Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with the Member; it is a significant move that we are undertaking as a government to go back to somewhat of a way of doing business that was done prior, where we have human resource service centres. It is very different though from what was known previously as the Department of Personnel. The human resource service centres are a way of pooling our staff and bringing them together so that, one, we can be more coordinated in how we deliver the program, ensuring that all departments are following and have the same understanding of the rules that we work with. I believe that will also help individuals when they come into the government and are looking for employment or transfers within the government.

A significant amount of work has been done to date and there still remains to be a fair bit done, but I think we've been moving along in a very good way and a healthy fashion. Of course, when you do make some changes as significant as this, it does cause some concern and anxiety out in the system. We do have a lot of people who are involved in the delivery of human resources throughout departments and boards and agencies. We've been working with them and our regions to ensure that this is as smooth as possible.

The first stages, as we worked through, were to develop a vision of what the human resource service centres would be doing and getting that message out, the goals that would flow out of that vision, and then the functions and activities of that service centre, how that work would be done and what should be pulled into the service centres and what would remain with departments and boards and how they would do that. Once we had that, then develop the processes that would be required in the working arrangements between boards and the service centres, as well as from the regional service centre to headquarters, develop the standards that are going to be in place from that. Then start cataloguing and developing what we're going to need in the area of resources for the work that's going to be required of the new service centres that are created. That's both on the financial side as well as the human resource side.

Then what we're into right now is in the area of organization and design, how it's going to start fitting together, identifying the job description of the staff that will be working within service centres and ensuring that job descriptions are updated and meet the operational requirements of that. As we're getting into that, we begin looking at staffing and how that would fit into it with the new organizational design, as well as the job descriptions that have changed. So we're right into that area now of the job description/staffing side of it and see how the people we have involved right now will fit into the new service centre organization and how their job descriptions may be changed, matching individuals into jobs that are there. From there, there will be some changes to some of the job description side that people used to be involved with within departments and making sure that we can fit them in where necessary. We'll work with them in that area to ensure that they do have the qualifications to fit in. We're into that stage. We're into a pretty heavy schedule, but I believe again through this work that's been happening it's been quite a successful transition at this point and I continue to work with that. Again, as I've committed, we'll continue to work with committee and keep committee updated as we go forward. Thank you.