Page recently fired a letter off to Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters, warning him of the urgency for the information as MPs prepare for the return of Parliament. He urged Wouters to reverse his earlier refusal “without further delay” and give departments the green light to turn over details about the savings and spending cuts so Page can fulfill his mandate to help MPs hold the government to account.
“This missing information hampers my office’s ability to carry out its legislative mandate and its provision is pressing,” he said in the Sept 5 letter.
The two have been in a standoff since May when Wouters, on behalf of deputy ministers, said his hands were tied by existing union agreements which prevented the release of such information. At that time, Page said he would wait until September before deciding whether to go to court to force the release as a “last resort.” Wouters and Page have not met on the issue despite several failed efforts to schedule meetings over the summer.
The Sept. 5 letter, however, makes no mention of legal action and steers clear of language that would further inflame tensions. Page asks that the information be released in two phases with new deadlines. He wants the first batch of 10 departments to send details of their cuts by Sept 17 and the remainder by Sept. 24.
Instead, Page’s letter emphasizes how critical the information is for MPs to determine the impact of the cuts.
He points Canada’s chequered track record since 1995 when governments claim to rely on “efficiencies ” — from new technology, revamped operations or layoffs — to achieve major savings targets. All indications are that departments are banking on generating two-thirds of the cuts in budget 2012 by boosting efficiency while maintaining the same level of service.
These kinds of savings are risky and departments that can’t meet their reduction targets have to dig deeper to find savings elsewhere and could starve services and other operations.
“Savings premised on new information technology investments, change management and reduction in staff may prove elusive and contain unforeseen costs in implementation,” Page wrote.
“A resulting financial gap could create service level pressures other program integrity impacts or require a financial writedown. These type of impacts have been observed at the federal level through various austerity savings measures in budgets form 1995 through 2005.”
Meanwhile, Page is using data his office collects to create his own analysis, which will be released in quarterly installments to MPs, to track the impact of the $37 billion in spending cuts the Conservatives have introduced in the past three federal budgets. He will begin with a report later this month.
He is relying on non-public data collected by the Receiver-General, which handles all government payments, and other internal data shared by federal organizations on how money is spent by program.
The reports will be able to track whether expenditures by program in the various departments go up or down. This will help MPs to track what activities are being cut or eliminated, but they won’t have the information to determine how achievable those cuts are; the possible risks, impacts on service or the number of jobs lost.
Page’s standoff with the clerk is the office’s latest clash with the Conservative government, which has accused Page of overstepping his mandate.
The government has insisted details of cutbacks will be released in the normal channels, such as hearings at parliamentary committees, departments’ annual reports on plans and priorities, quarterly reports or in supplementary estimates.
So far, the government has released few, if any, specific details through these channels, and Page worries MPs may not know the full impact of the cuts until next spring when they table their next reports on plans and priorities.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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