THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S POLICY AND EXPENDITURE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: BUREAUCRATIC PERCEPTIONS OF EXPENDITURE CONTROL, ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPROVED DECISION-MAKIN

The Canadian Government's Policy and Expenditure Management System (PEMS) or "envelope system" was introduced in 1979 as an "important step towards not only increasing expenditure control and accountability within government but also improved policy-making and priority-setting by government." (Canadian Government Press Release, December 5, 1980) PEMS was intended to restrain government expenditures by imposing expenditure ceilings on broad areas of government spending (resource envelopes) and by means of a five year fiscal plan, annually updated and published. This budgetary innovation also involved procedural reforms and reorganization of the machinery of the political executive.;This dissertation examines PEMS through the perceptions of 140 senior civil servants in seven central agencies and five line departments in the Government of Canada. Elite interviews were conducted over an eleven month period between September 1, 1981 to July 22, 1982 with permanent senior officials in Director or equivalent positions and above. A thirty-one item open-ended interview schedule, which took about one hour to administer, was employed. Senior bureaucrats were surveyed to discern their opinions and attitudes of PEMS since their perceptions of the system has an important impact on its operation.;Senior bureaucrats' perceptions of PEMS were found to be ambivalent with only a slim majority indicating PEMS was effective. A majority of senior bureaucrats interviewed perceived more accountability in the administration of financial systems but not other key areas. Senior bureaucrats' perceptions of the roles of central agencies in the decision-making process indicated the possibility that role confusion could lead to conflict, suggesting that the central decision-making system was not improved. Overall, it was found that senior bureaucrats' perceptions of PEMS were divided not only on organizational lines, central agencies versus departments, but in the highest echelons of the senior civil service; that is, among political administrators, those senior officials who preside over the work of cabinet. These findings help to explain the major structural and procedural changes to PEMS subsequently introduced by Prime Ministers John Turner and Brian Mulroney.