1981

The government committed itself to provide Parliament with improved and expanded information in the Estimates. In particular Part III of the Estimates was designed to provide information to Parliament on departmental spending intentions and about performance and results produced by expenditures previously authorized.

1983

The government agreed to include summaries of program evaluations in Part III.

1995

The government revised the Expenditure Management System. As part of this initiative, it launched the Improved Reporting to Parliament Project, which split Part III of the Estimates into two documents:

• Report on Plans and Priorities—tabled in the spring, it sets targets and the general direction;
• Performance Report—tabled in the fall, it indicates the results achieved against those planned.

Six departments piloted the new approach.

The President of the Treasury Board tabled the first government-wide report describing progress made by implementing results-based management in federal departments and agencies. The report is part of the fall performance package and is tabled in Parliament with the departmental performance reports.

1996

Sixteen departments piloted the Improved Reporting to Parliament Project. The Treasury Board President tabled their performance reports in the House of Commons.

1997

On 24 April 1997, the House of Commons passed a motion dividing what was known as the Part III of the Estimates document for each department or agency into two documents, a Report on Plans & Priorities and a Departmental Performance Report. It also required all departments and agencies to table these reports on a pilot basis.

1998

Most departments and agencies submitted reports on plans and priorities and performance reports.

2000

The Treasury Board Secretariat published Results for Canadians, which emphasized the importance of ensuring timely and accurate reporting to Parliament.

2001

The Treasury Board Secretariat introduced the Results-Based Management Lexicon. This lexicon provided new, standardized terminology for results management and reporting.

The Treasury Board Secretariat published its renewed guidance to departments for the preparation of performance reports and introduced six principles for effective reporting.

2004

The Treasury Board Secretariat replaced the Planning, Reporting, and Accountability Structure Policy with the Management, Resources and Results Structure (MRRS) Policy, effective 1 April 2005.

The policy requires that departments have clearly defined and measurable strategic outcomes, an articulated Program Activity Architecture (an inventory of all the programs and activities undertaken by a department or agency that are depicted in their logical relationship to each other and to the strategic outcomes to which they contribute), and a description of the current governance structure.

The Treasury Board Secretariat published an integrated Guide for the Preparation of the 2005-2006 Part III of the Estimates: Reports on Plans and Priorities and Departmental Performance Reports. The goal of the integrated guidelines was to reinforce the complementary features of the two documents and their parallel reporting requirements.