Public Services and Procurement Canada Report on annual expenditures for travel, hospitality and conferences

As required by the Treasury Board Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures, this report provides information on the annual expenditures for each of travel, hospitality and conference fees for Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015. It also provides the variance explanations from the previous fiscal year in each of these areas.

This information is updated annually and does not contain information withheld under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act.

Expenditures on travel, hospitality and conference fees incurred by federal departments and agencies are related to activities supporting a departmental or agency mandate and the government's priorities.

In particular, PSPC is a common service organization providing government departments, boards and agencies with support services for their programs that include:

• Procurement;
• Office accommodation and facilities;
• Architectural and engineering services;
• Construction, maintenance and repair of public works and federal real property;
• Pay and pension services;
• Receiver General, treasury of Canada and accounts administration;
• Linguistic services;
• Industrial security screening; and
• Specialized programs, government-wide applications and greening of government operations.

Annual expenditures for travel, hospitality and conferences of Public Services and Procurement Canada (in thousands of dollars)

Expenditure Category	Expenditures for the year ending March 31, 2015 ($000)	Expenditures for the previous year ending March 31, 2014 ($000)	Change ($000)
Travel – Public Servants	$10,427	$11,307	-$880
Travel – Non-Public Servants	$4,282	$1,210	$3,072
Total Travel	$14,709	$12,517	$2,192
Hospitality	$119	$119	$0
Conference Fees	$146	$135	$11
Total	$14,974	$12,771	$2,203
International Travel by Minister and Minister's staff (also included in Non-Public Servant travel)	$18	$16	$2

Significant variances compared with the previous fiscal year

This section provides a brief explanation of significant variances from the previous year's annual expenditures for each category.

Travel:

Public Servants: Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, departmental travel expenditures by public servants decreased mainly due to:

• Continued departmental efforts to reduce travel, hospitality and conference expenditures, such as: the use of teleconferencing and videoconferencing throughout the department; establishment of annual expenditure ceilings; and close monitoring of monthly travel, hospitality and conference expenditures by the departmental management committee.

Non-Public Servants: Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, departmental travel expenditures by non-public servants increased mainly due to:

• Modification to the Guideline on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures which requires travel expenses for contractors to be recorded as non-public service travel starting April 1, 2014. These expenses were previously recorded within the contractor's respective service contracts.

Hospitality:  Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, there was no significant variance in departmental hospitality expenditures.

Conference fees: Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, there was no significant variance in departmental conference fee expenditures.

Minister and Minister's staff: Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, there was no significant variance to departmental international travel expenditures by the minister and her staff.

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