I'm not going to stand here and tell you that we're going to be perfect in the next quarter or the next two quarters. What I can assure you is that of something like the six recommendations in the last audit report from which you quoted, two related to systems, and we have made very good progress on all the others, especially issues like creating a planning framework, understanding the long-term needs of departments, and analyzing options before a decision is made. So on those we have made very good progress, and I believe the Auditor General is prepared to acknowledge that on our behalf.
Where the Auditor General has called us to account is that in the very many complex systems we run, we do have good information on individual buildings--we know what things cost--but they've described to us that we do need better information on what the original budget was versus what things finally cost, although we do get approvals each time when we have to spend some more money. As well, they've described to us the advisability of having portfolio-wide type of information to analyze, and we do agree with that as well.
Systems can be very powerful. They can also be very expensive and very complex, and we can waste a lot of money on them. We've taken a lot of time to understand exactly what our operational needs are as we get into these various actions that we're taking. This fall we're putting out a tender request, not to build our system but to acquire property systems that might exist--we believe they do exist in the industry--so that we will be able to take advantage of them without having to go through a long and complex development process.
So we're taking this very seriously. I can assure you that you will see those actions coming, and we will, of course, be accountable to you. But we're working hard at it. It's just that there are thousands of people and systems, and so forth, so it can't be solved very quickly. But I expect that over two years you will see good progress