Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In light of the fact that the department has over a $300 million budget it was very important that we have the right kind of financial accountabilities in place. Prior to the structural changes of corporate management, we had policy, legislation, communication and finance and capital planning all under one director and we have changed that to break it out to have finance and capital planning its stand-alone division.
Planning, research and evaluation was a division we also created, and that is predominantly in response to the Auditor General’s reports that the department could have improved its ability to evaluate programs and to set performance targets and develop management evaluation and accountability frameworks. So this division is essentially working with all the people in the department who are designing and developing new programs, but they’re also working very hard with our education partners in the development of particularly new initiatives like education renewal.
The policy, legislation and communication division is as well part of the nerve centre of the department to assist in all the Cabinet submissions and corporate communication and, as in most departments, is a stand-alone division.