The accession consists of memoranda, correspondence and reports arranged in operational registry files. The records were created or inherited by the Social and Cultural Sector, the Economic Sector and the Service and Innovation Sector which are operational units resulting from the radical amalgamation of the older Program and Administrative Policy Branch functions into a parallel functional sectors in 1996. The focus of the Service and Innovation Sector is reflected in its name but in this accession virtually all the records relate to the Federal Identity Program. The principal activity documented in the other two sectors is the extensive program evaluation of individual program activities of agencies and departments of Government through the expenditure management business line of which the annual estimates cycles are the central component. The estimates reflect the expenditure decisions of the government for presentation to Parliament. Program evaluation includes the analysis of departmental plans, programs and organizational proposals and for recommendations to Treasury Board on acceptance or modification of proposals in accordance with the financial and other priorities of the government. The purpose of the new parallel Sectors set up in 1996 was to provide single windows of program delivery for the broad business line of resource planning and expenditure management to three or four broadly functional portfolios of interrelated agencies, departments and crown corporations. Each Sector coordinates and monitors the allocation of financial resources in relation to government priorities, fiscal targets and performance results; it provides analysis and recommendations to Treasury Board on departmental business plans, the corporate plans of crown corporations and the resource implications of policy options and priorities under consideration by Cabinet; it develops and maintains accountability frameworks through which departments report performance results to Parliament; it prepares the final estimates and appropriation bills that arise from the complex set of annual cycles of government-wide fiscal planning and reporting. The program Sectors also foster innovative management and increased effectiveness in program delivery. Program evaluation files are arranged by department, then by business line and then by major program. The departments and agencies represented in this accession reflect the government agencies classified by Treasury Board as falling within the realm of social and cultural and economic programs and business lines (approximately two thirds of all agencies). Other activity documented in these program evaluation records relates to Public Service 2000, agreements providing for Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability, operational planning framework, capital budgeting, expenditure reductions, organization, operational review, operational budgets.
