Raison d’être and mandate: who we are and what we do - 2016–17 Departmental Results Report - Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Raison d’être

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (Secretariat) is the administrative arm of the Treasury Board, and the President of the Treasury Board is the Minister responsible for the Secretariat. The Secretariat supports the Treasury Board by making recommendations and providing advice on program spending, regulations and management policies and directives, while respecting the primary responsibility of deputy heads in managing their organizations, and their roles as accounting officers before Parliament. In this way, the Secretariat helps to strengthen government performance, results and reporting and supports good governance and sound stewardship to enable efficient and effective service to Canadians.

Mandate

As the administrative arm of the Treasury Board, the Secretariat has a dual mandate: to support the Treasury Board as a committee of ministers and to fulfill the statutory responsibilities of a central government agency. The Treasury Board’s mandate is derived from the Financial Administration Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. F-11.

For more general information about the Secretariat, see the “Supplementary information” section of this report.

For more information on the Secretariat’s organizational mandate letter commitments, see the President of the Treasury Board’s mandate letter.