Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dent as well raises quite a wide variety of subjects. I will try and respond to some of them. His concern that we will not have recommendations to implement until June, I agree that is quite a ways off in view of the urgency of some of the situations we are facing. So we are going to attempt to get the recommendations from the Cuff review expedited if at all possible. We do not want to cut the discussions and the interviewing and the gathering of information short. However, I do agree with the Member that it does seem like that is quite a ways off.
In the instances where boards can show us that there were costs increasing that were outside of their control, forced growth, those kinds of cost drivers, we are obviously very open to receiving that kind of information and we know that can have quite an impact on budgets. We are committed to resourcing boards adequately so they can deliver the programs and services that we expect them to deliver.
However, I think it would be premature to suggest that there are not other problems which do exist that may be contributing to those costs. There is a lot of autonomy and a lot of authority that has been delegated to boards, so there does tend to be quite a bit of latitude in terms of discretion on how money should be spent. This is what has created a problem for us to some extent, that although the accountability in the big picture lies with the department, a lot of the authority in terms of the decision making lies with the boards. So I think that as a result of this system-wide review, we are going to be able to show you some of the problems that the gap in the system might create.
As far as the funding to the boards, every board is operating with a contribution agreement that has been signed and, albeit it is difficult where boards know that they have significant deficits and until those kinds of deficit issues are addressed, we know that it is troublesome to them.
The review is going to recommend the best approach to the funding, including an evaluation to the surplus retention deficit recovery policy that we have in place right now. So that is something that is also being looked at by this review as well. So we do not have any preconceived outcomes on what the consultants might have to say about that.
In comparing the education boards to health boards, health boards undertake a lot of functions that education boards do not. For example, pay and benefits is a fairly complicated, sophisticated function which education boards do not undertake, but health boards do regardless of the size. So when you do not have a centralized office that is providing those kinds of services, you do need quite a high level of capacity at community and regional levels to undertake and make sure those things are done properly.
When the Member talks about the collegial relationship between the department and boards in education, I have to tell you that I do not get the same sense. It was referred to as well in the committee's report when it talks about animosity and I cannot remember the other words that they used there between boards and the department. I am sorry, I do not have a sense of that particular...it is really difficult to kind of response to kind of anonymous, vague observations about things like that without any real detail around them. I do not know if it is even fair to portray that without something to back it up because it is difficult to respond to unless Members can be specific about it. That is not my sense. My sense is that in the years prior to when I was involved with this department, and certainly since I have been involved with this department, that the people in the department have played a very supportive role to the boards and have done everything really in their power to support the boards in the functions that they had to perform. So just a comment on that as well.
With respect specifically to the Stanton board, like I said, we are open to hearing about costs, expenditures, things that are driving their deficit, but we need good information if we are going to evaluate those explanations when they do come forward. We have a responsibility to ensure that it is good information because we cannot make decisions based on incomplete information. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.