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June 17, 2019

GOVERNMENT SERVICES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, John Haggie,

MHA for Gander, substitutes for Derek Bennett, MHA for Lewisporte - Twillingate.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Carol Anne

Haley, MHA for Burin - Grand Bank, substitutes for Elvis Loveless, MHA for

Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Kevin

Parsons, MHA for Cape

St. Francis , substitutes for Barry Petten, MHA for Conception Bay

South.

The Committee met at 6:02 p.m. in the

Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Parsons):

Good evening, everyone, and welcome.

I think

we are ready to start now; we're pretty much right on time. We'll start, of

course, with the department introducing themselves on this side and then we'll

go around the room.

So we

will start over here, please.

MR.

Dutton : Sean

Dutton, I'm the Deputy Minister of Service NL.

MS. GAMBIN - WALSH:

Minister Sherry Gambin-Walsh.

MS. TIZZARD:

Heather Tizzard, Chief Procurement Officer, Public Procurement Agency.

MS. HICKEY:

Marlene Hickey, Chief Review Commissioner with the Workplace Health, Safety and

Compensation Review Division.

MR. DELANEY:

Michael Delaney, Assistant

Deputy Minister of Regulatory Affairs.

MR. DOODY:

Alan Doody, Assistant Deputy

Minister, Government Services Branch.

MS. HAYES:

Robyn Hayes, Departmental

Controller, Service NL.

MS. HOWE:

Deanne Howe, Manager of

Operations with the Review Division.

MS. O'NEILL:

Melony O'Neill, Director of

Communications with Service NL.

MS. WHITE:

Kelly White, Executive Assistant to Minister Gambin-Walsh.

MR.

O'Driscoll: Loyola

O'Driscoll, Ferryland District.

MS. BONIA:

Laurie Bonia, Researcher,

Official Opposition Office.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Kevin Parsons, Member for the

beautiful District of Cape St. Francis.

MR. LANE:

Paul Lane, Member for

District of Mount Pearl-Southlands.

MS. COFFIN:

Alison Coffin, St. John's

East - Quidi Vidi.

MS. WILLIAMS:

Susan Williams, Researcher

for the Third Party.

MS. HALEY:

Carol Anne Haley, Burin -

Grand Bank

MR. BRAGG:

Derrick Bragg, Fogo Island -

Cape Freels.

MR. HAGGIE:

John Haggie, MHA for the

District of Gander.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Pam Parsons, MHA for the

strong District of Harbour Grace - Port de Grave and I'll be chairing the

session this evening.

The

minister has 15 minutes to introduce her Estimates. The Member speaking

immediately in reply to the minister has 15 minutes and all other Committee

Members have 10 minutes to speak. Also, we can refer to each other by name

rather than department or district or portfolio in this matter.

Tonight,

we'll be starting with the Public Procurement Agency.

Minister.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Good evening.

Minister of Service NL, the Minister Responsible for the Public Procurement

Agency and WorkplaceNL, I'm pleased to be here this evening to discuss the

Estimate figures for these entities.

I want

to take this opportunity to thank the Members opposite and their staff for

joining us this evening. I also want to thank staff from Service NL, the Public

Procurement Agency and the WorkplaceNL Review Division for their participation

in today's session.

Before

we get started, I want to highlight a few points regarding our Estimates. You

will see that Service NL, including the WorkplaceNL Review Division, has a net

budget of over $23 million. You won't see our $139 million in revenue reflected

in the department's Estimates. In 2019-2020, Service NL will generate this

revenue through such functions as the issuer fees, the Registry of Deeds and

especially the transactions at Motor Registration Division. This review is

included in the general revenue of government.

Additionally, Service NL also encompasses the Occupational Health and Safety

Division or OHS Division, which is responsible for health and safety inspection

and enforcement programs. The OHS Division establishes through legislation the

codes, standards and practices for safe and healthy working conditions. The

costs associated with OHS are recovered from WorkplaceNL so there is offsetting

revenue for all related expenditures.

Service

NL is responsible for the majority of licensing, inspection, public record

keeping and regulatory functions within government and is the primary access

point for people who need these services. These range from electrical

inspections to restaurant inspections to the production of vital statistics

records and the registration of deeds.

Within

the Motor Registration Division, Service NL completes more than a million

transactions a year. As of April 30, 2018, Motor Registration Division no longer

issues renewal notices through regular mail. The use of email to contact clients

saves over $400,000 annually in printing and mail costs. The savings allowed us

to address other cost pressures in the department.

For

example, there were upfront costs with implementation of the print-on-demand

stickers. There was a restatement of $80,000 in funding from the Department of

Transportation and Works mailroom to the Motor Registration Division for the new

print-on-demand vehicle stickers, which are now done from our Mount Pearl

location.

Some of

these savings were reallocated to our French Services and Commercial

Registration Division. All in all, this resulted in $28,400 as the amount of a

year over year operational savings. We also had an attrition target of $550,600

for 2019-20 which was achieved.

believe all Members here tonight will have witnessed first-hand at some point

the hard work of at least one of the divisions of Service NL, and I'm sure we

can all appreciate the commitment of staff to the serving of the people of our

province.

The

Office of French Services provides French language training and translations

services to government. This office also provides support to the Minister

Responsible for Francophone Affairs. In addition, through the Office of the

Queen's Printer, the department provides printing services for the provincial

government and the general public.

I'm also

the Minister Responsible for the Public Procurement Agency, the central

procurement unit of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is

responsible for the oversight of the procurement process for goods and services

on behalf of all public bodies. The agency also establishes policies for

procurement as part of the public procurement framework and provides

information, training and oversight of procurement activities of all public

bodies. The mandate of the agency is provided within the

Public Procurement Act which was proclaimed in March of 2018. It has

an annual budget of over $1.9 million.

The

WorkplaceNL Review Division reviews decisions of WorkplaceNL to ensure

compliance with the act as well as regulations and policies. The division

provides vital appeal services to employers and workers and pursues continuous

improvement in the area of client service. The costs are recovered 100 per cent

from WorkplaceNL.

This is

just a quick introduction to the portfolio as well as a brief explanation of

some of the significant aspects of our Estimates.

I would

like to start with the Public Procurement Agency, then go to Workplace Health,

Safety and Compensation Review and then onto Service NL, if everyone is okay

with that.

CHAIR:

Okay. We'll have our first speaker, but I'll remind everybody to please identify

yourself prior to your questions.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Can we provided with a copy of the minister's briefing binder?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Are

there any errors in the published Estimates book?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

No.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Are you

still applying zero-based budgeting?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

What

were the attrition savings last year in terms of dollars and positions?

MS. TIZZARD:

Our target was $7,300 and we

achieved that through a vacancy rate within the agency. So we didn't use a

position to attain those savings.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

What is

the attrition target savings for this year?

MS. TIZZARD:

It is $7,300. We were able to

attain that last year, yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

How many

people are currently employed in the department?

MS. TIZZARD:

In the agency?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

MS. TIZZARD:

We have 31 positions; six are

vacant right now.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

I'm just going to move on

here to

section 1.1.01, Public Procurement Agency. The Salary Details for the

Public Procurement Agency state the department total is $1,709,853 but the

numbers stated under Salaries in the Estimates is $1,954,000. There's a

difference of $244,147. Is there an explanation why these numbers would be

different?

MS. TIZZARD:

Sorry, which numbers were

those?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Subhead 1.1.01 under

Salaries.

MS. TIZZARD:

Are you talking about the

difference, sorry, between the budget of last year and this year, or between the

revised?

Are you

talking about the decrease in the budget in the revised number?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes, $117,300 less was spent

than budgeted last year. This year's budget includes $110,000 over the revised.

MS. TIZZARD:

Yeah, that was the result of

some vacancies within the agency.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How many positions are

included in this amount?

MS. TIZZARD:

Right now we have vacant two

managers of strategic sourcing positions, two buyer II positions and an admin

officer position, but they were vacant at different times throughout the year,

so sometimes a couple were filled and sometimes they were vacant.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Transportation and Communications, last year $19,500 less was spent than was

budgeted. This year it's $51,000. How do you explain the revised numbers and

this year's budgeted amount?

MS. TIZZARD:

There were fewer training

sessions than anticipated on the legislation. We also had fewer audits in that

year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Professional Services, last year $45,000 more was spent than budgeted; I'm just

wondering why that would be.

MS. TIZZARD:

We had an extra requirement

for auctioneering services. The Public Procurement Agency, in addition to

purchasing, oversees the disposal of surplus goods from government. So we had

more than anticipated increase of a requirement for auctioneering services for

that need last year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, why was $49,500 less spent than was budgeted last year, and

why is the $57,800 being budgeted this year?

MS. TIZZARD:

In our Purchased Services budget, in case we were going to acquire an electronic

notification system for the Procurement Agency, we had budgeted an amount in

case we needed to do some training for that service, and possibly purchase some

training modules for that service. We just awarded the RFP. It was just a delay

in the implementation of that system, then a delay subsequently for the

training.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

In under

Revenue - Provincial, what is included?

MS. TIZZARD:

The main component of the revenue is revenue from the auctions, as I mentioned

earlier, and it's also revenue from the purchase cards. We get a rebate from

using purchase cards through government.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

And under the auctions, is that equipment that we're selling off at auctions and

stuff like that?

MS. TIZZARD:

Yeah, so equipment that government wouldn't necessarily use any more – vehicles,

for example, ATVs, snowmobiles, furniture, that sort of thing.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

And what

explains $122,000 increase in this revised?

MS. TIZZARD:

That was greater than anticipated auctions. So we don't exactly know from year

to year what's going to be required to auction off. So we just estimate and

sometimes we have a greater amount.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Sometimes it would be more, sometimes it would be less.

MS. TIZZARD:

Sometimes it's less, absolutely.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Can you

tell us how you are doing things differently at the Public Procurement Agency

than when it was the Government Purchasing Agency? Is there any difference?

MS. TIZZARD:

There is. Right now, since new legislation, we have four divisions. Our

corporate services division is operating as usual; it's just the policy and

financial arm of our agency. And our Procurement division, same thing, it's

procuring as we usually did as an operational basis as required. Our Audit,

Information and Training division now, which largely had been focused on

training and getting the legislation and regulations ready in the last year or

so, and then focused in the last year in training for that legislation is now

really focused on the audit side, with this new legislation in place now. We

also have a Strategic Sourcing division which is just starting to ramp up.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Initially, there was a lot of talk about strategic sourcing and strategic

purchasing. Can you give examples where this is happening now?

MS. TIZZARD:

We just recently hired a director for that position. That director, now, is

working with different agencies, some previous strategic procurement that we had

done to renew those, but also working with some different stakeholders on

opportunities that we may have to do things more efficiently and try to identify

additional savings.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

There

was also a reference to joint partnerships. Have you done any across government

with ABCs to do that?

MS. TIZZARD:

Not yet, no.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

All right.

With the

new act, local suppliers are supposed to have more opportunities to bid on

government services. Has this been occurring?

MS. TIZZARD:

We can't track for all public bodies the number of procurements that local

suppliers take on, but with the new procurement legislation, the thresholds were

increased, so it does provide greater opportunities for local suppliers or for

public bodies to procure for goods under those thresholds for local suppliers.

Anything above those thresholds have to go to an open call, but anything below

that, any public body can access a local supplier for that.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Can we

have an update on the electronic notification system?

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes, as I mentioned, we just recently awarded that so we're in the process, now,

of developing a plan to implement that system.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

That's

it for me.

CHAIR:

That's it for you, okay.

We will

move on now to the next speaker, please.

MS. COFFIN:

Great, thank you.

I'm not

going to ask anything about the numbers here. They seem to be reasonably well in

line. I would like to know what the status of the training and information

sessions, the new Public Procurement Act ,

is?

MS. TIZZARD:

We did a number of training sessions last year. I can't give you a number off

the top of my head, but we did a Web-based training. Any request that we had for

municipalities, larger organizations where we were able to cover a lot of public

bodies at once. So Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, provincial

municipal administrators, we always made sure that we could go out to those any

time they had any session, that we were part of that.

We also

did, like I said, a Web-based system, so we made sure and requested that every

public body took that training.

MS. COFFIN:

If someone finds that they have a need to do the training, they can go on the

Web-based system and do they need –?

MS. TIZZARD:

Absolutely. They can call us.

MS. COFFIN:

Wonderful.

MS. TIZZARD:

We can accommodate any of that.

MS. COFFIN:

You can facilitate it.

MS. TIZZARD:

Absolutely.

MS. COFFIN:

Wonderful. That's great.

Okay,

let's talk about social buying, which brings environment, gender, diversity,

social enterprise and other policy goals into the procurement. Once upon a time,

I heard a rumour about green procurement protocols. Does such a thing exist and,

if so, is it being implemented?

MS. TIZZARD:

Sorry, what buying?

MS. COFFIN:

Green procurement guidelines.

MS. TIZZARD:

If you go into our website

there is a lens that you can look at, for example, for environmental or green

procurement in there. I don't know if that's –

MS. COFFIN:

It might very well be. It's

just something that I'd heard about a while ago. Say, for example, we want to

buy lots and lots of paper, reams of paper, is there any regulations or any

guidelines that say we have to have 30 per cent recycled paper or it has to be

bleach-free or anything like that?

MS. TIZZARD:

No, but that's the type of

thing that's in that lens.

MS. COFFIN:

The lens is there.

MS. TIZZARD:

The things that you may want

to consider if you want to go down that road.

MS. COFFIN:

Does anything get filtered

out with the lens?

MS. TIZZARD:

I'm not sure …

MS. COFFIN:

If something came in – for

example, we're going to buy another set of vehicles and those vehicles were not

hybrid vehicles or they're not electric vehicles – do we not purchase them

because of that?

MS. TIZZARD:

I can't speak to the

purchasing policy for vehicles for another department.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. TIZZARD:

But, generally, for that lens

or those guidelines that we have on our website, it's not mandatory, they're

just if you want to go down that road. Any public body could implement its own

requirements.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so it's just a guide.

It's not a regulation or mandated.

MS. TIZZARD:

That's right.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Last

year we were told that under the new act, public bodies would have greater

flexibility to use RFPs instead of tenders and thus be able to evaluate other

factors besides lowest price. How is that working? Has it been used very much?

MS. TIZZARD:

It's my understanding public

bodies, just based on the phone calls that we receive, are starting to use RFPs

more. I can't tell you how much they use them versus how much they used them

before, because public bodies are responsible for their own procurement.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. TIZZARD:

I don't know how much they're

using them but, as I said, just based on the phone calls that we're receiving it

indicates that people are using them more.

MS. COFFIN:

Is there a threshold by which

they can use the RFPs? It has to be for anything under $100,000, or can an RFP

be for actually anything?

MS. TIZZARD:

No, they can use an RFP for

anything, there's no threshold. It's just a tool that they can use, depending on

the nature of what they're looking for.

MS. COFFIN:

Are there guidelines in those

RFPs for setting out such an RFP?

MS. TIZZARD:

We have templates on our

websites. We have an RFP template right now on our website for anybody to

access.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

And each

individual public body comes up with their own filters or their own criteria.

MS. TIZZARD:

That's right.

MS. COFFIN:

Do they have to justify that

anywhere?

MS. TIZZARD:

For using an RFP?

MS. COFFIN:

No, for what criteria they're

using for choosing something that's not lowest price.

MS. TIZZARD:

No. I mean an RFP, if you're going down that road, is best value. No, they don't

have justify it, they just set up whatever criteria they're looking for within

that RFP document and how they're going to evaluate that and proceed from there.

MS. COFFIN:

They have to have the

evaluation in there as well.

MS. TIZZARD:

Absolutely.

MS. COFFIN:

That's an upfront thing.

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so the follow-up

question is: What controls are put in place to prevent misuse of such a thing?

MS. TIZZARD:

Well, the evaluation

component within the RFP, they would

have to follow that.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. That would be

interested to look at.

Last

year, we heard the department were looking at other jurisdictions and doing more

consultation about how to incorporate social buying into government procurement.

Can we have an update on what was found and what government is planning to do?

MS. TIZZARD:

That's something that we're

still looking into. It's still a new policy piece so we're trying to figure out

how best to do something with that, that maintains equity for all of our

suppliers. I sit on a FPT committee, federal-provincial-territorial meeting, and

it's one of the things that are on the agenda. Other jurisdictions are still

looking at that piece as well and figuring out how to implement it.

MS. COFFIN:

How they incorporate the

social buying – one of the other filters you're using there is equity for

current suppliers?

MS. TIZZARD:

The other piece, too, is that

with the RFPs, of course, if you're evaluating that then you have the

opportunity, through the RFP, to incorporate other components, besides price, in

your evaluation. If a public body wanted to incorporate anything in their RFP in

that regard, they do have that flexibility under the RFP process and also within

the thresholds too. The thresholds are lower than any public body seeking three

quotes, for example; below that threshold has some flexibility there as well.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. What's the threshold?

MS. TIZZARD:

The threshold for when they

have to do an open call, so anything below the threshold. For example, if you

need to procure goods, if your procurement is less than $10,000 for goods, then

you can get three quotes from organizations and you can direct those three

quotes.

MS. COFFIN:

That can go through RFP,

right?

MS. TIZZARD:

Absolutely.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so the social buying

filter is a subjective initiative of each of the public bodies if they choose to

incorporate it into their RFP process.

MS. TIZZARD:

They do have that option.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay but it's not an overall

government procurement direction.

MS. TIZZARD:

No.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Thank you.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Any

further speakers to this particular section?

Mr.

Lane.

MR.

Lane : I'm

wondering about the new Procurement Act that we passed in the House – I think it

was last year, was it? I should say Opposition Members had significant concern

at the time because it was so broad. All the details were going to be in the

regulations and, of course, there were no regulations. We didn't know what would

be in the regulations.

You're

kind of saying, yeah, we want a new Procurement Act, but to some degree didn't

even know what we were voting for. You had to sort of take it on faith that

there would be regulations and they would be good regulations and so on.

The

first question: Do we have new regulations?

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes, we do.

MR. LANE:

They have all been put in

place?

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes, we do. They came in shortly after the legislation. It was March 2018.

MR. LANE:

Okay, so there are new –

MS. TIZZARD:

Yeah, they're available on our website as well.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

In those

regulations then, it was already asked about local preference. What I think you

indicated was that if it was an amount that you could just do three quotes, like

under $10,000 or whatever, then you said you could go local.

Again,

though, I guess my question is – and it kind of ties into the social buying,

same idea. There's a difference between you could go local, you have the option

to go local versus you will go local. I just wanted to clarify that we're not

saying you will go local.

There's

nothing to stop me – if I was procuring some goods and there are local

businesses that can provide that, then personally I think that's where we should

be going, as long as they are competitive, of course. But let's take the option

off, going with some Mainland outfit or whatever and our local people are not

seeing the benefit. There are three local suppliers, get three quotes from three

locals. From what I'm hearing, someone could choose to say, no, I'm going to go

with the national company or something if I wanted to. Is that right?

MS. TIZZARD:

That's right. Yes.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

Can I

ask – and maybe that's more of a policy decision for the minister – is there any

thought around revising that to make it mandatory that if there are local

suppliers that you will go to the local suppliers. Not that you may go to the

local suppliers but you will.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

That's an option to put in

the RFP. As she indicated there is no discussion yet to put it in place that you

have to, but it's certainly something we can bring forward. I believe the trade

agreements –

MS. TIZZARD:

For anything over the thresholds, the trade agreements prevent us from doing

that.

MR. LANE:

I understand that, but I

guess the point I'm making is that where the trade agreements do not kick in and

we're not forced to go with the tender, the standard tender, and the option is

there to buy local, then I can't understand why we would not have as a public

policy in this province that we will use all local companies and keep the money

here in our own province as opposed to some of these big national or

international companies to get the business. I guess that's the point I'm trying

to make.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yeah, that's definitely something to consider, but if there are no local

suppliers, of course, you have to go outside, right? I hear what you're saying,

you're if there are local suppliers –

MR. LANE:

If there are –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

– then why are we not putting it in policy that you have to go below the

threshold?

MR. LANE:

Correct.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Okay.

MR. LANE:

That's the point I'm trying to make –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yeah.

MR. LANE:

– I'm trying to get at.

suppose, arguably, and I understand it's a different issue altogether, but,

arguably, what Ms. Coffin was saying even about some of these green initiatives.

I'll just use an example, if you're going to buy straws, you can get paper

straws, right?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Not necessarily.

MR. LANE:

I think that's what she means by green; not that we necessarily buy straws, I

don't know. Probably we do at the hospitals, but –

MS. COFFIN:

(Inaudible.)

MR. LANE:

Yeah, instead of plastic

forks, buy biodegradable forks or whatever.

So, I

suppose, theoretically, the same thing applies right now that it's not a policy,

it's a case of if you want to do it, you choose to do it, fill you boots, but if

you don't bother to do it, well no one's telling or even encouraging you that

really we should be doing it. Is that how it stands?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yeah, I totally understand what you are saying. It's also value for dollar; you

have to consider value for dollar, right?

MR. LANE:

Sure, I understand.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

So there are a number of components that you would have to consider in making

the decision rather than saying every vehicle you buy is a hybrid or what have

you. You have to do the value-for-dollar component also.

MR. LANE:

Sure.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

An electric vehicle may work fine in the city of St. John's but it's certainly

wouldn't work well in parts of rural Newfoundland, right now.

MR. LANE:

Sure, I understand.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

But there is discussion.

MR. LANE:

I guess the point would be, there could be something saying if prices are

relatively comparable and there are green options –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

MR. LANE:

– then there could a policy suggesting that you should be going with the green

options, if they're available and if they are comparable in cost. That would be

my thought anyways.

The

other thing I want to raise is, and I'll give an example, I had a situation,

someone who came to me about a year or two ago now, and in this case they had

put out, I guess, a request for proposal, or actually it would have been a

tender, for supplies, it was office supplies at the time; one of the agencies I

think.

They're

saying we can't get a price on every single item, there are so many different

office supplies, so they came up with a list of bid on 50 items or 100 items and

whoever had the lowest price on those 100 items got the contract to supply for

two years or whatever.

course, then, the little game that you get into is we lowball on the prices of

the ones that you bid on, on certain items, but then you charge $100 for a

stapler or something – I know this is a stretch, but you get my point. Let's

charge three times as much for the stuff that is not on the list.

course, the other thing being, if someone were to bid on Post-it Notes, for

argument's sake, and it's some brand of Post-it Notes, and every time you call

looking for them, we're out of those, we'll give you these here replacement

ones, but the replacement ones were three times as much as the ones that they

bid on and that type of thing happening.

So is

there any training or anything in place or any policies in place when it comes

to those situations and staff in different offices reordering stuff that we make

sure that they're getting the low-cost stuff and that they're not being dinged

with all the high-cost stuff, that they don't even probably realize that they're

doing?

MS. TIZZARD:

We have training that we are implementing right now for low-dollar-value

purchases that we intend to roll out across departments and agencies, just

talking about that exact issue. Of course, each time that we go out with a new

procurement for something like office supplies, that's the type of thing that we

review. So we'll look at what was spent, what was purchased on the list, what

was purchased off the list. Are they things now that we need to include on those

this time around? So they're the things that we look at.

MR. LANE:

Okay. Thank you.

The

final question I have relates to ABCs and so on. I'm just wondering, what you

guys do, is it primarily for core government or – I'll just use an example, what

wheelbarrow for thousands of dollars or whatever he was doing, and that kind of

stuff.

Is that

something that would fall under your jurisdiction, or they just kind of do their

own thing? Do you audit them regularly, or how does that work?

MS. TIZZARD:

We procure for core government, but we provide oversight with respect to this

legislation to all public bodies. So the School District would be one of them.

With

respect to those incidents that happened with the School District, a lot of

those went beyond the procurement legislation. So if we're auditing on

procurement, we're auditing in accordance with how they follow the legislation.

Some of the things that you're talking about that happened with the School

District had to do with lack of proper controls, the lack of financial

processes, that sort of thing. Some of that went beyond the procurement

legislation itself, but we do have an audit function in our agency, and it is to

audit public bodies under the legislation.

MR. LANE:

So when this came about, was that something that came about – that never came

about through your audits though, was it? That was the Auditor General, was it?

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes, it was.

MR. LANE:

Okay. So you're not necessarily going around constantly auditing all these

different agencies, or are you?

MS. TIZZARD:

We are. Since the training has wrapped up, we've started our audit function

again.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

MS. TIZZARD:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Okay?

MR. LANE:

All right, thank you.

CHAIR:

All right. Any further

speakers?

Okay, we

got Mr. Parsons.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Paul just went to my question because I was wondering if you guys had a process

in place to audit the different the ABCs, and if there's a time frame on stuff

like that. How often is it done?

I know

that the new procurement agency and the act we brought in, brought in a lot of

new regulations. How familiar are these ABCs with all these regulations and

stuff like that?

MS. TIZZARD:

Well, some of them are still ramping up with respect to their familiarity, but

we're auditing as we can with the staff we have. So as soon as we finish an

audit, we'll start another one immediately. It depends on how long it takes to

do the audit.

We're

also, right now, in addition to doing, what I call a broad-scope audit, we're

also looking at, for example, doing some audit on some of the smaller

dollar-value items to look at compliance with those contracts. So we might do a

number of those, that will happen more quickly because we're only looking at a

small scope in those cases. So it depends on the nature of the audit that we're

undertaking.

MR. K. PARSONS:

How the regional health boards and stuff like that, are they being audited on a

regular basis?

MS. TIZZARD:

Well, we will start auditing those, they will be part of our audit. We just

started again since the training wrapped up. That division was responsible for

training, getting the regulations and the legislation in order, but we've just

started our audit function again this year.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

All good?

Okay, I

think we're ready to vote on this subsection.

CLERK (Hawley George):

1.1.01, Public Procurement Agency.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01, Public

Procurement Agency, carry?

All

those in favour, ‘aye.'

AN HON. MEMBER:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, ‘nay.'

Carried.

motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

motion, Public Procurement Agency, total head, carried.

CHAIR:

Now, we're moving on to page

61, that's the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Review.

CLERK:

4.1.01.

CHAIR:

4.1.01.

Minister? Okay.

First

speaker over here.

Just

give a wave there to Broadcast. There you go.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you.

Last

year, $115,200 less was spent than was budgeted, and this year, an additional

$350,600 is budgeted. Can you explain this?

CHAIR:

Just give a wave.

MS. HICKEY:

Okay, thank you.

Variances this year from the budget versus what was spent included some changes

with respect to the payment of remuneration to review commissioners. Review

commissioners within the Review Division had been part-time, and this past year,

we were fortunate enough to have three full-time positions created. So, we moved

around some money that we had last year and acquired an additional $235,000 for

extra salary this year. The variance that you are seeing in last year's amount

consists of those changes to the review commissioner positions.

Also, we

had some changes with respect to some renovations that we made for offices to

accommodate new review commissioners. We also had some changes with respect to

some new furniture that we bought, all relating to the appointment of new review

commissioners.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

That would all be under

Salaries, you are saying?

MS. HICKEY:

Pardon me?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

All that would be considered

under Salaries? Like, with the equipment and stuff?

MS. HICKEY:

Well, it affected both

Salaries and Professional Services.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

additional $27,400 is included in this year's budget. I am just wondering why

that is – under Transportation and Communications.

MS. HICKEY:

The Review Division regularly

goes into the regions – into Gander, Grand Falls, Corner Brook and Labrador – to

have hearings for workers and employers. As part of the appointment of new

review commissioners, we hope to be able to have more hearings in the regions,

and that is going to result in additional travel costs for us, so the additional

$27,000 is to allow us to move with our new review commissioners into the

regions to get the hearings done.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Professional Services, $139,800 was budgeted last year but only $50,000 was

spent, yet $75,000 is budgeted for this year. Why is that? What is included?

MS. HICKEY:

The $139,000 was a projection that we had based on the review commissioners we

had hoped to retain. Part of that explanation is really what I've just

explained. We didn't retain all of the review commissioners, and the ones that

we did get were much later in the year. So we had a certain savings there, and

that's some of the savings that we use, then, moved around here.

The

$75,000 this year is to reflect the remuneration for part-time review

commissioners, so there's a distinction between the pay for a full-time review

commissioner and part-time review commissioners.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, last year $27,000 more was spent than budgeted; yet $12,900

less is budgeted this year. Can you explain this?

MS. HICKEY:

Yes. So the change there was the renovations for the new review commissioner

offices that we had created.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Provincial, can you explain this line?

MS. HICKEY:

The Review Division is 100 per cent funded by way of the injury fund

administered by WorkplaceNL. So the cost of the operation of the Review Division

is charged back to WorkplaceNL, and that's where that dollar value comes from.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

That's

all good for me.

CHAIR:

Okay, good.

Thank

you.

Next.

MS. COFFIN:

I'm sorry, I should've said

this long before now, but thank you very much for everyone for taking your

evenings and doing all of this work and listening to a barrage of questions and

deflecting them, so thank you very much for doing that. We do appreciate this.

questions: How many review commissioners did you have in 2018, and how many at

present?

MS. HICKEY:

So the number of review commissioners is always a shifting figure. For most of

2018, we had about five review commissioners; however, by July, we were down to

two review commissioners, and into the fall, we just had one review commissioner

that was actively involved in hearings.

December of 2018, we had new appointments, which were the full-time appointments

I just mentioned. In February, then, we had another full-time appointment. Right

now, we're operating with five review commissioners; four full-time and one is

part-time.

MS. COFFIN:

That's great, and you did all

of that without looking at your notes, well done.

There is

no shortage at this point?

MS. HICKEY:

We still have two vacancies.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MS. HICKEY:

So, with the appointment of the new full-time positions, we're certainly open to

bringing recommendations to the minister for additional appointments on

part-time. We're very much mindful of the productivity of the new model and how

that's going to work, but I can tell you that we're positioned very well moving

into the summer and into the fall in comparison to what we were last year. I

think the first six months last year we completed 50 cases; the first six months

of this year, we expect to complete over 100.

MS. COFFIN:

That's not bad. Five people – wow, that's impressive.

Are

these appeals being decided within 60 days of application as the law requires?

MS. HICKEY:

Not all of them. At this point, our numbers on that have also improved. There

has been a considerable increase or improvement in the amount of time it takes a

full-time review commissioner to have a decision provided versus what it was

taking a part-time review commissioner. So our new full-time review

commissioners now are taking anywhere from 45 to 60 days. Our part-time

commissioners were taking considerably longer than that.

MS. COFFIN:

Of course, because they're part-time. That totally makes sense.

How big

is your caseload?

MS. HICKEY:

Last year we had 208 applications, and last year I believe we did 155 hearings.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, not bad.

I guess

to follow up; do we have any recent caseload statistics? The latest on the

website are 2014-2015.

MS. HICKEY:

So the website should be updated. The new statistics, really, what we're seeing

is we do have about 200 cases waiting to be heard, which we hope to be able to

dispose of them as we move forward. The number of cases that we can do a month

will be about 24 to 30 cases. If you file an application today, it would take

approximately one year to have that application completed from the time you file

the application to the time you received a decision.

MS. COFFIN:

Wow.

MS. HICKEY:

Which is slightly less than it was last year because I think we were at 14

months last year.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

And you

have a lot of new people, so they of course are learning the system.

MS. HICKEY:

We have a lot of new people, yes. And even though those people were appointed in

December, they didn't assume their roles until January and then, in January, we

started the training program. The training program runs about six to eight weeks

and it's very intense because it has to be provided slowly, believe it or not,

because it's just so technical.

MS. COFFIN:

I imagine.

MS. HICKEY:

So it takes a little while. These review commissioners starting hearing in March

and we ease them into it.

MS. COFFIN:

That's very nice of you.

MS. HICKEY:

Right now, it is a little bit more challenging trying to get the

schedule done

in the summer but in the fall we're targeting 25 to 30 cases a month.

MS. COFFIN:

That's great. I guess the speed with which you get them done depends on the

complexity of the case.

MS. HICKEY:

Exactly. Some people who may have a fairly recent claim with a very less than

complex issue may get their decision within 30 days. Other claims that have a

number of injuries, a number of different issues, a long history, they're

probably going to take in excess of the 60 days.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you very much.

MS. HICKEY:

You're welcome.

CHAIR:

Before we go ahead with your question, could we get leave, please, for Mr. Lane

where he's an independent Member? Do we have leave from all Members?

Okay, go

ahead.

MR. LANE:

Thank you to my colleagues.

First of

all, let me say I'm glad to see that we have some more full-time commissioners.

That's certainly something that I've raised in Estimates for the last number of

years, and glad to see we're making progress there.

Minister, one of the questions I have – I'm going to ask it here because there's

nowhere else to ask it, really – about workers' comp, even though it may not

necessarily be the Review Division, per se, but it's all related to the process.

I saw a news

article recently that the injury fund is in really good shape, even

after the increase in benefits that was given to injured workers from 80 to 85

per cent. Of course, there have been two or three reductions in rates given to

employers over the last couple of years as well. It speaks well to health and

safety, I think, in general and the fact that we're not having as many injuries,

which is a great thing.

One of

the problems that we have with injured workers, in a lot of cases, is that they

don't have anybody to advocate for them. A lot of them don't understand the

system and the policies. I know there is this Workers' Advisor that may give

some advice at the beginning. Certainly, I know that I've done a number of

appeals on behalf of my constituents, but there are a lot of people that don't

necessarily – I'm not sure if every Member is going out there and doing workers'

comp appeals, to be honest with you.

Is there

any thought to having more Workers' Advisors or to set up something so that

workers understand their rights and what they are entitled to? I know when

someone goes up on workers' comp, they give them the booklet. That's the

standard process at workers' comp – I gave them the booklet. I think about PFIs

as an example.

There

have been many cases I've come across where the case worker at workers' comp

never did tell that person: Do you know that there's such a thing as a PFI? In

addition to your workplace injury and your coverage, your temporary earnings

loss and so on, this PFI exists to deal with the fact that you've lost a

function in your hand, your leg, your arm, whatever, and they don't even know

about it. When I've gone to workers' comp and brought that to the attention of

people, they'll say: Oh, well, they were given the workers' handbook; they're

supposed to read it. I've dealt with some people that sign their name with an X,

so giving them a book wasn't going to do them any good.

I'm just

wondering has there been any thought to putting some additional resources – I

don't know if it would be through the Review Division, probably not, probably

workers' comp itself or something else – for injured workers, of someone that

they can actually go to, to help guide them through the system.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Of course, every case is

individual and everyone's reaction to the cases is individual.

MR. LANE:

Sure, I understand that.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Each individual, once they're

injured, are assigned a case worker at WorkplaceNL. Also at the Newfoundland and

Labrador Federation of Labour and the Newfoundland and Labrador Employer's

Council we do have staffed positions there to assist injured workers, so there

are people within the system. It may in fact be a communications issue or

concern where they don't know where to access those particular resources.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

For individuals who can

access the website, of course we're putting more information constantly on the

website so they can have constant access to it, but any questions an individual

injured worker faces, they really need to discuss it with their caseworker to

get that type of assistance. Of course, when you come to appeals, that's when

you don't agree with a decision that's been made by WorkplaceNL and, of course

you have a democratic right to appeal the case.

MR. LANE:

I guess my point is that I

think there is a lack of communication that's happening sometimes at the case

manager level on some of this stuff. I think a lot of people don't even realize

there's even such a thing as a Workers' Advisor or whatever. I'm not sure how

well known that is. I think if you're someone who may be a public service

employee or something like that, like a NAPE member, they might direct you, but

if you're someone working in private industry, I'm not so sure they are

necessarily aware of that.

I also

believe it's somewhat limited as to what they will do. Would the workers' rep

that you're referring to at the Federation of Labour, I mean I don't think that

they're going to do 200 appeals this year. I'm sure Ms. Hickey can probably

comment on that. I would be very surprised, if she does 150 cases this year,

that the workers' rep from the Federation of Labour is going to be there

presenting 150 times on behalf of those people to help them represent them. I

doubt that's happening.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

I understand what you're

saying. Individuals have to find the proper supports themselves to help them

through an appeals process. The staff, the employee is with the Federation of

Labour and the Employers' Council. There's one at each.

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

But an individual themselves

would need to reach out to the Employers' Council – no, the Federation of

Labour, sorry, to get that assistance there, but they're not going to help them.

They're not going to represent them for an appeal. You have to find that support

yourself.

MR. LANE:

No, they're not. I guess that's my point. Is there any thought in making some

changes and additional resources of having something in place to help injured

workers with their appeals. If a constituent comes to me and I'm aware of it, I

represent them, but there's a lot of people go unrepresented, a lot of them

wouldn't even think about going to their MHA.

Again,

seeing as how there is a very healthy injury fund there, I'm just wondering

would there be any thought or desire to even entertain the idea of additional

resources for injured workers to help them with their appeals?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Two things: Equal representation to the injured worker, equal representation to

the employer, so it's an equal system; and the second thing being is that the

2019 stat review is coming up.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

It's certainly an opportunity

to bring that type of situation forward for review to see if there is an

appetite, once the analysis is done, to add additional supports for injured

workers.

MR. LANE:

Okay, well, I thank you for that. I'll probably go to that stat review and

recommend that.

I would

disagree with you on the whole employer and employee being equal, because

they're far from equal when you've got an employer who probably has a disability

manager working within their company or they have contracted out to one of those

companies. It's definitely not equal, that I can assure you, but anyway.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

It's a no-fault system, too,

right?

MR. LANE:

No, I understand that. Thank you, Minister, for that.

The only

other question I had was around the appeal process. I just want to make sure I

understand. It was a 14-month wait. Now it's taking, you're saying, like 12

months or thereabouts, which is obviously way beyond 60 days; it's not even in

the same ball field.

Have you

ever looked at triaging? I don't know if you do that or not. Is it just based on

the date that it comes in or is there any – I'm using the term triaging to say,

look, here are a few easy ones that we can deal with fairly quickly and dispose

of, rather than having this person wait a full year for something that we can do

quickly, waiting in line so to speak, or is it simply on the date that you

receive it?

I guess

for Ms. Hickey.

MS. HICKEY:

Yes, we do that already.

MR. LANE:

Do you?

MS. HICKEY:

So all of the new review commissioners that just came on, obviously, we're not

going to give them a lot of complex cases.

MR. LANE:

Sure.

MS. HICKEY:

So that was one of the things that our staff worked through with Ms. Howe,

behind me here, to identify some of the cases that were a little bit more

straight forward. They were assigned those cases and we do them, not on the date

they come in, but as the time allows us to do them and get them into hearings

slot.

With

respect to people who may have, for example, a wage loss issue, we will try to

get them scheduled as quickly as we can, if we can get all the parties together.

So there's a fair amount of work that goes into managing the case load and

prepping it for hearing.

Often

times there are other issues that surface that don't allow us to

schedule a

hearing, but, for the most part, we're always aware of the nature of the

applications that we have. We do engage in the triage. We also try to screen the

applications before we actually assign them to hearing to make sure that they're

ready for a hearing. So, if we feel that WorkplaceNL has not done something that

it ought to have done, we will refer the application back to WorkplaceNL for

that kind of follow-up.

MR. LANE:

Okay. Thank you. That's good to know.

I was

going to ask about the wage loss issue because, obviously, someone whose

livelihood is depending on it versus someone who's looking for a PFI and a few

extra dollars, then I would put someone's livelihood prioritized ahead of that.

MS. HICKEY:

But that is subject to the availabilities that the parties.

MR. LANE:

I understand, yes.

MS. HICKEY:

If you have an employer representative, for example, it may be more difficult –

MR. LANE:

Sure.

MS. HICKEY:

– and WorkplaceNL participates from time to time as well.

MR. LANE:

Sure. Thank you for the answer. I appreciate it.

MS. HICKEY:

You're welcome.

CHAIR:

Okay. Mr. Parsons.

MR. K. PARSONS:

I'm just wondering, Ms. Hickey, about the number of appeals, 60 days, she says

it's an average, by law. What time frame are we in now?

MS. HICKEY:

It's probably taking a full year from the time –

MR. K. PARSONS:

A full year?

MS. HICKEY:

– of an application being submitted to the time you have your decision.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

Are you,

hopefully, going to be hiring some more full-time to handle this load? When do

you see us getting up to snuff on this and make sure that we're within our 60

days according to the legislation?

MS. HICKEY:

By our projections, we're looking at approximately a year and a half to 20

months, by the time we get within the range that we need to be in.

So, at

this point with the current number of review commissioners, we're projecting

about 250 to 300 applications being processed annually. Within those, right now,

we're receiving about 200 to 210 applications a year. That's like a 90-number

jump –

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. HICKEY:

– on where we have capacity versus what we have for application.

That's

subject to a lot of change and so on, but the normal operating caseload for the

Review Division is about 70 applications within normal range. We're at about 200

right now, so we're hoping that within the next year, certainly, we'll be able

to take a big chunk out of that number.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Are you hoping to hire any

more full-time commissioners?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

As you know in the past, of course, this system was on part-time commissioners –

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

– and that didn't work, so we

did an extensive review and arrived at the changes to the full-time

commissioners.

I am now

evaluating, from the time that they were hired and trained to how this system is

actually working with the full-time positions and when we would need or possibly

need to hire more to address it. You have to take into consideration, of course,

the training and the fact they're new and the cases.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

There's a realization, too,

that there are some cases that are over at the appeals board that are not moving

simply because there might be court involved or they're waiting on other

documentation that's not there. So, the number of cases doesn't necessarily mean

that that's the full number that's lined up to be heard right now, that's ready

to be heard, so that's the other thing you have to take into consideration.

As Ms.

Hickey alluded to, we're also receiving, I think, it's 25 to 30 a month. Is that

correct? Yeah. So there are 25 to 30 a month, from January. So, the system, with

the full-time commissioners, appears to be working well.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

But we really need to do a

clear analysis and to ensure that they're each – it's the complexities of the

cases, too, and when are we going to need to hire more, if we actually do need

to hire more?

MR. K. PARSONS:

When are the new ones in the

process of hearing appeals? Right now, are they in the training stages or are

they in the stage of hearing appeals, because obviously we must be hearing a lot

more appeals every month, are we?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Marlene, you can answer to

the stage of each one.

MS. HICKEY:

All the new review commissioners are currently fully trained and taking on a

full caseload as the summer

schedule permits.

The two

that were appointed in December, they were finished their training by the end of

February. We had another appointment in February and she began hearings, I

think, late March because we were able to do one on one with her, so everyone

right now is in training, but a review commissioner training really goes on for

years. It's not something that ends after –

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah, every case is

different.

MS. HICKEY:

Yeah, well, it's not that every case is different. The legislation is very

technical.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah, I can understand that

too.

Minister, I have a question for you.

Since we

brought in coverage for PTSD –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

MR. K. PARSONS:

– can you give us an update

of how that's going?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Well, that'll come into

effect on July 1.

MR. K. PARSONS:

It comes into effect July 1?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yeah.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

I'm

good.

CHAIR:

Okay?

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah.

CHAIR:

We're good. One more?

Okay,

Mr. O'Driscoll.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

I know there are 200 or 225 waiting to be heard. How many are ready to be heard?

MS. HICKEY:

About 180.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Ready to be heard? Okay.

All

right.

CHAIR:

Okay, we're good?

I think

we're about ready to vote on this subsection.

CLERK:

4.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 4.1.01 carry?

All

those in favour, ‘aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, ‘nay.'

Carried.

motion, subhead 4.1.01 carried.

motion, Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Review, total head, carried.

CHAIR:

Now we're moving to page 51.

CLERK:

1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 carry?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

I just got some general questions again.

Are you

still applying zero-based budgeting?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes, we are.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

What was the attrition savings last year in terms of dollars and positions in

this as well?

MR. DUTTON:

I think the minister noted in her opening remarks, we had a target of $550,600

that was eliminated from the salary plan for this year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How many positions?

MR. DUTTON:

We currently have 451 positions funded in the salary plan. You'll note from the

Departmental Salary details, we had 434 positions reflected there. It was 446

the year before. That includes the positions in the Review Division itself.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How many of those are contractual or short-term employees?

MR. DUTTON:

I don't know if I have that figure. What we do have in terms of the salary

information is the number of short-term hires was 59 during the course of the

2018-19 fiscal year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How many retirements have occurred in that department this year?

MR. DUTTON:

Fifteen for last year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Fifteen.

How many

layoffs have occurred in the department in the last year?

MR. DUTTON:

We haven't done any layoffs.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Any new

hires in the past year, do you know?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes, 23.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Twenty-three?

How many

vacancies have not been filled in this department?

MR. DUTTON:

At this point, again, we have 451 total positions and 434 of them were filled as

of the time that the Departmental Salary details report was published. It's a

difference of 17 and of course that number goes up and down throughout the year

as people retire or resign or move on.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you.

All

right, go to

section 1.1.01 under Salaries, $36,100 more was spend under the

revised, yet $34,800 less is budgeted this year. What explains that difference

there, the variance?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

That is payment of severance and leave balances.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Severance and, what was …?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Leave balances.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Leave? Okay.

Down to

General Administration, 1.2.01, under Salaries, $259,600 more was spent in 2018

than was budgeted and $205,300 less is budgeted this year. Can you explain that

variance?

MR. DUTTON:

I'm sorry, which line are you on?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Sorry, 1.2.01.

CHAIR:

It's the whole subhead.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Oh just –

CHAIR:

Yeah, that's fine. That's the whole subhead that we're discussing now. You said

1.2.01?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Yeah, that's fine. Go ahead.

MR. DUTTON:

Okay, and which …?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

The Salaries.

MR. DUTTON:

In the Salaries?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah.

MR. DUTTON:

Okay so in the budget last

year we had an attrition target assigned over and above the target from the 2015

budget. Given the lateness in the year when that was assigned, it was all booked

in the Executive Support area for the purpose of capturing the savings. That

spread out throughout the department for this year's salary plan to where our

plan works out.

In terms

of the increased spend last year, that also reflects the severance and annual

leave payout for two executive positions; we had two assistant deputy ministers

retired during the fiscal year. That was partly offset, again, by the attrition

target that was assigned to that item for the whole of the department. In terms

of the salaries for the year ahead then, there's been no change in the number of

executive positions and both of those assistant deputy ministers have been

replaced and are sitting by me here.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

That was going to be my next question. Under Employee Benefits, the amount

stated in last year's Estimate under this category was $2,900, yet there's an

amount listed as $75,300 for last year. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

Okay, on Employee Benefits in Executive Support, the workers' compensation

charges for the entire department, with the exception of the Occupational Health

and Safety Division, were paid out from this line item. That, obviously, is a

number that fluctuates from year to year, depending on the number of injuries

and time missed. That was the reason for the higher than budgeted spend in

2018-'19.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Revenue - Provincial, what is included in that?

MR. DUTTON:

The revenue is essentially the costs in Executive Support related to the

occupational health and safety work. Part of the time of the executive that's

devoted to occupational health and safety is charged back to WorkplaceNL. I

think that may be the only item for this area. There are other

federal-provincial revenues in other parts of the department.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Go to

1.2.02. In the description of the department, the training component of French

Language Services is no longer referenced, only the translation is mentioned. Is

French training still being provided?

MR. DUTTON:

French language training is carried out by the Centre for Learning and

Development at the Human Resources Secretariat. Some of the funding to help

cover that cost is recovered through the federal-provincial Agreement on French

Language Services. All of the revenue is booked in French Language Services, but

all of the spend related to training is in the Human Resources Secretariat.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Salaries there's a considerable variance of $111,400. More was spent last

year and another $45,600 budgeted for this year. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

Sure. This also had come up at last year's meeting. We were at a point during

the negotiations of the new five-year agreement last year where we were lobbying

for an increase in the federal funding share. When the program was transferred

from the Human Resources Secretariat to Service NL, it didn't have funding in

the forecast for all four of the long-term positions that are attached to the

program. The Estimates showed up last year with funding for two of the four

positions at that point in time.

The

negotiations went on; we subsequently confirmed that there would be no increase,

the funding was frozen for the five-year period and that was the same outcome

for all provinces and territories. We made a determination through the budget

process that, again, following the principles of attrition, that we weren't to

displace any employees who didn't want to go.

Over the

course of the year we transferred some funding from savings in Motor

Registration to cover some of the salary costs. We have a slightly lesser spend

than what we're budgeting last year because one of the four employees was

recruited to a temporary position at Justice and Public Safety. She returned

before the end of the fiscal year so what we have reflected in 2019-'20 is the

historic regular cost of the four positions reflected there, as well as the

anticipated revenue offsetting from the federal government.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Professional Services what was included in this?

MR. DUTTON:

The Professional Services line item includes part-time for translation services.

We do some of our translation with an in-house translator. Some of the more

complicated jobs we have to deal with the Translation Bureau in Ottawa and we

have another federal-provincial agreement for how that work is carried out.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Grants and Subsidies, what's included in that?

MR. DUTTON:

That is for the province's membership in the Ministerial Conference on the

Canadian Francophonie. While it's called Grants and Subsidies, it's really a

membership.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Federal, I understand that there's federal funding for the program and

the agreement expired. I think you answered that already.

MR. DUTTON:

Right.

Again,

that was renewed on the same basis, so it's a 50/50 agreement. Our 50 per cent

partly comes from our expenditures in this area, as well as the Centre for

Learning and Development. Other funding that the government expends in other

departments for projects to support the Francophone and Acadian population can

be counted towards meeting our matching target.

That's

it there for me.

CHAIR:

Okay. Thank you.

The next

speaker.

MS. COFFIN:

I was wondering, is there a new Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Agreement on

French-Language Services with a funding increase?

MR. DUTTON:

No. There is a new agreement, there was no increase. The press release was dated

April 1. It was signed in February. The funding has been at the same level for a

number of years. There was a decision from the federal government not to

increase the federal share for any province or territory, other than I think an

announcement the year prior that there's been an increase for the territories,

but all the provinces have the same level of funding in the new five-year

agreements that they had in the previous.

MS. COFFIN:

No adjustment for inflation at all?

MR. DUTTON:

None.

MS. COFFIN:

Good. Thanks guys.

MR. DUTTON:

It's not that we didn't ask.

MS. COFFIN:

I'm saying that on your behalf. I'm with you on this one.

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

I do want to commend you on being able to keep Transportation and Communications

in check where many other departments have totally (inaudible) that one. I'm not

sure what your postage is, but everybody else seems to think that postage has

caused Transportation and Communications to go through the roof.

What

were your activities in 2018 related to translation and cultural programming of

the service navigator pilot project at Motor Vehicle?

MR. DOODY:

The service navigator was that we had staff volunteer to either assist clients,

whether that would be to help them directly get in touch with an individual to

help do direct translation or just work with them through using things like

Google Translate to help provide services. So at least they had someone who was

there to help interact with them. There's –

MS. COFFIN:

You used Google Translate?

MR. DOODY:

Yeah. And it works.

MS. COFFIN:

And it works?

MR. DOODY:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Have you done that? Like, you know, put a sentence in, translate it to a

different language and then try to translate it back and get something totally

different?

MR. DUTTON:

I just want to say that our translator would probably have a fit if we said that

we relied on it exclusively. Certainly it gives you the gist.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you.

Linguists all over the world.

MR. DUTTON:

And we certainly rely on professional translation, especially for formal

communication. I think you earlier also asked about the translation activity.

Last year, I think, it was the first year that we went over 1,000,000 words

translated through the French Services group. So there has been a lot of content

that's been added to the government website in French, as well as a number of

press releases, particularly things that would be of particular interest to the

Francophone community.

you'll see that a lot of the education releases will also be done in French, and

that's an area that is very important to the community and it's been a priority

for government.

MS. COFFIN:

That's good. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

You

don't offer any other languages, just the two officials and ASL? You just do

MR. DUTTON:

It's the French Language Services. It's purely again to advance the bilingual

nature of Canada.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, of course, this was kind of a sidebar question of, do you translate into

other languages that are outside of the French secretariat? I'm just curious.

MR. DUTTON:

Sure.

MS. COFFIN:

All right. Thank you.

I think

we've answered the other questions, just a second.

Okay.

We're good.

Thank

you very much.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Moving

on, you're good?

MR. LANE:

I'm good.

CHAIR:

Everybody good? Okay.

MR. K. PARSONS:

I've got a couple.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. K. PARSONS:

You said that through attrition there was a savings of $544,000?

MR. DUTTON:

$550,600.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay. How many positions was that?

MR. DUTTON:

Well again, I guess going back to the numbers to compare year over year in

salary details there was a reduction of 12 positions overall across the

department. But when you consider that the Review Division had an increase of

four due to the matters that were discussed earlier, the impact for the Service

NL itself would have been 16.

MR. K. PARSONS:

How many were eliminated last year in the department – any?

MR. DUTTON:

Well, I think there were a couple of positions that were reported for the

purpose of the new attrition target for 2019 – three? Sorry, yes.

But as

far as doing the salary plan, the approach we have taken has been to look at,

following the principle, the first review is to make sure that we have enough

funding to pay for all the positions that our people are in today, and then we

look at, with what is remaining, what are the highest priority positions to fill

going forward. We've had a particular focus there on maintaining public

inspection and safety services as a priority.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

The

number of positions that were in the budget last year versus the number of

positions in the budget this year, what is the variance – is there much

difference in how many people are in the department?

MR. DUTTON:

Well, that would be the difference, the 16.

So if

you look at the Departmental Salary Report that accompanies the budget –

MR. K. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. DUTTON:

– the difference between those two reports would be 16 for Service NL, is a

decrease, but an increase of four for the Review Division.

MR. K. PARSONS:

But you just said that you

had 60 through attrition.

MR. DUTTON:

No, 16 – 1-6.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay, 16, I'm sorry.

MR. DUTTON:

But three PCN numbers, we'll call them, that were formally abolished.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay, all right.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Okay, good.

Seeing

no further speakers, shall we vote on the subhead?

CLERK:

1.1.01 to 1.2.02 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 1.2.02 inclusive carry?

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against?

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.2.02

carried.

CLERK:

2.1.01.

CHAIR:

Okay, we'll have our first

speaker, please, on Regulatory Affairs.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

All right.

Under

2.1.01 under Salaries, this year's budget includes an additional $29,000 over

last year. Can you explain that one?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

That's the additional two

positions that are being filled from the previous 2018-19 salary details. The

salary plan fully funds the existing positions. They were filled during '18-'19

fiscal year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Provincial, what is included in that?

MR. DUTTON:

The revenue is the application fees that are paid by applicants seeking to have

a complaint adjudicated. That would relate, I think, to the residential

tenancies part of the division.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

How are

the caseloads in the residential tenancies?

MR. DELANEY:

So, in terms of the

caseloads, there are approximately 1,100 applications they receive per year over

the last couple of years, but the new legislation came into force January 1 of

this year, and the division has noted an uptick, probably, the start of this

year, and they are on track for about 1,250 applications this year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Has the new act impacted the

caseload and the number of complaints?

MR. DELANEY:

Well, I think in terms of the

number of applications, it is certainly up. Whether it is that the process has

been more simplified and there are more people coming forward, but certainly

they have noticed an increase in the number of applications they are receiving.

MR. DUTTON:

(Inaudible) increased that

boarding houses were covered for the first time.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

In late

March, it was announced that the legislative changes to the Real Estate Act were

planned for this spring. I understand it was selected for review to a committee.

Can you provide an update on the status of that?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

As you know, when the House

closed prior to the election that was on the Order Paper, and the objective is

to bring it back in and to put it through committee as soon as possible, we can

hopefully bring it into the Legislature in the fall.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

In both 2015 and 2017 mandate

letters, the minister of Service NL was directed to establish an online,

searchable database to alert customers of bad business practice. What is the

status of that database now?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

The internal review was

completed of the existing disclosure methods at Service NL, including consumer

alerts and advisories related to illegal investment activity, mortgage

brokering, real estate licences and occupational health and safety. The Office

of the Chief Information Officer initiated the development of the consumer

notification webpage for Consumer Advisories and Alerts, charges and convictions

and the new Consumer Advisories and Alerts webpage was launched on November 1,

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Well, that is it for me.

CHAIR:

Good for you? Okay.

Moving

on to our next speaker, please.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Consumer

Affairs – the Salaries, you have spoken to that, yes?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes? Okay.

Can we

have your work with OCIO on a consumer notification webpage for consumer alerts,

charges and convictions?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes. So that is a website

that the Member for Ferryland was just speaking about.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. DUTTON:

There was a press release on

November 1 where you can find the link to the information. Also, if you go to

our main Service NL webpage then there's a hotlink to the consumer alerts part

there.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Payday

loans legislation came into effect April 1. Does any part apply to people who

borrowed before April 1?

MR. DELANEY:

The legislation is effective

in terms of the licensing, but in terms of consumer protection legislation there

still could be issues related to payday lenders. For example, I do believe there

were a small number – I think two or three complaints – that were outstanding

regarding payday lenders, and I think in particular it related to collection

agencies of payday lenders.

answer your question, yes, if there's a pre-existing condition there might be

other pieces of legislation where the protection would apply.

MS. COFFIN:

Excellent.

MR. DUTTON:

In terms of what was deemed

the Criminal Code rates for excessive

interest, the government had decided in the previous administration to pursue

prosecution on that and made a conclusion that it wasn't something that they

could enforce. That was one of the considerations in the government deciding to

proceed with payday loan legislation similar to what's in place in other

provinces.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, thank you.

How is

the department providing information to the public on the new legislation and

the public's rights under that?

MR. DELANEY:

Under payday lending you

mean?

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

MR. DELANEY:

Certainly, I mean, the

website is updated. I know the director of the division has been out to meet

with industry in particular. There are a lot of the requirements around

disclosure at the time that someone takes out a payday loan and then there are

disclosure requirements so, basically, the public is informed at the time of

making application.

MS. COFFIN:

So it's at point. Okay.

Financial services regulation; we've heard complaints that insurance companies

are increasing their rates to condominiums and some have pulled out altogether.

Has your department received any such complaints?

MR. DELANEY:

There has been an issue, I

guess very recently, raised in regard to condominiums, but I think it had to do

with condominiums where there were detached dwellings, townhouses associated

with the condominiums. I think the issue there is in terms of the insurance. The

insurance provider is looking for some sort of history of insurability, so a

history of the property, and that's not always easy to come by.

You can

imagine if you have a condo development and there are 200 separate town houses

all effectively with separate owners who have maintained their properties over

the years, while there's knowledge of the external condition of each premises,

there is no consistent – trying to gather 200 historical references on all the

different properties.

I think

there is an issue there, but certainly it has been brought to our attention, but

very recently. It's certainly something we'll be looking into in terms of trying

to allow them to make sure that they can be insured.

MS. COFFIN:

That will be the follow-up.

Would government play a role if condominium owners can't get insurance and what

might that role be?

MR. DELANEY:

I think at this stage it's

very early in terms – the issue that's been brought forward is just simply that

they're still looking at what options are available with regard to insurance

but, certainly, if there are issues, I'm sure we'd do a policy, do an analysis

on it.

MS. COFFIN:

Excellent. Thank you.

Back to

Commercial Registrations, 2.1.04, I noticed that Transportation and

Communications go up there. What was the jump there or what is the anticipated

jump?

MR. DUTTON:

The increase was the higher postage costs and out-of-province travel for

conferences.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, because I don't see

postage cost increased anywhere else, so it must be travel, hey?

MR. DUTTON:

No, postage is a part of T and C throughout the department.

MS. COFFIN:

Pardon?

MR. DUTTON:

Transportation and Communications, sorry.

MS. COFFIN:

No, that's not what I mean. I

didn't see the jump in several of the other sections.

MR. DUTTON:

They do a lot of mailing and in Motor Registration we've cut out a lot of

mailing.

MS. COFFIN:

Of course, because you had

the emails and stuff kind of got your costs under control there.

All

right then, let's talk about Vital Stats. I noticed the number has gone up and

gone up again. Did we get more people in Vital Stats?

MR. DUTTON:

The staff complement is the same, but all of the positions weren't fully funded

last year as part of the salary plan. We have all of those positions fully

funded in this year's plan.

MS. COFFIN:

Man, the work you must be

getting done now, hey, with everybody in there.

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah, well, some of the

positions throughout the department were temporary, but they were long-term

temporaries. In order to balance the plan last year, the temporary positions we

had to fund for six months and then see where the savings would accrue, knowing

that there were going to be retirements and turnover. We've addressed that on a

go-forward basis.

MS. COFFIN:

That's excellent. Good.

Let's

look at the federal revenue. What are the feds paying us for in Vital Stats?

MR. DUTTON:

We have a number of information-sharing agreements, and they require some data

to manage some of their own programs. The federal revenue would be for –

particularly Statistics Canada and Elections Canada would need to access the

vital statistics information to ensure –

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, they pay you for that?

MR. DUTTON:

– the validity of their information. We get a small fee for doing so, of our

cost.

MS. COFFIN:

That's great. Have you ever tried to get data from Stats Can? They charge you

three times as much. Unless you're an educational institution, then there are a

couple of back doors around that.

Provincial revenue there; is that revenue coming into the province for – it

costs you $20 to get a birth certificate now, or is that something different?

MR. DUTTON:

It's a recovery of cost for secure shipment of certificates.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. DUTTON:

Where that has to be done. Then there's a fee and then the cost is recovered. It

shows up in the expenditure and then on the revenue side.

MS. COFFIN:

All right, I'm looking at Queen's Printer, the revenue there. Gee, didn't quite

see as much as we had hoped under revised, but there's a big jump now next year.

What are we selling?

MR. DUTTON:

The Newfoundland and Labrador Gazette

and copies of the legislation. In Budget

2015 there was an increase in the subscription fees. It was, I think, 10 per

cent that year and then another 5 per cent thereafter. This is the last year of

that increase, so that's what accounts for the increased revenue.

MS. COFFIN:

There's a decrease of almost $40,000 budget over revised. Even with the fee

increases, are we expecting readership to go through the roof? There's some

really interesting stuff coming out in the Gazette?

MR. DUTTON:

Not particularly. We do our best.

MS. COFFIN:

It's riveting reading.

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

I'm just wondering why the rates – it says revised. It only came in at $56,000;

we're expecting almost twice that this year. Is someone selling these in the

school, like, check off the magazines and you get a free Gazette?

MR. DUTTON:

I guess at that point there were fewer subscriptions than anticipated. I don't

know whether that projection will hold true or not for 2019-'20, and then we'll

have to re-evaluate that for next year.

MS. COFFIN:

Of course. Thank you.

Let's

flip over to Printing and Micrographic Services. Let's see, the Salaries look to

be a little bit of attrition and possibly a little bit of severance payout

there, right?

MR. DUTTON:

In terms of 2018-'19, there were some vacancies during the year, so that

accounted for the lower expenditure. In terms of the year ahead, there's one

fewer position in the salary details compared to the year previous.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. How much toner do they

go through?

MR. DUTTON:

A lot of toner. Most of the expense in the area is on ink and paper.

MS. COFFIN:

Right, of course. This is

what I expected.

So we're

not printing; we didn't print quite as much as we had anticipated. We're down by

about a third from budget to revised last year?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah, that's right.

MS. COFFIN:

The Budget Speech was really

long, I don't know why?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah. That was printed in

2019-20.

MS. COFFIN:

Right, yeah. Well, the one

last year was pretty substantial too, right?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

So, a little less printing

happening last year?

MR. DUTTON:

I guess in terms of the total expenses, I don't have a figure on the number of

print jobs, but we've actually reached out to other agencies, boards and

commissions during the year to make them more aware of the printing services.

Core government uses it fairly regularly, but sometimes agencies, boards and

commissions, they may not realize that they could have their print job perhaps

done more cheaply through the in-house service than if they went out to market.

There

are some jobs that are unusual sizes or that are on particular deadlines that

maybe they can't accommodate, but mainly, the equipment is already there and the

staff are there, so unless there was excessive overtime for a rush job or

something like that, it often can be done more cheaply.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

MR. DUTTON:

So we've tried to bring in more of that work for other entities wherever

possible.

MS. COFFIN:

Good, that's reassuring.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

The

Member's time has expired.

We can

come back to you, but we will move on now to the next speaker.

Mr.

O'Driscoll.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

My error there; when I

started at first, I just stopped at the first page, so my fault there.

Back to

2.1.02.

MR. DUTTON:

Yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Salaries are $139,800, less

was spent last year and an additional $147,500 is included this year over the

revised. Can you explain the variance here, please?

MR. DUTTON:

Sure.

There

were a number of vacancies during the course of the year; we've had a plan to

fill all of those positions. So, overall, if you look at the salary details,

there's a reduction in one position compared to the year before, but that was a

position that was temporarily vacant that we intended to fill. So we do

anticipate to maintain the full staff complement for this year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

When can

we expect to see some action based on the automobile insurance review?

MR. DUTTON:

Well, the legislation has passed into law; some of the reforms take effect on

August 1, those that don't require regulations to support them. January 1 would

be the effective date for the remainder of the reforms, with the exception of

the adoption of the treatment protocols, that part of the legislation is on a

date to be determined because we have to carry out consultations with the health

professionals who will be providing those services. That's something a little

more out of our control, so we just want to make sure that we have those

consultations completed.

So, if

someone has a more common injury, then they'll be approved right away for

treatments based on an existing

schedule and payment plan that will reflect what

would be the normal costs associated. It'll work more like when someone's on

workers' comp, they will go to get their treatment and it'll be billed directly

and then they won't have to come up with the money up front.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

All right.

2.1.03,

under Salaries, $64,800 less was spent than budgeted in 2018, and that amount is

back in the budget again this year. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON

Yes, so this is the Pension Benefits Standards Division, we have three

positions. One of the positions is temporarily vacant, and there's recruitment

ongoing. I think it recently closed and interviews are being scheduled. The

other is for the director of the division. That was the current assistant deputy

minister of Regulatory Affairs. So he's acting as the superintendent of pensions

to fulfill the legislative obligations until someone can be recruited. So, we

did run a competition, didn't result in a qualified candidate, so we'll be

reposting that again during the year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay, thank you.

Under

2.1.04, under Commercial Registrations, Salaries, $73,200 less was spent under

the revised last year, an additional $49,800 in this year's budget over the

revised amount. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes, so the decrease reflected mainly vacancies that occurred throughout the

year. Then in terms of the year ahead, the salary details would reflect a

decrease of five positions from the previous year. Now, in fact, those five

weren't funded in last year's budget. It was related to a project, we call it

the verification team, but, basically, we were digitizing records from the

Registry of Deeds and turning them into searchable texts. Some of them are

handwritten and have to be, not just scanned, but also turned into a searchable

text.

We have

all of that done back to 1982. It's a multi-year project that had finite funding

that was provided, so the funding expired in March 31, 2018, and that accounts

for the change.

We still

maintained two positions, although that wasn't funded, we found money in the

salary plan to retain two. We are going to continue to digitize the older

records, at least to be able to preserve them for posterity, because we don't

want to lose those records in the event of a flood or a fire at our office.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

That pretty much up-to-date or it is long (inaudible) to catch it up or catch up

(inaudible)?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah. Well, it will take

longer, obviously, with a lesser number of staff –

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

MR. DUTTON:

– but they are focused on just digitizing the records as fast as they can. Then

some of this conversion will have to occur later, so at least they will be

backed up and preserved.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How far back would that go?

MR. DUTTON:

Pardon?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

How far back would that go?

MR. DUTTON:

1820, I think.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

MR. DUTTON:

It goes back before

responsible government.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Is that right?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

What's

the status of the Registry of Deeds digitization?

MR. DUTTON:

Well, again, up to 1982, we

have all of the records digitized, and they're continuing to work backwards. So

there sort of regular plans to go through the documents. I couldn't say how many

years back they've gone from there; that was our progress as of last year.

Again, that's ongoing as a priority to preserve the records.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Employee Benefits, 2.1.04, the amount stated in last year's Estimate under this

category was $1,800, yet it states $1,600 here for last year's budget. Can you

explain that number? They just do not match.

MR. DUTTON:

Go ahead, Robyn.

MS. HAYES:

During the fiscal year, we

restated our workers' comp to be all under the executive support division, so

that's why you would see the difference in the number there. It was the worker's

comp for this division.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Purchased Services,

what is included?

MR. DUTTON:

Purchased Services

(inaudible) was the contract fees with the Unisys. We have personal property

security registry that we have with them, and there is a contract that involves

all of the Atlantic provinces and the three territories that was renewed last

year.

It also

is the area where we pay our Moneris fees. People that pay their fees to the

registry online, then we have a fee from Moneris for using credit card or debit

card information, and other general Purchased Services, which would be a very

small amount.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

In Other

Services, in the 2018 budget, the Vital Statistics Registry, the Queen's Printer

and Printing and Micrographic Services were under Government Services.

MR. DUTTON:

Yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Why have they been moved into

the Regulatory Affairs in this budget?

MR. DUTTON:

So, I mentioned earlier that

we had two retirements this year, and it was another opportunity to look at our

organizational structure. We made a determination with Occupational Health and

Safety, initially when the three branches were collapsed into two, we had

Occupational Health and Safety and what was formerly Consumer and Commercial

Affairs put together.

With the

departure of the two ADMs, we had a chance to look at what was the right mix and

skillset to match with those areas. We felt that Occupational Health and Safety

was more of an inspection service, so that was more similar to the sorts of work

that goes on in Government Services Branch, particularly around health

inspections, Engineering and Inspections Services, and things of that nature, so

that aligned better. To retain a relative balance in the number of direct

reports, Vital Statistics and Printing and Micrographic Services were probably

more on their own within that division. There's still a relative balance of I

think six or seven directors per ADM, so the organizational structure was more

balanced in that respect.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under 2.2.01, under

Transportation and Communications, $14,000 less was spent than budgeted last

year, but $13,900 of this is back in this year's budget. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah, they were just for Vital Stats, lower travel, postage and courier costs

than anticipated, and it's just a zero-based adjustment in the year ahead. So it

was just a minor adjustment, that might have been an anomaly and some of those

travel costs may go up and down depending on where the meetings occur.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under 2.2.02, under Queen's

Printer, Salaries, why aren't the salaries listed for the Queen's Printer? And

$44,800 was there last year.

MR. DUTTON:

The person who was the Queen's Printer retired, and as part of the attrition

plan we've combined the roles of the Queen's Printer and the director of

Printing and Micrographic Services. So that individual fulfills both functions,

but the cost of operating the Office of the Queen's Printer, which has sort of a

separate office here in the basement of the East Block, those costs are

reflected as still in a separate line item.

So the

phone line is forwarded to that individual's desk, and this is where we have to

book the expenditure and revenue related to, like I said, as a discrete item.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Purchased Services,

what is included in Purchased Services? There was $12,100 less spent than last

year than was budgeted, yet additional $12,000 is included in this.

MR. DUTTON:

In terms of what's the money for, it's for the various bills and accounts and

equipment lease, copying charges and other documents associated with the work

for the House of Assembly. In terms of the variance throughout the year, the –

sorry, the reduction during the course of the year was just a reduction in the

requirement for printed publications. Again, we had a zero-based adjustment but,

as we discussed earlier, we'll be monitoring this during the course of the year

to see whether, you know, there is a real year-over-year decrease in the amount

of subscriptions and use of that material, and may have to make some adjustments

into the next year.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Time is up? Yes?

CHAIR:

Yes, you have expired.

So, no

further questions here on this particular subhead, we can call the vote?

MR. K. PARSONS:

I just got one.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. K. PARSONS:

When it comes to the Queen's

Printer, is there any stuff outsourced outside the Confederation Building? Do

they do any printing for different boards and agencies?

MR. DUTTON:

Well, I guess the way it works now, all of the former budgets for printing in

core government were all reallocated into Printing and Micrographic Services a

number of years ago, so there's no direct cost to a line department to have a

print job done that they're capable of doing. So they just send in the order and

then it's covered there. Service NL covers the cost. I wouldn't call it a kitty

– somebody described it as that to me – but, basically, that was for efficiency

sake.

For the

agencies, boards and commissions, they may choose to do their own printing

somewhere, but we've, again, reached out to them to try and encourage them to do

more of that work with Printing and Micrographic Services for a lesser expense

than maybe they would have incurred previously.

There

are some unusual print jobs like large maps or different things that maybe don't

fit with the types of equipment that we have in the basement. It can't do every

single type of print job, but anything that their equipment is able to handle,

they have.

One of

the things we had purchased for last year was a new saddle stitch binder to

enable us to be able to do the public exams. So they used to be outsourced by

the Department of Education. Now, they're doing it in Printing and Micrographic

Services, and it saved Education, I think, $33,000 or $36,000, which came out of

their budget, but there was no offsetting increase because we just absorb it

within our paper and ink, and it was a cost-neutral initiative for us that saved

another department money.

MR. K. PARSONS:

But, years ago, the Queen's

Printer used to do a lot of printing for Department of Education, like public

exams and different boards.

MR. DUTTON:

Yes.

MR. K. PARSONS:

I think the NLC and stuff

like that, so they did a lot.

Is the

capacity down there not what it was 10 years ago compared to what it is today?

MR. DUTTON:

I don't know about that. I mean, I guess they've been a real strong adaptor of

lean approaches to try to make sure that their operation is as efficient as

possible, and even just in terms of ergonomics and that sort of thing, what

level on the shelves they put the paper and all that kind of thing, and how the

office is organized, and looking at how people do their work every day, that

they've made a lot of great strides. That was a big part of the department's

strategic plan to focus in that area, and those were the sorts of things that

we've highlighted in our annual reports as good examples for others to follow.

Certainly, there is less stuff probably printed overall than before because more

and more things are being pushed to online services.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Do they have all the up-to-date equipment that they need to do at printing

services?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes. They have existing service agreements. Xerox would be one of their main

suppliers with the equipment, and those sorts of arrangements are regularly

reviewed and updated.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay. It's just out of curiosity. I used to be there on a daily basis because I

was the one that would repair their equipment at one time. I'm not saying that I

was a bad repair person, but I was there on a daily basis.

MR. DUTTON:

Well, we'll keep that in mind the next time we have a job after 5 o'clock.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay. No sweat. Give me a call. I'll take care of it. I take care of everything

on the fifth floor right now.

Under

Supplies, there's $109,000 less spent on Supplies than the budget, but almost a

full amount back this year. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

Are we in Printing and Micrographic?

MR. K. PARSONS:

I'm doing the Printing and Micrographic Services.

MR. DUTTON:

Okay.

In terms

of the Supplies, the reduced amount was just lower office supply requirements.

They tend to vary from year to year depending on the requirements and they use

some of the savings in this area to offset overages in Professional Services,

Purchased Services and Property, Furnishings and Equipment.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

Under

Professional Services, can you explain the $41,000 under the revised?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes. That was a one-time expense and there was some outsourced project

management services through the Office of the Chief Information Officer to

install an information management system and online ordering system for printing

services. They are trying to digitize their orders, so rather than having

departments do them by paper, they can do that through an online service and

it'll help to improve efficiency.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, an additional $74,100 was spent under the revised last year.

Can you explain what's included and what occurred?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

So that was the budget material in 2018 that was sent out to the households for

the Department of Finance.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay. And that is covered under there?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Under Purchased Services, yes, that increase of $74,100.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

MR. DUTTON:

It was the first time I think that the printing was done differently in past

years and so it wasn't something that was an anticipated expense for Printing

and Micrographics Services Division and then the Department of Finance covered

the postage on the mail out.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

Is that

something you plan on doing in the future?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Well, I think what it was, was that in the past it had been done, and then one

year we decided not to do it and then we realized there was a need to do it to

get the information out, so we changed it and did it in the following year.

MR. DUTTON:

It occurred in April. The budget submission had been already put in and then we

found out about the expense. So that's been factored into the budget on a

go-forward basis as part of the zero-based exercise.

MR. K. PARSONS:

So it's been factored in on a go-forward basis, okay.

MR. DUTTON:

Yeah. So we'll make the assumption that may be required again.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay.

Property, Furnishings and Equipment, an additional $15,000 spent over the

revised from last year. Can you explain that?

MR. DUTTON:

There was the purchase of a digital printer.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Okay. That's it for me.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. LANE:

A couple of quick questions. I'm waiting for the light.

CHAIR:

Just give it a wave. You have to do the YMCA every now and then.

MR. LANE:

There we go.

I'm just

wondering, prepaid funerals; I can remember there was a significant issue that

happened a number of years ago. As a result of that, of course, there are

supposed to be prepaid funeral audits and I know that the funeral home operators

are supposed to send in documentation, I think, every year to the division and

then there are audits.

I seem

to recall over the last couple of years there were issues where information

wasn't being received on a timely basis from all the funeral home operators, and

then there wasn't necessarily audits being done in a timely fashion. I can

remember asking and I was told the same guy that the does the funeral audits is

also the same guy that has a number of other things: insurance and real estate

or whatever. It's like multi-tasking, so he doesn't necessarily get time to do

everything in a timely fashion, per se.

I'm just

wondering, where are we now in terms of prepaid funeral audits?

MR. DELANEY:

Certainly that is a very top-of-mind issue. There are a number of reviews

ongoing. I apologize, I don't have the number in front of me, but there are a

few of the funeral homes that have had their licence suspended for the selling

of prepaid funerals.

Not to

repeat probably the response of the past but certainly it falls under the same

division as the auto insurance review, the real estate legislation, so in terms

of keeping up with some of the priorities, it's – and we did have a change in

director in that position during the last fiscal year as well.

It is

very much an issue that I can comment. T he director does get regular

calls from a few of the key funeral homes, especially those that are awaiting

the final audit of their trust funds. It's something that we will certainly be

putting a push on to get done over the course of the next few months, in terms

of getting some of these reviews up to date and also in terms

of finalizing some of the

audits. Some audits are still ongoing for some of these trust funds as well.

There is

a bit of difficulty – you're correct – in terms of getting some of the

information from the funeral homes. But at the end of the day, in order to allow

them to continue to operate, to be able to sell prepaid funerals, we need to get

these audits of the trust funds up to date.

MR. LANE:

Okay. It sounds like we're still sort of floating out there with a lot of this

not being done.

MR. DELANEY:

No, I guess I –

MR. LANE:

Or at least delays in it getting done.

MR. DELANEY:

I would say the difference being that I can say with certainty that the director

has been working on a couple, actually, over the past week. There are a couple

currently in progress, as opposed to on the agenda, to be addressed.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

MR. DUTTON:

I think you should add, too, that if anybody becomes aware or has a concern,

that they should bring their complaints forward to the registrar of prepaid

funerals and it'll be investigated. We have investigative staff there who do the

follow-up.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

I just want to add, too, that

when they are brought to our attention – the particular funeral homes, if there

is one brought to our attention, because often the board can come together and

put forward a complaint – that is addressed immediately and we look at it

immediately.

MR. LANE:

Sure. Obviously, the concern is what led to all this being put in place to begin

with. We wouldn't want to see any citizens prepaying and their money is –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

That's right.

MR. LANE:

That's why that trust fund was set up to begin with –

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

That's right.

MR. LANE:

– because it did happen.

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes, that's right.

MR. LANE:

You want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The only

other question I have, overall in the department, or certainly in the areas

we're covering here, you're dealing with a lot of documentation and we're

talking printing services as well. I'm just wondering what efforts – I'm sure

there have been some made. Are there any ongoing efforts to eliminate paper

altogether in terms of more opportunities to use technology and do things

electronically, as opposed to paper and reports and stuff like this.

Theoretically, this could be on an iPad and we wouldn't be here flipping through

pages on a book. I'm just wondering, ongoing efforts in that regard?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes, just on that part, one of the things the minister referenced in her opening

remarks was the email notification project with Motor Registration. That

diverted a lot of paper away from the landfill. We've had well over 100,000

people signed up for the email reminders. As you mentioned, that's saved

$400,000 in printing and postage costs that we're able to use to address some of

our other financial pressures in the department and put a bit of money towards

the deficit at the same time.

Also,

the minister had an announcement in March with the Minister of Finance on the

MyGovNL portal. Motor Registration is one of the first programs to be put on

there. The idea is that people will have their own digital identity where

they'll be able to log in to that website and get their information about their

Motor Registration renewals and driver's licence renewals. More and more

programs across multiple departments will be added so you'll be able to get to

the tell-us-once place and be able to access all of that information in the long

run through your computer, through signing in once, to access your own personal

information.

That

will also provide some enhancements over the type of information that was

provided. With the email, as an example, one of the issues some people raised

was that they had multiple vehicles, but we designed the email not to have any

personal information in it so as to not have an inadvertent breach in the event

there was a keying error on the email address. Then they said I have more than

one vehicle and I don't know which one it is that's up for renewal. When they

log in on the MyGovNL they'll be able to see, if they own two, three or 10

vehicles, which ones are due for renewal at which time. Those are some of the

obvious things.

Just in

terms of our own use, we remind our own staff that printing in colour costs

three times as much and to select monochrome or grey-scale when they're printing

drafts at the office and using double-sided paper and all of that sort of thing.

The more information we can put out through our website the better. That's one

through the government's website and news releases and so on.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

That's

all I have for this area.

CHAIR:

Okay, Broadcast?

For the

Clerk, please. I tell you, YMCA.

CLERK:

2.1.01 to 2.2.03 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.01 to 2.2.03

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against?

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.1.01 to 2.2.03 carried.

CHAIR:

On that note, we will take a

short restroom break and, say, meet back, Minister, in how long, five, 10

minutes?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Five, 10 minutes?

MS. GAMBIN-WALSH:

Five is good.

CHAIR:

Five is good?

Five

minutes folks.

Recess

CHAIR:

Are we all ready? Thank you.

Okay,

Minister, so we're ready to get started again. We'll go to Motor Vehicle

Registration. It's 3.1.01, and, again, we'll just remind all speakers to please

identify yourself prior to speaking.

Good?

Okay.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Motor Vehicle Registration, in 2018, Motor Vehicle was broken down into

three sections: Administration, Service - License and Registration and

Enforcement. Why merge all them together in this year's budget?

MS. HAYES:

So part of the budget guidelines from the Department of Finance asked the

departments to look at their various activities and anywhere there were

activities that could be consolidated to do so. So we took the opportunity with

the Motor Registration Division; they all relate to motor registration. If we

ever wanted the information that was separate before, we do have that separated

in the financial system should we ever need to get that reporting information,

but from an Estimates perspective, it was only required to be in one activity so

we consolidated it.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Salaries, 3.1.01, there's a significant difference of $549,000 in salaries since

last year.

Can you

explain what occurred there?

MR. DUTTON:

Looking at the projected

revised, the decrease was reflecting vacancies throughout the year, including

highway enforcement officers and front-counter staff.

For the

year ahead, it reflects the decrease of four positions from the previous year,

as far as the comparison in the salary details, and the budgeted amount reflects

the actual expenditure that we anticipate for this area. Total staffing

complement in terms of funded positions is 111.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

All right.

How many

highway enforcement officers do you have currently?

MR. DOODY:

There are 41 positions and currently 36 of them are filled.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Do you plan to fill the other

– go back to 41 once you get –?

MR. DOODY:

Yes.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah? Okay.

All

right, under Employee Benefits, I'm just wondering is that, again, the

reinstatement of workers' comp in the number there for $2,400? It said 572 last

year and now it's $2,400.

MR. DUTTON:

Yes, that's correct.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay, all right. I'm just checking because that's the way it's been going

forward in most of this here.

Transportation and Communications, there's a significant variance in the amounts

here with $196,000 less than budgeted being spent last year, but an additional

$164,600 more being budgeted this year.

Can you

just explain that variance for us?

MR. DUTTON:

Sure.

In terms

of 2018-19, the decrease was from lower travel cost and postage savings from the

discontinuation of the mail outs for the vehicle and driver's licence renewals;

$115,500 was transferred during the year to French Services to cover their

salaries; sort of based on the discussion we had earlier today. So it didn't

show up here, but was in the spend in French Services, that amount, and $73,000

was transferred to Purchased Services to cover the cost for vehicle

registrations.

In terms

of the new fiscal year, the decrease relative to the previous year's budget was

the net change in postage from the savings of the year before and additional

costs for 2019-20. We do expedited service delivery for driver's licence cards,

so if an individual applies for a new driver's licence now, it comes in the

mail, but you can get expedited delivery. There's a cost associated with that of

about $20,000 with related revenue. A person can ask to get an expedited card;

otherwise, they will get a receipt that they can use with their old licence,

which would be accepted by law enforcement.

There's

also an anticipated increase in postage due to the centralized printing and

mailing of vehicle registrations, and that's $144,600. Previously, we were

maintaining an inventory of registration stickers at each of our Motor

Registration offices. There was also a risk with that in terms of having to

maintain the security of those items, so now we're doing all centralized

printing and mail outs of the registrations from our Mount Pearl office, so

there are some upfront costs associated with that activity.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Many people are still unaware that the licence and the registration renewals

reminders are no longer being mailed out and they're getting tickets. One report

said there was over 25 per cent increase in the number of people convicted of

driving with expired vehicle registrations after government stopped the mail

outs.

I'm just

wondering, can you tell me how much government has collected over this period of

time?

MR. DUTTON:

In terms of the collection of fines, that is done through the Department of

Justice and Public Safety, so we don't really have direct visibility on that.

As far

as the public awareness is concerned, certainly, we had announced the change up

were sent email notices to sign up and to have their friends and family sign up,

and we are encouraging people that visit the Motor Registration offices to sign

up. Anyone that goes online to do their renewal, there's a prompt when they go

to the website to sign up for email reminders.

We've

had some other activity, including a pilot at our AESL offices, where they have

computer banks. So people can go to the AESL office, if there's no Motor

Registration office in their town, to be able to do their renewal if they don't

have access to a computer at home.

There

also was a fair amount of media coverage, including the

article you referenced,

which, in itself, also raises public awareness of the program, and each time

those things have happened I think there's probably been a bump in the number of

people who have signed up for email reminders.

We've

been regularly trying to remind people and, again, more and more people have

signed up for the email reminders each and every month. We also accept that if

someone doesn't have email, they can have a trusted family member or friend

receive the notice. Through the MyGovNL pilot, we're also providing more fulsome

information to members of the public who signed up for that service so that

they'll get the reminder specific to each individual vehicle.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Just in regard to – I know you did mention it earlier – if you have five

vehicles in the household and you went in to look for registration or to go

renew, people are saying they're getting them in the mail but not sure which

vehicle it is. You can identify each one?

MR. DUTTON:

Yes, we can. The issue with the email notice was that if we had in the email

notification more personal information about their vehicle and it was

inadvertently sent to the wrong account then there would be a privacy breach. We

do like a million customer contact points a year in Motor Registration. As a

result of the magnitude, if we have a lot of those smaller scale privacy

breaches that are inadvertent through access, so we're taking some of these

steps to also try to reduce that issue.

The fix

for the people with multiple vehicles is through the MyGovNL pilot, but there's

another thing. We also allow people to change their renewal from the date of the

purchase of the vehicle to their birth month. That makes it easier for people to

remember. That will likely be made a mandatory change in the future, but at this

point it is a voluntary option that people can change it so that my birthday

comes up in June or July, or whatever the month may be, that you'll have your

renewal then rather than at some unusual month during the year.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Will the cost be offset then? If you changed it to six months earlier, would you

be charged a six-month registration or – to get it back to the date, like your

birthday.

MR. DUTTON:

I think they prorate it, wouldn't they, Alan?

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Prorate?

MR. DOODY:

Yes, the intent is to give the choice to the client.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah, okay.

The

other question on that is let's say a company – and I've dealt with cars so I'm

a little bit more aware of it – had 40 vehicles and that is out there that they

have 40 vehicles that are due for registration, you can't just go out and look

at the licence plate to see which one it is, it's not as easy for those

companies. Or have you run into any of that which caused that issue?

MR. DUTTON:

I guess I would say we also had feedback from some people who said that when

they had a larger fleet of vehicles, they also had the office set up in such a

way to do more record-keeping on the management of their overall fleet, and not

just their registration and renewals, but also around repairs and gas and all

that sort of thing. I think more of that issue is people, more in that smaller

business cohort, that maybe had five or 10 vehicles would probably fall more

into that, that don't necessarily have the back-office capacity to have been

managing that.

The date

of renewal is on the sticker of the vehicle, so the information is available to

the consumer. We listened to that feedback and that's one of the reasons why the

MyGovNL pilot was designed the way it was, to help to respond to those types of

complaints. We're always listening to the public about service quality and how

we can improve.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

One other question in regard

to registration. Somebody that doesn't have the availability to – say an older

person, I'm going to say over 65 or 70 that don't have the internet, don't have

somebody to help them do this and it's not in their area, is there anything

there to take care of that?

MR. DUTTON:

We do have a toll-free number

for Motor Registration and if people want to call in and get assistance by

phone, they can certainly do that.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Will you then send that out

if they request that, by any chance? Or is that not –

MR. DUTTON:

I guess the challenge with

the design of the initiative, of whether to do it voluntary or mandatory was

that if you made it voluntary, that people would default to the lowest common

denominator, what they were accustomed to. The only way to achieve the savings

was to be able to make it a mandatory notification.

There

are other tips that we've given to people about things they can do to help

remind themselves; writing it on your calendar or what have you when you receive

your sticker in the first instance. We now have gone through over 12 months of

this initiative so there's been a year for people to become accustomed. The

issue you raised about the tickets, anyone who got a ticket last year, I don't

think they're going to get a ticket this year because if they are, they wouldn't

have learned from the previous years' experience.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

No, I –

CHAIR:

Thank you.

The

Member's time has expired. You can certainly come back.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

We'll move forward now to the

next speaker.

Is that

Ms. Coffin?

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you very much.

Let's

have a chat about Motor Vehicle Registration still. Can you update us on what

measures you are considering to address the high number of uninsured,

unregistered vehicles on the road?

MR. DUTTON:

Sure.

As part

of the insurance reform announcement, that was certainly something that the

Public Utilities Board heard a lot about, and that we also heard about through

our department-led consultations. One of the important measures that was taken

in amendments to the Insurance Companies

Act , there is an uninsured fund. That is where people access for benefits

when they are not insured.

While

that is certainly reasonably intended for passengers, cyclists, pedestrians and

other people who wouldn't be expected to have insurance, people that are

choosing not to buy insurance are currently able to access that fund if they're

in an accident. As of August 1 they will not be able to access the uninsured

fund for any heads of damage. It gives us the principle that all motorists are

expected to share in the costs of the insurance system. If they expect to be

able to benefit, then they need to be a full participant.

Also,

the government had announced a plan to move to plate to owner. We currently have

a plate-to-vehicle system and that's what our mainframe computer is designed to

manage. The fe