- Production of the 2006–2007
Main Estimates:
- On-line Manuscripts
- Standard Objects of
Expenditure Reports
- Explanation of
Year-Over-Year Resource Changes (comparison between 2006–2007 and 2005–2006)
- 2006–2007 Interim Supply Requirements
This letter identifies the key requirements and
provides critical dates for the preparation of the above material.
Timelines
All documentation is due at the Treasury Board Secretariat (the Secretariat) within one week of being notified that your on-line manuscripts are ready to be
reviewed and/or completed (all to
be completed by mid-December 2005).
If your minister has not signed the Annual Reference
Level Update (ARLU) submission, he or she must sign a paper copy of the Main
Estimates on-line manuscript and forward it to the Secretariat no later than January 26, 2006.
According to Standing Order 81(4) Main Estimates
must be tabled on or before March 1,
2006.
Access On-line:
The Secretariat has embarked on a
process to modernize its management of government expenditures through the
Expenditure Management Information System (EMIS).
One of the features of EMIS is the introduction of
an on-line application for Main Estimates for the 2006-2007 exercise. The use of this application is mandatory and
will be available in late November.
As a result organizations are to submit their Main
Estimates manuscripts and other related material on-line via the EMIS
Publiservice web site at http://publiservice.tbs-sct.gc.ca/emis-sigd/index_e.asp.
Organizations that do not have access to the
Publiservice web site must contact the EMIS Help Centre by telephone at
(613) 948-1901 or by e-mail at emis-sigd@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
Users of the Main Estimates on-line application are
required to obtain a Government of Canada digital certificate. Information on how to obtain this
certificate can be found in Annex E.
Training
Training for Main Estimates on-line will take place
at
400 Cooper St.,
4th Floor,
Ottawa, Ontario
and is scheduled for the following dates:
English sessions for small to medium departments
Friday, November 25, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Monday, November 28, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Thursday, December 1, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Friday, December 2, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
English sessions for large departments
Monday,
December 5, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 8, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Friday, December 9, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
French sessions for small to medium departments
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 1, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
French sessions for large departments
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 8, 2005
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Friday, December 9, 2005
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Small to medium sized departments will be invited to
complete their Main Estimates online during the last portion of training. For those organizations that decide to take
advantage of this, please bring a valid password (see Annex E for further
details).
To reserve a place at one of the sessions, please
register with the EMIS Help Centre by telephone at (613) 948-1901 or by e-mail
at emis-sigd@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
Alternative Procedures
In the event that there is a disruption of service
or that the functionality for the on-line application is unavailable, please
contact the EMIS help centre by telephone at (613) 948-1901 or by
e-mail at emis-siga@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
Instructions on how to complete and submit the Main
Estimates on-line manuscripts are provided in the attached annexes.
Attachments
Annex A: Main Estimates On-line
Manuscripts
Annex B: Standard Objects of
Expenditure Report and Expenditures Internal to the Government Report
Annex C: Explanation of
Year-Over-Year Resource Changes
Annex D: Interim Supply Requirements
Annex E: Government of Canada
Digital Certificate
Internet Services
This call letter and the detailed instructions are
available on the Secretariat's Web site at http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/est-pre/estimE.asp.
Mail Services
If required, it is recommended that you send all
material by messenger service or equivalent to:
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Mail and
Messenger Services
300 Laurier Avenue West
Level P3 West
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R5
To the attention of:
Administrative Assistant
(Mail Stop # 4)
Expenditure Operations and Estimates Directorate
Expenditure Management Sector
7th Floor,
East Tower
140 O'Connor Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R5
Comments
We value your feedback. Please send
any comments about these
instructions or about the process to: Purdy.Estelle@tbs-sct.gc.ca
David Moloney
Assistant Secretary
Expenditure Management Sector
Attachments
Annex A
MAIN ESTIMATES
ON-LINE MANUSCRIPTS
Main Estimates information will continue to be
presented using program activities from your approved departmental Program
Activity Architecture (PAA), with the exception of the Corporate Services
activity.
Corporate Services or its equivalent will not be
displayed in Main Estimates; the funds associated with this activity will be
distributed among the remaining program activities.
Distribution of the funds will be in accordance with
the algorithm your organization supplied to the
Secretariat last year. However, if your organization did not submit an algorithm, the Secretariat will continue to distribute the funding equally
among the remaining activities.
Note that, while it
is possible for departments to change their algorithm from one year to the next, departments should
be aware that fluctuations in their program activity totals must be explained.
Therefore, it is recommended that a consistent algorithm be applied each year.
Any changes to the algorithm are to be provided to the Secretariat using the
Main Estimates on-line comment box.
Main Estimates
material must be completed and submitted on-line (in both official languages) to the Secretariat using
the Expenditure Management Information System (EMIS) at http://publiservice.tbs-sct.gc.ca/emis-sigd/index_e.asp.
Organizations that do not have access to the
Publiservice web site must contact the EMIS Help Centre by telephone at
(613) 948-1901 or by e-mail at emis-sigd@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
Departments will be
notified by the Secretariat (via e-mail) once their manuscripts are ready to be
reviewed and/or completed on-line.
Once you submit your Main Estimates to the Secretariat, you will no longer be able to edit information.
However, you can continue to view and print your Main Estimates data.
If your minister has not signed your ARLU submission, he or she must sign the
Main Estimates manuscripts. Departments are to print a paper copy of the
on-line material, obtain the minister's signature, and forward the original
signed package to the Secretariat no
later than January 26, 2006.
Since departments will submit their Main Estimates
on-line, it will no longer be necessary for them to verify page proofs. As a
result, departments will be notified (by e-mail) once their Main
Estimates manuscripts have been finalized and are ready for publishing. At this
stage, the vote numbering will be final and departments can view their final
information on-line.
When the Senior Financial Officer (SFO) receives the
final notification (by e-mail), he or she must confirm acceptance within two days of receipt, indicating
that the Main Estimates data is correct and providing assurance that, if any
major changes have been made since the 2006–2007 ARLU submission, the minister
has been duly informed. Confirmation can be made by responding to the e-mail or
by fax to
Jo-Anne Munro at (613) 954-1060.
Textual
Information
Review and amend the on-line manuscripts to reflect
the following:
·
any
minor changes to your program activity descriptions (these generally consist of
editing for purposes of clarification; however, such changes should not
significantly affect the department's responsibilities or accountabilities);
·
any
editorial changes, which may consist of grammatical corrections, the correction
of misspelled words, or the updating of name changes previously approved by
legislation or Cabinet;
·
proposed
vote wording changes—departments are to consult their legal services on
proposed vote wording changes before submitting these to the Secretariat; all changes must be made in the proposed schedule to the
appropriation bill.
Organizations should note that the Department of Justice Canada carries out an
annual vote wording review and, as a result, some departments may have minor
changes made to their vote wording. These changes have already been reflected
in the manuscripts and should not be modified. Any questions concerning the
changes should be directed to your program analyst.
·
Statutory
references (e.g. R.S.C. 1985, c. F-11) must be added or updated
in the Statutory Items in Main Estimates table.
·
Any
other textual input errors must be corrected.
Numeric Information
Certain sections of the Main Estimates manuscripts
may be completely or partially populated from your ARLU submission. In some
cases, numeric totals have been inserted and cannot be changed. Should you wish
to revise these totals, please contact your program analyst.
General
Information
Caution: Coding symbols may appear
anywhere in the on-line manuscripts or be inserted by you. These symbols should
not be altered because they are linked to formatting commands. For example:
<N> indicates a non-breaking space (this is used when
a word and/or figure is not to be extended to another line,e.g. a postal code: K1A<N>5A6)
<I> start italic type
<D> end italic type
<B> start bold type
<D> end bold type
<R> indicates that this is the end of the line
<$I starts an index entry
> ends an index entry
Submission to the Secretariat
Once you have completed your review and updated your
Main Estimates data on-line, you need only submit the information to the Secretariat.
Once the Main Estimates data has been submitted,
departments will no longer be able to edit the information on-line. However,
you can continue to view and print the Main Estimates information.
Should you need to send paper copies to the Secretariat, we recommend that you send your
material by messenger service or equivalent to:
Treasury
Board of Canada Secretariat
Mail and Messenger Services
300 Laurier Avenue West
Level P3 West
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R5
To the attention
of:
Administrative Assistant
(Mail Stop # 4)
Expenditure Operations and Estimates
Directorate
Expenditure Management Sector
7th
Floor, East Tower
140 O'Connor Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R5
Annex B
STANDARD OBJECTS OF
EXPENDITURE REPORT AND EXPENDITURES INTERNAL TO THE GOVERNMENT REPORT
Both of these reports are due at the same time as
your Main Estimates manuscripts.
Standard
Objects of Expenditure Report
The purpose of this report is to provide a budgetary
(voted and statutory) breakdown of standard objects of expenditure.
Please note that the grand totals (both voted and
statutory) have been inserted using information provided through the ARLU and
reflect the same numeric value as your Main Estimates manuscripts. Therefore,
your standard object detail must add to these totals.
Insert an amount for each standard object in the
voted, statutory, and total columns.
Please ensure that machinery and equipment, and
attachments and accessories for such machinery costing less than $1,000, which
were formerly included under Standard Object (7), are included in Standard Object (9).
For additional information, please refer to the
December 10, 1998, information bulletin issued by the Government Accounting
Policy Branch.
Budgetary payments to Crown corporations are always
reported against Standard Object (12)―Other Subsidies and Payments.
Explanation of
Standard Object (1) Terms
Because Standard Object (1) is broken down into
subcomponents, the following explanations may be of assistance in extracting
the required information from your ARLU reference levels to complete this report.
(1)
Personnel
Salaries
and wages: This refers to the amount identified in the Personnel operating input
factors from the 2006–2007 ARLU reference level. It should be displayed under
the voted column.
Note: Salaries associated with revolving funds must
be displayed under the statutory column.
Contributions to Employee
Benefit Plans (EBP): For most departments and agencies, a separate entry
representing EBP is required. EBP funds must be displayed under the statutory
column.
Capital Salaries and Wages: This refers to any
personnel costs included in the "capital" input factor identified in the ARLU.
This should be displayed under the voted column.
Expenditures Internal to the Government Report
This report provides an estimate of your
organization's transactions with other government entities. The information
provided is not in addition to the standard objects of expenditure report but
part of it. It is also recognized that the data provided will be tentative.
Crown corporations are not required to complete this table.
To begin, you may wish to use the internal
transactions breakdown reported or sent to Public Works and Government Services
Canada for the purposes of the 2005–06 Public Accounts, along with adjustments
to take into account any known significant changes.
This data will be accumulated on-line by
department but will be displayed in the Main Estimates on a government-wide
basis at the gross expenditure level as a supplementary entry in the "Budgetary
Main Estimates by Standard Object of Expenditure" table.
Annex C
EXPLANATION OF
YEAR-OVER-YEAR RESOURCE CHANGES
Your explanations of year-over-year resource changes
are due at the same time as your Main Estimates manuscripts.
The information requested will be used to prepare
news releases and briefing material.
With EMIS on-line, the Secretariat has provided
departments with a "Program by Activity" table that displays current and past
year resources, as well as variances. This allows departments to quickly
identify areas of major change by program activity and by category (i.e.
operating, capital, grants, contributions and other transfer payments, etc.)
that must be explained.
The total of the resources shown in the explanation
may not balance exactly with the year-over-year change, due to rounding, and
given that only individual changes of $1 million or more are
reported. Any funding relating to
horizontal initiatives should be identified as such, since this information
will be presented on a government-wide basis in the Main Estimates news release
or related briefing materials. You may wish to work with your program analyst
to ensure consistent wording is used in highlighting these horizontal issues.
All explanations should be comprehensive and explain
not only what the increase or decrease is for but why there was a change in the
resource level.
In providing the explanations, you should reconcile
the variances being reflected to a program activity and/or budgetary or non-budgetary
category. This is particularly important when large changes are being
reflected, since the information you provide will form the basis for news
releases and background information relating to the Main Estimates.
List major increases first, in descending order,
followed by major decreases.
References to any legislation should be displayed in
italics.
Please note that, if additional information is
required to prepare the news release or briefing material for the Senate
Standing Committee on National Finance, your department may be informally
approached by the Secretariat.
Annex D
INTERIM SUPPLY REQUIREMENTS
Parliamentary supply procedure
calls for the introduction of an interim supply bill in early March to cover
financial requirements during the first three months of the new fiscal year
until full supply can be obtained in June 2006.
All departments, agencies, and
Crown corporations must submit an interim supply requirement, whether it be
a confirmation that you are seeking the normal requirement (3/12ths) or that
you are requesting additional proportions.
Each vote requiring additional
proportions or twelfths beyond the normal 3/12ths must be supported by an explanation (in both official languages).
You are reminded that 11/12ths is the maximum number of proportions that can be
obtained through interim supply.
Note that additional proportions can be requested only for items that are
included in the Main Estimates and that your requirement and explanation(s) are
due at the same time as your Main Estimates manuscripts.
Explanations
Each explanation should consist of no more than one or two paragraphs. The following samples of explanation
notes may be used in the preparation of your submission. These examples may be
revised or supplemented as required.
·
To provide for payments to territorial governments in
accordance with the agreed to financial arrangements.
·
To cover the cost of completing the construction of an
administration building in Manitoba. This project was originally scheduled for
completion in early fall but will now be completed in late summer, due to
greater than expected progress being made during the spring months. As a
result, the construction contract should be paid before we receive full supply
and incur interest costs.
·
To provide for the payment of $313,160 of the $400,000
included in the Estimates for payment of research grants. It is customary to
pay these grants to the various universities once the awards have been made by
the University Grants Committee, which usually meets in early spring.
Annex E
Government of Canada
Digital Certificate
Departments, agencies, and Crown corporations are required to
submit their
2006–2007 Main Estimates manuscripts and other related documentation on-line
via the Expenditure Management Information System (EMIS) Publiservice Web site
at http://publiservice.tbs-sct.gc.ca/emis-sigd.
Departments, agencies, and Crown corporations that do not have access to
Publiservice web site must contact the EMIS Help Centre by telephone at
(613) 948-1901 or by e-mail at emis-sigd@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
User Authentication
Users of the Main Estimates application must obtain a
Government of Canada digital certificate.
Users who have previously accessed the ARLU application on
EMIS may continue using the same user name and password to access the Main
Estimates application.
New users are requested to contact the EMIS Help Centre to
obtain a valid user name and password.
User located in the National Capital Region (NCR) must make the request
through the EMIS Help Centre by telephone at (613) 948-1901 or by e-mail
at emis-sigd@tbs-sct.gc.ca.
Users outside the NCR must contact their departmental/agency
security division Local Registration Authority (LRA) for the cost and process
associated with obtaining a digital certificate. Organizations that do not have
an LRA are advised to contact the EMIS Help Centre, which will take steps to
assist them in obtaining a certificate.
New users are advised to contact the EMIS Help Centre as soon
as possible, as a minimum of 48 hours will be required to generate both a
digital certificate and a new user name and password.
