PACC Committee Report

The Plans and Priorities of the Office of the Auditor General

The Office of the Auditor General sets forth its objectives for this fiscal year and beyond in its latest Report on Plans and Priorities. The Committee finds that these objectives, and the activities intended to fulfill them, are reasonable and in keeping with the mandate assigned by legislation to the Office.

In particular, the Committee notes that the Office intends to:

·        survey parliamentarians to assess their interests and reactions to the work of the Office.

·        develop mechanisms to obtain feedback from stakeholders on the relevance, completeness, and accuracy of the information the OAG provides and how it conducts its audits.

·        refine how the Office measures the progress made by entities in implementing recommendations. The Office hopes to discover why 40 percent of its recommendations are not implemented or acted upon.

·        conduct value-for-money audits during 2001–02 and the first part of 2002–03 of government-wide management of grants and contributions and of security in the information technology area. Twenty-one chapters dealing with the issues identified as priorities by the Office are planned: 12 chapters on the environment and sustainable development, 5 chapters on the government’s financial condition, 1 chapter on financial management, 1 on accountability, and 2 on human resource management. The remaining chapters will deal with issues such as health promotion and follow up audits.

·        complete the third cycle of special examinations of Crown corporations with the examination of the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Farm Credit Corporation.

·        review the approach to special examinations of Crown corporations in preparation for the fourth cycle, which will focus on the National Capital Commission, the Cape Breton Development Corporation and the International Development Research Centre, and

·        renew the Office’s human resources by developing and delivering training, implementing a succession plan, and updating methodology and knowledge management.

The Committee also notes that the Office has revised its performance measurement and reporting framework. This framework uses a results chain, and will be refined and used to assess the work of the Office of the Auditor General over the next few years. The Committee fully endorses this framework and looks forward to the analyses that it will produce.

The Office is confronting numerous challenges as it endeavours to serve the needs of Parliament and Canadians. These challenges include the need to renew human resources at a time when overall demand remains high. Government organization is changing along with the management of departments, agencies, and Crown corporations; these changes are having, and continue to have, a direct impact on the audit work of the Office. The Committee is pleased to note the Office has strategies in place to address these challenges. However, if the Office is to successfully meet these challenges, it must have the funding it needs.

Other Issues: Funding Arrangements and Pay Equity

The Committee was deeply concerned to discover that the Office of the Auditor General may have to reduce its value-for-money auditing as a consequence of lack of funding. The results of value-for-money audits appear in the reports of the Auditor General of Canada and are of considerable interest and importance to Parliament and this Committee. Value-for-money audits also provide valuable information for departments and agencies, information that can assist them in improving program delivery and reducing costs. Yet spending on this activity is discretionary, thus making it the most likely area for reductions in the event that overall funding does not keep pace with demand.

In its Report on Plans and Priorities, the Office informed Parliament that it had requested a 15 percent ($8 million) increase to its base budget so that it could discharge its role as a servant of Parliament. The Office added:

However, because of the way we are funded, we must negotiate this request with Treasury Board Secretariat officials. We have had discussions with officials since the summer of 2000 and have yet to resolve the funding issue.[1]

In her opening statement, Ms. Fraser explained that this additional funding is needed to support value-for-money auditing, to invest in staff training and development, and to renew audit techniques and technology. The Committee accepts these explanations.

In further testimony, the Interim Auditor General offered a blunt assessment of what might happen if additional funding is not forthcoming. She pointed out that staff at the Office:

Have been very focused on delivering a product, and [the Office] can’t continue that momentum. We are going to have very unfortunate results in the office. We’ve already started to see some signs of burnout and people under great pressure working very long hours to produce the products. [The Office] can’t sustain that.

Toward the end of the meeting, Ms. Fraser openly admitted that without the additional funds, the Office would not have enough money to do its job adequately. Unfortunately, the Committee understands that the funding issue has yet to be completely resolved.

Because the Office of the Auditor General must be adequately funded in order to fulfill its mandate and because, for planning purposes, it needs certainty regarding the levels of funding available to it, the Committee strongly recommends: