Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. With reference to the opening remarks from the Minister, he talks about the $371,000 increase to salaries and benefits, yet towards the end of his opening remarks he talks about reduction of seven staff positions. I have trouble understanding the large reduction of seven staff and yet we can still have an increase to salaries and benefits. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a correction on the initial response I made. The seven departments we are working with, we have pooled the employee benefits administration sections together, just for correction for the record. The specific area of the employees and the reduction and the number of employees within the department, we have 130 positions and when we take into account the increase as a result of the UNW increases, this is the third year of the three years that the increase has gone up. That is where you see the growth in that area of expenditures, it is because of the increase of the contract that we are fulfilling our third year of. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you. I would just like to say that in my mind, Mr. Chair, it just doesn't seem right that that reduction of seven staff members would still lead to an increase of our compensation and benefits. For the question involved here, maybe the Minister can further clarify what he meant that even though we have reduced staff we are still paying more in compensation and benefits.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The actual reduction of the six positions, a number of them were cost shared with Nunavut. So they wouldn't be fully burdened costs on our part. So the reduction of those isn't the total amount. When you take into comparison the average increase as a result of the collective agreement changes, the net difference is still an increase for the number of employees we have within the Financial Management Board Secretariat. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Menicoche.

That is fine. Thank you.

General comments. Next I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments are similar to the ones Ms. Lee had. We spoke about this when we went through this a few weeks back, but I will bring it up again in this setting. Can we ask the Minister to go department by department and provide this committee with some information on how many employees the government has in terms of HR function in each department, and what it costs this government and each department to deliver that function? I would like to get a handle on that in terms of what the numbers are and what it is costing the way we are operating today. I do agree that I think we have to get centralized on the way the government delivers the human resource function, and I would like to see some numbers provided by the Minister to help get us down that road. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we don't have that information readily available. We will get it together as we are going through the exercise now of looking at how we deliver HR resources throughout the departments and the communities. So we are beginning that process and we will pull that together and provide it to Members, but we don't have that department by department at this time right at this setting. I would encourage the Member to ask each department for their HR people in there, but we can and we will pull some of that together and provide it to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, Mr. Minister, for the response. I guess we could do that,

we could start asking each department what the HR component is in their department. So I will ask you, Mr. Minister, for the Department of Executive, maybe we could get some figures in terms of what the HR component is in his department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, again, I will commit that we will get the numbers together from all of the departments. We will pool it, we will pull it together and provide that to Members on the HR side. Specifically for our department, for FMBS, we have one human resource person and then we receive services through our pooling in the Executive corporate services division. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the Minister for answering that question. Thank you.

General comments. Next I have in line Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for my clarity please, if the Minister would, is it the intention of his department to proceed with the human resources style public commission office? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, all of those options are being examined as to how we can work and be more efficient in the delivery of human resource functions. So all of those are being looked at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.