Canada. Privy Council. Treasury Board : Legislatively, since its inception in 1867, the Treasury Board proper has always constituted a Committee of the Privy Council with delegated authority in a defined sphere which originally focused on financial matters but which very quickly expanded to include the coordination of personnel, financial and general administrative practices and policy. Strictly defined, the Treasury Board is a committee of five to six cabinet ministers who may, within their delegated sphere, make decisions with the authority of law in substitution for order-in-council or recommend formal proposals Cabinet for approval by order-in-council. From shortly after it was constituted, the Board has retained a supporting office of Secretary. This expanded gradually into a small Secretariat which in turn has evolved into one department of government, or more, with the mandate to exercise the legislative authority of the Board in the management of resources across government. This administrative evolution has made the Treasury Board as a permanent statutory Committee of Cabinet and its supporting Secretariat almost unique in the organization of the Government of Canada and readily adaptable to new roles and responsibilities in coordinating general administration and resource management across government (at least since 1931).
Constituted as a Board of Treasury by order-in-council, PC 1867-3, 2 July 1867 and confirmed by Statute as the Treasury Board in 1869, 32-33 Vic., c. 4, s. 4, the Board was originally mandated to act on all matters relating to Finances, Revenue and Expenditure or Public Accounts which may be referred to it by the Privy Council or to which the Board may think it necessary to call attention of the Privy Council. Initially the Board acted as a clearing house for all manner of problems related to financial administration. Financial management inevitably drew the Board into consideration of salaries, appointments and personnel administration generally. In 1896 Cabinet formally specified that "all recommendations....with relation to the appointment, employment, or continuance of employment, promotion, increase or reduction of salary or pay, granting or extension of leave of absence or payment of travelling or removal expenses of any employee, or proposed employee of the Government, either permanent or temporary...." were to be referred to the Treasury Board for consideration before being presented to Privy Council (P. C. 8/3164, 14 September 1896). As early as 1897, the Treasury Board reviewed general administrative policy related to records-keeping.
The two main functions of the Treasury Board as a Committee of Cabinet in the era up to 1914 were to vet many routine and minor matters that constitutionally required Cabinet approval in order to facilitate consideration of such items when they came before full cabinet and to dispose of many items without ever coming before cabinet on the basis of its own delegated authority under legislation and conventions that evolved over time. In 1888 for example the growing autonomy of the Treasury Board was acknowledged when, for the first time, reference to Board authority (for determining the time and mode of payment of revenues to officers of the government) was substituted for Governor-in-Council in a Statute (51 Vic. C. 7 s. 3). By 1896, it was a well established practice that the Board "issued numerous minutes without reference to [Privy] Council" within its mandated sphere. This general pattern of preliminary vetting and independent authorization has continued into modern times, though the scope of the mandate and the authority delegated to the Board have tended to expand and become inclusive in relation to all matters related to personnel (the staffing function excepted after 1918), financial management, general administrative policy across the entire Government of Canada. The vetted items coming from the Board to full Cabinet have tended to be approved as a matter of course, consideration by the Board (or its supporting secretariat in advance) constituting the substantive deliberation of the case(s), directives or policy under consideration. From ruling on specific cases to general directives to even broader delegations under complex accountability structures, the Board has generally since 1931 acted as an agent of change and reform in government operations.
The activity with which the Treasury Board has become most commonly associated is preparation of the annual estimates, a procedure that since the mid-1960s has evolved into a complex multi-year expenditure management and accountability cycle by which the Government of Canada seeks to reconcile the principles of delegated departmental responsibility, central accountability, reconciliation of expenditures with Cabinet priorities and the constitutional principle that no moneys are expended without Parliamentary approval for a specific purpose. Through the organizational structure and legal myth of the Board as a Committee of Cabinet supported by one Secretary or more with a very broad mandate over administrative policy and resource allocation, the Treasury Board has evolved since 1931 into a very flexible and effective mechanism to ensure accountability and resource allocation consistent with general government priorities as developed by Cabinet and approved by parliament.
The procedures of the Board have gradually become more formal but in general outline the process has remained quite stable. Submissions originate largely with departments, though some may be originated by the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Cabinet may make specific requests. In more recent times, most submissions are first vetted by officials within the Secretariat before direct presentation to the Board. Officials of the Secretariat present each proposal with a recommendation. The Board records its decision (formerly called minutes of decision). If the decision is to approve, then the submission becomes a formal decision of the Board, which either has the force of law under an existing act with delegation from Cabinet or the decision constitutes a formal recommendation to Cabinet where there is no explicit legislative authority or delegation from Cabinet to the Board in relation to the matter under consideration.
While the procedures and activity of the Board attached to a growing Secretariat after 1931 have become a major component in the effective financial management within the Government of Canada, the role of the Treasury Board before 1931 was more problematic. Charged with the responsibility for prescribing the manner and form in which departmental accounts were to be kept in 1878 (41 Vic., c. 7), the Treasury Board became the final arbiter of any conflicts between the Auditor General and departmental officials over payments. In practice the Board often asserted its authority in such a way as to prevent the Auditor General from exercising an effective independent pre-audit; it thereby maintained a highly flexible but undisciplined regime of departmental autonomy and ministerial prerogative up to 1930. The responsibility for reconciling financial administration in a regime with unclear lines of accountability and authority inevitably resulted in the Board becoming preoccupied with petty details and repetitive decisions dealing with specific cases and administrative conflicts. In his report on the Civil Service in 1912, Sir George Murray recommended the abolition of the Board as an option on the grounds that the Board wasted too much of its members' time on petty details and that it had too limited a delegation of authority to be effective. The upshot of the review of 1912, however, was to confirm the Treasury Board as the chief mechanism to reduce the workload of the Cabinet either by vetting submissions of a purely administrative character or by dealing with them on its own authority (P.C. 2364, 24 September 1913). Some critics suggest that in performing this role in the sphere of personnel matters, the Board served as a convenient mechanism to reconcile conflicting demands for political patronage appointments until the independent Civil Service Commission gained sufficient independent mandate after 1918. After 1918, the Treasury Board became the mechanism by which the Cabinet reigned in the sweeping powers granted the Civil Service Commission through the simple expedient of providing that all proposals relating to the organization and compensation of staff coming under the Civil Service Act or otherwise, should be first referred to Treasury Board for report to Privy Council (PC 1925-194, 7 Feb. 1925).
The formal composition of the Treasury Board as a Committee of Cabinet has changed little over time. Its original membership in 1867 included the Minister of Inland Revenue, the Minster of Customs, the Receiver General, with the Minister of Finance serving as the ex-officio chairperson of the Board. Beginning in 1887, the composition of the Board was no longer tied to specific cabinet offices and the Board was thereafter composed of any five ministers designated by Governor-in-Council, with the Minister of Finance continuing as ex-officio chairperson (50-51 Vic., c. 13). With the Treasury Board Secretariat constituted as a separate department of government in 1966, the new minister responsible, the President of the Treasury Board, became the designated chairperson of the Board, comprised of himself, the Minister of Finance as ex officio member, and four other members of Cabinet (14-15-16 Elizabeth II, c. 25, s. 32).
