Canada. Bureau of Government Organization : The Bureau of Government Organization was originally created in 1963 to support a special Committee of Cabinet charged with responsibility for effecting implementation of the recommendations of the (Glassco) Royal Commission on Government Organization (Order-in-Council PC 1963-235, 12 Feb. 1963). The scope of the mandate included all three levels of implementation: those requiring legislative changes, those requiring executive authority through Orders-in-Council or Treasury Board Decision and those that could be implemented through administrative adjustments by departments on their own. In general terms, the partial implementation of recommendations stemming from the Glassco Commission (1963-1968) represented one of the most sweeping and focused initiatives at administrative reform of the Government of Canada since Confederation. The Bureau of Government Organization played a key transitional role in the reformulation and implementation of many proposals and in determining the priorities of the newly autonomous Treasury Board Secretariat.
As a committee of senior deputy and associate deputy ministers from various departments temporarily attached to the Privy Council Office and reporting through a separate responsible minister, the Bureau experienced rapid changes to its mandate. It evolved quickly into a secretariat with a support staff charged with formulating submissions for formal cabinet approval. In 1964 the administrative control of the Bureau was vested in the Secretary of the Treasury Board within the Department of Finance but the Bureau retained a distinct organization and it largely reported through the Privy Council Office and its own special Committee of Cabinet distinct from the Treasury Board (PC 1964-696, 12 May 1964). Subsequently in the statutory reorganization of 1966 in which the Treasury Board Secretariat became a separate department of government, the Bureau was incorporated into the newly constituted Secretariat as a separate division that reported directly to the Secretary. With its transitional work completed and its functions absorbed in part by the Management Improvement Branch of the Secretariat, the Bureau was formally dissolved in 1968 (PC 1968-371/34, 22 February 1968).
