The CCA Applauds the Blue Ribbon Panel’s Report on Grants and Contributions

CCA Bul­letin 06/07

Ottawa, Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 19, 2007

Dear reg­u­lar CCA Bul­letin reader – Please note that in the next two weeks we are antic­i­pat­ing an unusu­ally heavy cycle of bul­letin com­mu­ni­ca­tions ema­nat­ing from our Ottawa bureau.   So, please keep your eyes peeled on your inbox for devel­op­ments regard­ing our activ­i­ties and the won­der­ful world of Cana­dian fed­eral cul­tural policy!

Just the Facts

The Blue Rib­bon Panel on Grants and Con­tri­bu­tions has finally released its report to the Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board, the Hon. Vic Toews.

While some pre­dicted that the Blue Rib­bon Panel would rec­om­mend fur­ther restric­tions or cur­tail­ing grants totally, instead they have pre­sented a coher­ent and respon­si­ble approach to man­ag­ing grants and con­tri­bu­tions through­out the Cana­dian fed­eral government.

Grants and con­tri­bu­tions rep­re­sent an annual expen­di­ture of almost $27 bil­lion. The report presents a wide range of con­sen­sus amongst the recip­i­ents of grants and con­tri­bu­tions who uni­formly com­plained of oner­ous account­abil­ity require­ments, delays in decision-making and/or the release of funds.  Inter­ven­ers also told the Panel that there should be uni­form stan­dards for pro­gram design, eval­u­a­tion, and admin­is­tra­tion across the fed­eral government’s net­work of depart­ments and agencies.

The Panel addresses these con­cerns with 32 clear, sen­si­ble rec­om­men­da­tions to elim­i­nate overly com­plex account­abil­ity mea­sures and to estab­lish pro­gram admin­is­tra­tion stan­dards as well as clear def­i­n­i­tions and terms for grants and con­tri­bu­tions through­out the fed­eral system.

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has, for some time now, been mak­ing the case for less oner­ous account­abil­ity require­ments that should be reflec­tive of the amounts of money in ques­tion.  The CCA is pleased to see that the Panel’s report endorses this posi­tion in its rec­om­men­da­tions.  The Panel also rec­om­mends that multi-year fund­ing be stan­dard­ized and that grant and con­tri­bu­tion recip­i­ents be given more flex­i­bil­ity in the man­age­ment of funds within the over­all project budgets.

The Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board has thanked the Panel for its work and has indi­cated that the Gov­ern­ment will pro­ceed with the imple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions, which accord­ing to the Panel, should be spread over a period of four months to three years.

Tell Me More

The Panel was cre­ated by the pre­vi­ous Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board, the Hon. John Baird (now Min­is­ter of the Envi­ron­ment) in order to exam­ine the host of grants and con­tri­bu­tion pro­grams oper­ated by the fed­eral government.

The Pan­elists were Frances Lankin, Ian Clark, and Marc Tel­lier, who had to with­draw from the panel for busi­ness con­sid­er­a­tions.  The Panel con­sulted with Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, pub­lic ser­vants, grant and con­tri­bu­tion recip­i­ents, and con­ducted online con­sul­ta­tions with recip­i­ents and pro­gram man­agers within the government.

The Report of the Blue Rib­bon Panel con­tains some very inter­est­ing insights into the use of grants and contributions

In addi­tion to the 32 spe­cific rec­om­men­da­tions the Panel dis­tilled them into four sim­ple pro­pos­als to government;

• Respect the recip­i­ents – they are part­ners in a shared pub­lic pur­pose. Grant and con­tri­bu­tion pro­grams should be citizen-focused. The pro­grams should be made acces­si­ble, under­stand­able and useable.
• Dra­mat­i­cally sim­plify the report­ing and account­abil­ity regime – it should reflect the cir­cum­stances and capac­i­ties of the recip­i­ents and the real needs of the gov­ern­ment and Parliament.
• Encour­age inno­va­tion – the goal of grant and con­tri­bu­tions pro­grams is not to elim­i­nate errors but to achieve results, and that requires a sen­si­ble regime of risk man­age­ment and per­for­mance reporting.
• Orga­nize infor­ma­tion so that it serves recip­i­ents and pro­gram man­agers alike.

Another use­ful ele­ment to the Report is the break­down of how the almost  $27 bil­lion in grants and con­tri­bu­tions is spent. Accord­ing to the Panel it is as follows:

Recip­i­ent Categories	Grants and Contributions
First Nations Communities	$ 4,901,900,000.
Other Abo­rig­i­nal Recip­i­ents (includ­ing organizations)	$ 982,900,000.
Farm­ers and Fishers	$ 1,920,000,000.
Provin­cial, Ter­ri­to­r­ial and Munic­i­pal Governments	$ 4,821,300,000.
Inter­na­tional Gov­ern­ments and Organizations	$ 2,983,500,000.
Vet­er­ans, Forces Mem­bers and Survivors	$ 1,848,100,000.
Busi­nesses	$ 1,477,500,000.
Uni­ver­si­ties and Research Institutions	$ 2,155,800,000.
Other Not-For Profit Organizations	$ 2,915,100,000.
Remain­der (not allo­cated to a recip­i­ent category)	$ 2,915,100,000.
Total	$ 26,961,700,000.

The CCA con­grat­u­lates the Blue Rib­bon Pan­elists for a thor­ough, thought­ful, and con­struc­tive Report.  They have once again val­i­dated the impor­tance of grants and con­tri­bu­tions as impor­tant tools of gov­ern­ment, and have stressed the part­ner­ship between gov­ern­ment and the recip­i­ents in the devel­op­ment of pol­icy and ser­vices in the inter­ests of all Cana­di­ans.  Now it falls to Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and the pub­lic that elects them to put these rec­om­men­da­tions into action, to the ben­e­fit of everyone.

What Can I Do?

You can write a let­ter or email to the Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board (Toews.V@parl.gc.ca) in order to con­grat­u­late the Blue Rib­bon Panel on Grants and Con­tri­bu­tions on its work and to encour­age the Gov­ern­ment to of Canada imple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions with expe­di­ency and vigour.