Appendices to the Guidelines on the reporting of grants and contributions awards

Appendix A – Exceptions to award reporting

When a department determines that information about a grant or contribution award should not be reported, the department is encouraged to disclose information that is unclassified, or non-sensitive. If all of the information about an award is exempted but can be reported at a later date, the department may include the award in a subsequent report. Similarly, if a department has many awards that cannot be reported for similar reasons, they may be reported as a batch report. For further information, see Appendix C – Batch reporting.

In order to seek an exemption from this exercise, departments should email the TBS Transfer Payments Team at zzocgpt@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

While the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat maintains an inventory of exempted programs, it is the responsibility of the department to capture the fields, areas, or programs from which they are exempt.

Appendix B – Summary table of data elements

Available on a separate page, “Field Descriptions”.

Appendix C – Batch reporting

This appendix outlines the process of batch reporting and the eligibility requirements in order for a Program to report using this method.

Batch reporting is a process that may be applied to a Program that awards Grants and/or Contributions to recipients who may have been exempted from having certain information disclosed as per the Privacy Act. Batch reporting is the process of taking a multitude of awards and batching them into one common award report. Batch reporting must be performed once per fiscal quarter.

In order to be eligible for batch reporting, please contact the Policy on Transfer Payments team at zzocgpt@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

For example, if a Program submits 80 payments to a varied number of recipients, all of whom are exempted from having their personal information disclosed, the program could submit a single batch report, which would contain the following substitutions:

Recipient Operating Name:

To be populated with the Program Name.

Recipient Country:

To be populated with “Canada”.

Agreement Value:

To be populated with the Cumulative Dollar Value for all recipients.

Agreement Start Date:

To be populated with the date the first recipient has been paid.

Agreement End Date:

To be populated with the date the last recipient has been paid.

Coverage:

May be populated either with “National”, or left blank.

Additional Information:

To be populated with the total number of recipients. If the number of recipients it unknown, anticipated number may be used, and later amended.

The other fields from which a privacy batching would be exempt are any identification, including:

• Recipient Type
• Recipient Business Number
• Recipient Legal Name
• Research Organization
• Recipient Province
• Recipient City
• Recipient Postal Code
• Federal Riding
• Agreement Number
• NAICS Identifier

All other elements should be completed normally.

Appendix D – Amendments & material error

Appendix E – Controlled lists

Where possible, the Government of Canada will attempt to ease burden on federal departments and users of its data through the use of pre-developed, standardized lists. This section will serve to provide information on each of the controlled lists which will be used.

Appendix F – Glossary

This appendix will define key terminology used throughout this guideline, consistent with the Policy on Transfer Payments.

Transfer Payment:

A monetary payment, or a transfer of goods, services or assets made, on the basis of an appropriation, to a third party, including a Crown corporation, that does not result in the acquisition by the Government of Canada of any goods, services or assets. Transfer payments are categorized as grants, contributions and other transfer payments. Transfer payments do not include investments, loans or loan guarantees.

Contribution:

A transfer payment subject to performance conditions specified in a funding agreement. A contribution is to be accounted for and is subject to audit.

Grant:

A transfer payment subject to pre-established eligibility and other entitlement criteria. A grant is not subject to being accounted for by a recipient nor normally subject to audit by the department. The recipient may be required to report on results achieved.

Other Transfer Payment:

A transfer payment, other than a grant or contribution, based on legislation or other arrangement that may be determined by a formula. Examples of other transfer payments are transfers to other orders of government such as Equalization payments as well as Canada Health and Canada Social Transfer payments.

(Transfer Payment) Program:

A program or a component of a program supported by transfer payments.

(Funding) Agreement:

A written agreement or documentation constituting an agreement between the Government of Canada and an applicant or a recipient setting out the obligations or understandings of both with respect to one or more transfer payments.

Program:

A group of related activities that are designed and managed to meet a specific public need and are often treated as a budgetary unit.

Terms & Conditions:

A document, approved by Treasury Board or a Minister, which sets out the parameters under which transfer payments may be made for a given program.

Recipient:

An individual or entity that either has been authorized to receive a transfer payment or that has received that transfer payment.

Appendix G – Policy co-Development: ‘What we heard’ report

Throughout the development of this guideline, and its appendices, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) consulted a wide number of stakeholders, and will continue to engage stakeholders until this process is complete.

These stakeholders ranged from a number of persons internal to TBS, those within 33 Grant and Contribution Departments, as well as key stakeholders in the award reporting process. TBS will continue to engage stakeholders until this draft is finalized, and will host another set of formal consultations in the Spring/Summer of 2017, in an effort to engage as broadly as possible. All of that information will be taken into account in the drafting of the final “What we heard” report.

A complete list of all stakeholders, internal and external, as well as all engagement dates, can be located in the appendices of this report.