Minister of Communications Authority to Prescribe Fees Order — 3
3 POLICY A GENERAL (i) DOC will neither solicit, nor compete for, work that can be performed by the Private Sector in Canada. B COSTS AND FEES (ii) For a service or good provided to the Private Sector in Canada, the Department shall charge for all direct costs plus indirect costs of the Department. (iii) Services provided to the Private Sector outside Canada will be total costs plus 200 per cent applied thereon to recover Government of Canada overhead costs. (iv) Where these charges would clearly detract from the attainment of the objectives of the activity, the Minister of Communications has the authority to alter or waive the established fee structure. (v) Contracts entered into are not to exceed the duration of the prevailing fee schedule. If a service is to be provided which will exceed this time frame, the written agreement must be amended. C WRITTEN AGREEMENTS (i) Every person or company requesting the provision of a service for payment will be required to enter into a written agreement before the service is provided. (ii) The written agreement will contain statements on, but not limited to, the following: — The extent of ownership or rights or interest in any products submitted for testing or goods produced by the Department; — The limited responsibility of the Department for damage or loss of the applicant’s product and for secrecy in respect of an unpatented article; — The patent rights which could rest with the Department in respect of new discoveries in the absence of a special agreement to the contrary; — What part, if any, of the information to be supplied by the person or company is confidential. Such information agreed to be proprietary will be safeguarded by DOC. (iii) Work will be undertaken only after written application has been made and accepted in writing. Work can, however, start in advance of formal acceptance if authorized by the A.D.M. D JOINT RESEARCH PROJECT The Department may enter into a contract to perform a joint research project where both parties fund the project. E AUTHORIZATION OF FEE SCHEDULES (i) Sector management is responsible for continually monitoring their operations, identifying services or operations for which fee schedules are required, and promptly advising the Comptroller’s Branch of all such instances. (ii) The sector seeking to provide the service is responsible for developing proposed fee schedules. (iii) In addition to the above on-going responsibilities, and in the course of preparing the Program Forecast, the Responsibility Centre Manager, in conjunction with the Comptroller’s Branch, will review the costs incurred and the revenue generated in the provision of services to the Private Sector for the current fiscal year. This review will determine: (a) whether the specific services or goods provided should be continued or terminated; and (b) whether any cost elements or their components have increased or decreased. If required, recommendations will be made to the Minister of Communications to authorize revisions to the fee schedules. (iv) Proposed schedules or updates to established fee schedules will be forwarded to the Deputy Minister for review. After review, and acceptance at that level, they will be submitted to the Minister of Communications for authorization prior to the implementation thereof. (v) Upon approval from the Minister, updated fee schedules will replace those schedules currently in existence. F PROCESSING OF REQUESTS FOR SERVICES All requests are to be received by the responsibility centre manager, who will: (a) determine that the Canadian competitive market is not equipped to provide these services or goods due to either lack of specialized expertise or unavailability of equipment and facilities. If it is found that the Canadian market can do the work, the written request is to be returned to the entity requesting the services or goods with the reasons for return stated; (b) determine that the work requested is within the mandate of the Department and that