2011–12 Report on Annual Expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences

The Office was set up to administer the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (the Act), which came into force in April 2007. The Office is mandated to establish a safe, independent, and confidential process for public servants and members of the public to disclose potential wrongdoing in the federal public sector. The Office also exists to protect from reprisal those public servants who have filed disclosures or participated in related investigations.

In order to fulfill this mandate the Office incurs travel, hospitality and conference expenditures to carry out operational activities, such as conducting interviews during an investigation or attending conferences to inform public servants of the Act and the role of the Office. The travel, hospitality and conference expenditures in 2011-12 were $52K, which were $22K (30%) lower than the prior year expenditures. The reduced level of spending was a result of:

• reduced travel required for investigations outside the National Capital Region and the conclusion of an independent operational file review initiated in 2010-11, $11K;
• reduced travel for training and conferences as a greater number of events attended took place in the National Capital Region, $6K; and
• reduced travel for non public servants as no expenses were incurred in 2011-12 while 2010-11 included travel for a key note speaker, the ombudsman from Australia, to attend the workshop held for Senior Officers from across government, $5K.

Total annual expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada are summarized below:

(in thousands of dollars)