Government Services Committee — Department of Finance, yet we see an increase in senior personnel within the department. For example, ten years ago I believe there was one Deputy Minister and two Assistant Deputy Ministers. Today it is my understanding there are three or four ADMs in the department. I wonder how we rationalize that. We see a significant reduction in the overall personnel within the department. We now have approximately one half of what it was ten years ago, but yet the department enjoys the services of four Assistant Deputy Ministers and a Deputy Minister. MR. DICKS: Just let me respond first of all. There was actually two deputy ministers some years ago. There was a Controller General which was a DM position, that was Bernard Carew, I believe. Gilbert Gill was there I guess about ten years ago roughly, and there were three ADMs at the time, so actually we have one less senior executive position. The Department of Finance is a little different than most departments in the sense that you have people with very high skill levels. If you just look at the amount of money we administer and collect we are responsible for almost $3.5 billion worth of money that comes in each year, and the handling of it. You cannot really hire someone for $20,000 and say: Look, here is the money, now make sure it all gets handled and collected properly and so on like that. It requires a very high level of financial adminstration. If you compare what we pay our senior people with what you would get in a corporate sector we are far below it. Just check Newfoundland Telephone, for example, and see what the wages for a VP there are. Check the wages of the controller down at Fortis for example. Most of these are in the $200,000 range. We are not paying that to any of our ADMs who exercise far greater monetary authority. If you look at some of the figures, what we administering in sinking funds alone, or going to market, we require people to do very complicated analysis. We have