the recommendations is in place? Who's the champion who's charged with the ongoing follow-up of the recommendations and the status of them?

S. Culbertson: We have a deputy ministers' committee on emergency preparedness, which is the main deputy ministers' committee that we had been working with through the Y2K project. They would certainly be the committee that will be engaged in following up on this, and I'm a member of that committee.

[0930]

S. Culbertson: They meet quarterly.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Are there regular agenda items, and will this become one of the regular agenda items? What I'm concerned about here. . .

S. Culbertson: Yes.

R. Thorpe (Chair): . . .as I've seen and other members have pointed out before, is that many of these things we talk

[ Page 1480 ]

S. Culbertson: This would be the committee that would be doing that. Certainly for my part, I will be bringing this to the committee and using it as a vehicle to track progress on this.

R. Thorpe (Chair): As you are aware, this year most ministries, if not all ministries, are tabling business plans and performance plans. To your knowledge, are these recommendations factored into the business plans and performance plans for this year?

S. Culbertson: I haven't seen them for other agencies, but I certainly know that in our agency's performance plan, we spent some time talking about IT security and some of the outcomes that we're going to be working towards on IT security. I can speak from our agency's point of view that yes, they are.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I can remember having the people from PEP here, and one of the things that they mentioned was the limited resources they have to do what they're charged with doing now. I want to make sure that with respect to that organization, the recommendations in your report, as they impact. . . . I think they're on page 21 and 22. Did you go over those with the provincial emergency program people, and are they all factored into their business plans going forward?

S. Culbertson: This set of recommendations certainly was not imposed on the provincial emergency preparedness program. In fact, it came from working with them in terms of if they had to get through this again, what would they want to include or upgrade. You can see in the report that some of this is already underway, including the new emergency software and equipment. That suggests to me that budget and resources have been allocated to doing this.

You'll note also that I think a lot of this is keeping some of the coordinated mechanisms that we had in place, which is essentially an allocation of existing staff resources and time to participate in interagency committees and coordination structures that probably are less expensive than maybe systems upgrades.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thanks for answering those questions. One of the things that the committee has adopted is a fairly disciplined follow-up procedure going forward. . . . I suppose that the auditor general, in their review, then, would be best to monitor the progress of this deputy ministers' committee by looking at the minutes of those meetings and the business plans and then reporting back to this committee twice a year on this particular subject. Would you agree with that?

S. Culbertson: That would be one mechanism. We could file reports directly, as well, if that would be the wish of the committee.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We'll leave that up to the auditor general's department. Does the auditor general have any questions?

P. Gregory: No, no questions. In terms of follow-up, I think the process we established is that the agency itself might make representations that would flow through our office, and to the extent the committee wanted information and reliability, we could provide that. That might be the right mechanism in this case.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Arn, do you have any comments?

A. van Iersel: I do have a comment. I'd like to formally thank the Action 2000 office for leading us in government through this. It was a tough year in the sense that they asked for many things, but I believe, in the end, that we forestalled the year 2000 problem.

I agree with Stuart, too, in the sense that there have been some legacies left here. Both CAS and CTB21 benefited in terms of the investments that were made, somewhat related to Y2K.

I think the other thing that's happened, like Stuart's alluding to on a government level, is that the ministry has taken its Y2K committee and transferred that into an ongoing business continuation group at the executive level. There are things that don't add a lot of cost but do improve coordination. I'd like to thank the office for that.

R. Thorpe (Chair): One question I forgot to ask: does InfoSmart include all Crown corporations?

S. Culbertson: No, it doesn't.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So InfoSmart is not, then, covering all the new government entities; it's just covering what used to be called central government. Is that correct?

[0935]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much, and thank you to your team for keeping the committee up to date on a regular basis. We wish everyone well in the future.

The next item we have to discuss is the reviewing of the draft committee report to the House on the "1999 Follow-up of Performance Audits/Reviews," "Management of Travel, Executive Severance Practices" and "Trucking Safety."

K. Dunsdon: On April 20 our office circulated a draft report for members' review and comment, which is the report you have in front of you today: "1999 Follow-up of Performance Audits/Reviews." You'll see that since the last copy was circulated, the title has been changed slightly to list the topics that are actually included in the report and make it a bit more clear.

[ Page 1481 ]

The draft report is divided into three sections, which discuss the committee's work on each topic. If it's all right with everyone, I'll go through each section and summarize the content of it.

The first section is on management of travel. On the first page you'll see there it talks about the original audit done by the auditor general in 1996 and reported on by him in the spring of 1997. The committee reported to the House on the original audit in the spring of 1998. In 1999 the office of the auditor general did follow-up work to determine how many of its recommendations had been acted on by the ministry. The committee considered the results of that follow-up work in October 1999.

To summarize the contents of this part of the report, on page 8 you'll see a discussion of the 1995 travel review that was done by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations. That review resulted in recommendations to the government, including some that are outlined on pages 8 and 9 of the report.

The auditor general recommended that the government review those recommendations and take the necessary steps to reduce travel expenditures. When the committee met in October to discuss the findings of the 1999 follow-up, members were told that most of the 1995 government travel review recommendations had been implemented, except for two that were determined not to be cost-effective. You'll see those on page 9 of the draft report.

Beginning on page 9 of the report is a discussion of evidence the committee received concerning information-gathering for better travel management. The auditor general had recommended in 1997 that the government develop short- and long-term information collection strategies. In October 1999 the committee was told by ministry representatives that this recommendation had been fully implemented. You'll see a discussion there about the Amex card and business travel accounts.

On page 10 of the draft report is information relating to the way that government has provided direction to government travellers. The auditor general had recommended that travel policies be consolidated into one document and specific examples given to employees regarding cost-effective travel choices. The committee received submissions about the pocket travel guide and the general management operating policy.

On page 11 of the draft report there's a discussion of how the government monitors how travel dollars are spent. In 1997 the auditor general had recommended that government monitor this through strategic planning, policy development and evaluation.

[0940]

The committee also considered the topic of airfare savings options. There is a discussion of that issue on pages 12 and 13 of the report, as well as a 1994 study prepared for cabinet on that issue. Page 14 of the draft report contains a discussion of reimbursement rates as a bargaining item in collective agreement negotiations. The committee also discussed reimbursement rates for personal car use.

Meal costs, administration of the payment process and the use of video conferencing as an alternative to travel are found on pages 15 and 16 of the report. The auditor general had recommended that meal costs at frequently travelled locations be periodically examined to determine the reasonableness of reimbursement rates. When the follow-up was done in 1999, it was determined that this recommendation had been fully implemented. There had also been a recommendation that the corporate travel card be promoted, and as we've heard, there is greater use of Amex. This recommendation has also been fully implemented. The committee also received submissions about the electronic travel voucher form that's being tried on a pilot project basis.

Pages 18 and 19 of the report contain draft committee recommendations for members to discuss today. For the auditor general recommendations on management of travel that were considered only partially implemented or not implemented at all when the follow-up review was done, I have drafted a committee recommendation that incorporates those.

As I mentioned, there are also three additional draft committee recommendations concerning electronic travel voucher forms, the corporate accounting system and preferred travel agency agreements. Finally, the Chair has also suggested that a fifth recommendation be added on page 19, which would read as follows. Actually, you'll see it right there: "A report prepared by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations should be tabled with the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts as to what has actually been done with respect to recommendations 1, 2, 3 and 4. This report is to be tabled no later than October 31 of 2000."

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Kelly. Before we get into questions, any comments from the auditor general's office?

P. Gregory: None, thank you.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Any comments from the comptroller general's office?

A. van Iersel: No, hon. Chair. We've been through the report and provided our minor editing previously.

J. Weisgerber: Mr. Chairman, at the last meeting -- you were away -- I questioned this whole mechanism. I don't in

[ Page 1482 ]

I really wonder why we're going to considerable effort to produce a document for an audience that I have yet to be able to determine. I don't know who's reading it when we're all done with it. I'd like to have a discussion about whether or not we should continue with this practice, because I quite honestly think that if we're going to recommend economies to government, we should perhaps look at our own house first.

[0945]

What I'm hearing -- and you correct me if I'm wrong, Jack -- is that we seem to be taking a long time to get through that process -- trying to rediscover America on some of these issues, and America's actually been discussed. Have I got that? And we should be moving a little quicker here. Is that. . . ?

J. Weisgerber: I wonder about the need to prepare a report, first of all. That's the first question. The second is. . . . Assuming that we have some statutory obligation to do that, I wonder at the need to reprint most of the auditor general's report and most of the responses from the ministry. It seems to me that for anybody who's interested, that information's already available. It seems to me that we're preparing a pretty complete and pretty thorough document.

Again, this is not a criticism of the people who are preparing the work. I just wonder whether or not it's read enough, given the facts that people are reading the auditor general's report and in that report the basic response from the ministry is there. There's not much that comes here that's sort of a blinding light that's shone. I think there are useful questions asked, and those are reflected in Hansard. I would see a much more abbreviated form of report if we're obliged to report, which would essentially be the recommendations that we're making.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We are obliged to report; it's a statutory requirement. If the committee members want to focus their attention on the recommendations and move those through quickly, yes, we can do that. It's the will of the committee.

Mr. Farrell-Collins, you had a comment?

G. Farrell-Collins: I do think there's a lot of work that goes into preparing the reports, but I also note that they're often a restatement of what's in the auditor general's report. Perhaps to save Kelly and the committee some time, if the reports really just focused on those areas where we had specific comments or specific recommendations over and above what's already contained in the auditor general's report, that might save everybody both writing and reading time and perhaps encourage more people to read our reports as opposed to just filing them.

E. Walsh: I just want to say that I agree with both Gary and Jack here, because what I would like to see is a focus more on the recommendations and, if there needs to be any reference made to the auditor general's report, that the reference be made in the report but without all the pages and pages of reading. I think that's some direction that we as a committee need to move forward on to Kelly and let her know that this is probably where we've fallen down. We should have actually been a little bit more clear on what kind of information we want in these reports.

R. Thorpe (Chair): That's fine. I know how many hours and days and weeks that Kelly and the staff put into preparing this. They will act on the direction of this committee. The way this is heading right now, I'm sure their smiles will be even bigger.

As we head in that direction -- and it's only a week or two ago that we had some committee members asking for more detail -- we have to be unified in where we're going on this. I know that in this particular report, there were two members of this committee that reported back. They know who they were. If committee members want to focus in on the recommendations, I totally support that. If anyone wants to speak against that, let's get that on the table now, and then we can move forward with these reports.

D. Zirnhelt: Just a suggestion. Couldn't the Chair and the Deputy Chair get together with the Clerk and just kind of review this item and come back with some recommendations?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Yeah, we can. But. . . .

D. Zirnhelt: It's a management issue, really, and I feel uncomfortable getting into detailed discussions of that kind here.

[0950]

I will say that I too am concerned about who reads the report. These reports go both to the House and to anyone who's participated in the formation of the report -- any of the witnesses that come to the committee. And it's available on request. So if this committee has some concern that our reports be taken seriously and be acted upon, I think that brevity is very important and for us to be very clear about what it is that this committee is recommending.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Are there any other comments from anyone?

[ Page 1483 ]

P. Calendino: I'd like to agree with Mr. Weisgerber. I think this kind of reporting is time-consuming. It consumes time at this committee meeting, and the Chair at the beginning of the meeting said we have a lot of work to cover. This is the type of work that delays the essential work that we need to cover. The important part is this committee going through the auditor's report, accepting recommendations, adding to the recommendations if the committee wants to. And when we report to the Legislature, we report the auditor's report with our recommendations if we have to.

Having to go through reports like this. . . . And it's not only once that we see the report. It's a number of times that they come back to us, and we correct and re-correct, etc. It's a time-consuming effort that I'm not sure adds any value to what we have to do in this committee.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. Yes, Dennis?

D. Streifel: Maybe I'll pass, Chair, in that I think that consensus is building in the committee that we want a different format for our reports -- less complicated, more concise. And I agree with the presentation of Mr. Weisgerber that that would probably speed us along our way.

R. Thorpe (Chair): In that regard, then, can we finalize the first section here on recommendations? Since we want to be brief and move forward, are we going to finalize the recommendations in these draft recommendations?

M. Coell: I move approval of the first section.

G. Farrell-Collins: Seconded.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Mr. Coell moved it, and Mr. Farrell-Collins seconded it. Does everyone agree with the recommendations in the first section?

Motion approved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Good. We'll now move to the second part, Kelly, very briefly, because I would very much like us to get through this report today.

R. Kasper: Just a question of clarification. We're approving the recommendations, not necessarily the report.

G. Farrell-Collins: It's the same thing.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I would suggest that it's the same thing for this report. Everyone has had this report; they've had drafts of this report. Surely, if people want to be seen as serious members of this committee, they could have had some of this feedback back to the Chair or to the Deputy Chair or to the staff before we got into this impasse.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): With respect, hon. Chair, I would just like to say that this is the first opportunity of the committee to review this report. It has been circulated, but this is our first opportunity to discuss it. So, you know, we are proceeding through. I think the question has been raised. We have agreed to the recommendations. Given the discussion we've had previously, is it your understanding, Chair, that we are then accepting the first section of the report as it stands? Or have we accepted merely the recommendations of the report?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Since this report has been completed and since it's in its final stages of drafting, I would personally conclude that we would just move forward -- if we're going to adopt something new, it will be with the next report -- and that we conclude this one. And we'll move forward. That would be my position. Mr. Weisgerber, would that meet with your approval?

[0955]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Could we then deal with the next set of recommendations?

A Voice: So moved.

Motion approved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Could we move with the third set of recommendations?

A Voice: So moved.

Motion approved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. So this report has now been finalized. That's moving rather quickly, isn't it? Motion to adopt the report? So moved, Mr. Coell? Motion for me to present the report to the House?

A Voice: So moved.

Motion approved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Craig, you wanted to talk about a couple of things.

C. James: Well, very briefly, for members. As I had mentioned at previous meetings, the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees is holding its annual meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, September 17-19 of this year. That's Sunday through Tuesday. In conjunction but as a separate organization, there is, as well, some sharing of business sessions. The Conference of Legislative Auditors holds its annual meeting at the same time and the same place. For those members who have an interest in attending this meeting, if they could let me know as soon as possible. . . . Unfortunately, the invitations and the agenda have yet to be circulated. But as soon as they are, we will distribute them to all members of the committee for their information.

[ Page 1484 ]

C. James: The committee raised, a couple of meetings ago, the issue of premature disclosure of committee reports to the House, and I have sent a memo to both the Chair and the Deputy Chair respecting the practice of this committee. Today or tomorrow I'll send the same copy to the rest of the members of the committee just so that they are fully informed. If they have any questions, they can deal with it in the committee or with the Chair or Deputy Chair or with myself at any time.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I would ask that we place that item first on the agenda for the next meeting and that if anyone has any concerns, perhaps from the government side, they could talk to the Deputy Chair. From the independent and official opposition side, they could talk to me. The Deputy Chair and I will get together before the next meeting to make sure that we have everyone onside -- or that we know what the issues are, so we can deal with them in a prompt manner.

R. Kasper: Well, I was going to venture to make a motion that the Chair and the Deputy Chair meet with the Clerk's office to go over the issue of content of our reports. So that's my motion.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I've been advised that that's not necessary, but if you'd like to carry forward with that motion. . . .

R. Kasper: Well, I think you mentioned direction.

R. Thorpe (Chair): All those in favour. . . .

Motion approved.

R. Kasper: And I would like to add "referencing Hansard" and the discussion and comments made.

A Voice: Too late. The motion's passed already.

R. Kasper: I know. It's just guidance; I just added it. That's all part of my motion.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Motion to adjourn?

The committee adjourned at 9:58 a.m.

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