The Costing Centre of Expertise is developing a Cost Factors Manual to help estimate resource needs for new initiatives and assess funding requests. It analyzed publicly available expenditure data from various government organizations to identify standard cost factors for internal services functions. Preliminary analysis showed organizational size alone does not explain cost fluctuations. The CCE clustered organizations by type of activities, resource allocation, and geographic reach. It identified three potential cost factors to analyze internal services expenditures against capacity. The Cost Factors Manual aims to provide reasonableness measures for expenditures and establish a conceptual model to estimate additional resource needs using cost factors and a capacity proxy.

1. Costing Centre of Expertise
Costing Benchmarking Framework
Planning & Performance Exchange Learning Event
Operational Costing & Capacity Management: Their Links
to Planning, Performance, and Efficiency
January 26, 2016
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2. 2
Purpose
• Background
• High level findings
• Cost Factors Manual

3. 3
CCE Major Activities
The CCE proactively supports:
• Deputy Head and CFO accountabilities
• Program Sectors as the primary performers of the TBS challenge
function
• The current roles and responsibilities of EMS
Key activities of the CCE include:
• Supporting an enhanced diligence function within TBS for
consideration of funding requests
• Supporting “deep dives” and “horizontal reviews”
• Developing strategies for provision of training on cost containment
and cost estimation for TBS program sector analysts
• Developing policy and guidance on cost estimation, cost containment,
and the management of user fees
• Rolling out guidance on CFO attestation and provision of support to
departments
Developing a cost factors manual to inform and
support resourcing decisions

4. 4
Cost Factors Manual
• Is it possible to estimate incremental resource
requirements for new initiatives?
• Can the Treasury Board assess the reasonableness
of funding requests?
• Can we determine which metrics (cost factors)
fairly represent efficiency in Internal Services?

5. 5
Work to Date
Approach:
• Attempt to establish standard cost factors for
comparable organizations
CCE went to work:
• What are other jurisdictions doing with their
“internal services”?
• What are appropriate cost drivers for the
different functions in internal services?

6. 6
Open Data
Hypothesis being tested:
• Without adding to the reporting burden of
organizations, what can we find out from
publically available data?
Organizations have attested to this data and it has
been tabled in Parliament:
• RPP, Public Accounts and DPR

7. 7
Proof of Concept
Key Assumptions and Limitations:
• Expenditure was used as proxy for cost and capacity
• The IS Program was analyzed in the aggregate, not by
sub-category of internal services
• IS Program effectiveness was not considered
Scope:
• Analysed the data for the following fiscal years:
• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13
• 2013-14
Ongoing evolution of approach

8. 8
Clustering of Organizations
Preliminary Analysis:
• Size on its own may not be sufficient to explain
fluctuations in IS expenditures; other factors must be
considered to measure the complexity
• Type of activities performed (i.e. G&C and Capital) and the
amount of resources dedicated to specific types of
activities impact IS expenditures, as does the geographic
reach (number of regions with employees)
o However Capital expenditures have limited publically
available data
Organizational context is key to understanding the whole story!

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Hypothetical Clustering of Organizations

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What to measure?
• Analyze the behaviour of expenditures in groups of “like”
organizations (or internally between programs) based on
Cost Estimating Relationships
• One measure does not “tell the whole story”, multiple
measures are needed to give a better understanding of an
organization
• Based on preliminary analysis of publicly available data, 3
cost factors are being tested to see how they “tell the
story”:
1) IS Program FTEs/All Other Programs FTEs
2) IS Program Gross Voted Operating Expenditures/ All
Other Programs Gross Voted Operating Expenditures
3) IS Program Gross Voted Operating Expenditures/
Total Organizational FTEs

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Conceptual model
• Using cost factors and
a proxy measure for
capacity, is it possible
to estimate additional
resources required?
• Analytical grids allow
decision makers to
gauge the
reasonableness of
funding requests by
allowing the
comparison of “like”
organizations

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Common Data and Clusters
• Our work to group organizations into appropriate clusters will enable:
o Reasonableness testing for Internal Services by providing a range of
existing expenditures for similar organizations
o EMS can leverage these same cost factors and clustering methodology to
measure performance
Common
Data Points
Clustering
(size and
complexity)
Performance Measures
(Efficiency and Effectiveness):
• Internal Services
• Transfer Payment Programs
• External Services
Reasonableness Measures for
expenditures and FTEs:
• Internal Services Program
• IS by function
• Type of G&C or Program
Collect data
and analyse
Standardize
Treatment
and Context
Review
Results
Continuous
Improvement

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Similar but different
• EMS could leverage and evaluate the work by the CCE to
consider the clustering and cost factors to look at
efficiency metrics
• CCE is leveraging the EMS work on efficiency metrics and
program tagging.
Thus far, common data can be leveraged by both and will not
cause undue reporting burden to organizations.

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Contact Information
Greg Steele
A/Director Costing Policy
Office of the Controller General, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Government of Canada
greg.steele@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Tel: 613-697-0863 / TTY: 613-957-9090
Directeur par intérim sur l’établissement des coûts,
Bureau du contrôleur général, Secrétariat du Conseil du Trésor du Canada
Gouvernement du Canada
greg.steele@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Tél. : 613-697-0863 / ATS : 613-957-9090