PACP Committee Report

INTRODUCTION

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts (hereinafter the Committee) has a mandate to examine the reports of the Auditor General, the Public Accounts of Canada, and the management and performance of the Office of the Auditor General (OAG).[1] Like all House of Commons standing committees, the Public Accounts Committee has the power to hold hearings on the subjects within its mandate and subsequently present a report to the House of Commons on its findings.[2] As most of the Committee’s reports contain recommendations to the government, the Committee usually requests a response from the government, which must be tabled in the House within 120 days.[3]

Most of the Committee’s studies, and subsequent reports, focus on performance audits conducted by the OAG. One of the Committee’s main objectives is to provide political support to the findings and recommendations of the OAG and thus hold the government to account for improving management systems and practices. Issuing a report with recommendations and asking for a government response serve to highlight specific issues and add a parliamentary voice to further encourage government action to address problems raised by the OAG.

In a typical year, the Committee may present 15 to 20 reports to the House and subsequently receives responses from the government. With so many reports, there is a real possibility that the Committee may move onto new subjects and not fully determine whether the issues raised in previous reports have been addressed. Consequently, the Committee decided to develop and implement a process to follow-up on its recommendations. Such a process keeps the Committee aware of the progress being made in specific areas and helps to ensure the Committee’s recommendations are taken seriously by the government and are not ignored once the Committee’s report is presented to the House.

The Committee’s follow-up process began in the 39^th Parliament and culminated in a report that looked at select Committee recommendations and government responses in the 37^th and 38^th Parliaments.[4] This report represents a continuation of the follow-up process and looks at all Committee recommendations made in the 39^th Parliament, 2^nd Session. It is the Committee’s intention that this will be an annual process.

FOLLOW-UP PROCESS

On February 26, 2009, the Public Accounts Committee adopted a motion to commence the follow-up process in the 40^th Parliament. The motion read:

That the Committee Chair and staff be authorized to:

·         review Government responses to recommendations made by the Committee during the 39^th and 40^th Parliaments;

·         acknowledge by letter, on the Committee’s behalf, receipt of Government responses where they respond clearly and completely to recommendations or request further information or clarification, as required;

·         monitor the implementation of Government commitments made in response to Committee recommendations, and request further information as required; and

That the Committee request the assistance of the Office of the Auditor General in its follow-up process by including the Committee's recommendations, where relevant, within the scope of its follow-up audits and by clearly reporting on the results of this work.

The first step of the follow-up process is for Committee staff to review government responses and to assess whether the responses address all components of the Committee’s recommendations and whether the government clearly commits to specific actions. One of the initial problems the Committee encountered in its follow-up process is that it is difficult to hold the government to account for taking action if the government response does not clearly commit to anything. Quite often, government responses contain vague, bureaucratic language that touches on the issue at hand but does not directly address the concerns raised by the Committee. Consequently, it is often necessary to seek further clarification from the government. It should be noted that this process has led to a gradual, though noticeable, improvement in the clarity of government responses.

The initial assessment is reviewed by the Sub-committee on Agenda and Procedure (the Steering Committee). Based on this assessment, decisions are made about possible next steps for each recommendation. Subsequently, the Chair sends letters on behalf of the Committee to ministers and their departments seeking clarification or further information, as appropriate.

Government responses sometimes contain specific commitments to be met at a later date. In these cases it may be necessary to request an update on whether those commitments have been fulfilled. Depending on the timeline of commitments made in the response, the request for an update may be made at the same time as requests for clarification, or may be made at a time appropriate to the commitment.

As the OAG regularly conducts follow-up audits of its work, the Committee asked the OAG to include the Committee’s recommendations within the scope of follow-up audits where relevant. The OAG has considerably more staff and resources than the Committee and is thus well suited to assist the Committee in its follow-up process.

After the Committee has received information from the government in response to its requests for clarification and updates, the last step is for Committee staff to conduct and present to the Committee a final assessment of the status of Committee recommendations, and for the Committee to issue an annual report to the House on its follow-up process.

FINDINGS

In order to provide a picture of the status of Public Accounts Committee recommendations as of the writing of this report, they have been assessed using the categories described below. The assessments have been based on the information available to the Committee — government responses and additional information provided by the government in response to requests for clarification or updates. The Committee assumes that the information provided by the government is fair, accurate, and complete. An assessment, and a very brief explanation, for each recommendation made by the Committee in the 39^th Parliament, 2^nd Session can be found in the Appendix to the report.

The categories for assessment are as follows:

·         Addressed: Many Committee recommendations are fairly straightforward, such as asking the government to provide a progress report or to undertake specific actions. Where it is fairly clear, either through the government response, subsequent actions, or in further information provided to the Committee, that the government had fulfilled the expectations of the recommendation, it is considered to be addressed.

·         Ongoing: If the information available to the Committee indicates that the government has to do further work to address the recommendation, it is considered to be ongoing. A date is also provided of when the Committee received the most up to date information on the status of the recommendation.

·         Status quo: In many instances, the government asserts that current systems and practices already address the recommendation, and thus new actions are not required. Alternatively, the government may not be willing to commit to new actions but also not willing to explicitly reject the recommendation. Instead, the government response reasserts the importance of its current approach. In these instances, it is not clear whether the recommendation has been addressed or has been rejected. As the commitment is to the status quo, that is the assessment given to the status of these recommendations.

·         Not addressed: In rare cases, it may be clear that a recommendation has not been addressed. For this report, only two recommendations are considered to be not addressed as they were directed to the House of Commons, and the House took no action.

·         Rejected: In some instances, the government either explicitly rejects the Committee’s recommendation, or it is clear that the government intends to pursue a very different approach. The government may have valid reasons for rejecting a recommendation, and the Committee welcomes a clear explanation of why the government rejects a recommendation. Instances where the Auditor General has declined to conduct an audit based on a recommendation of the Committee are also assessed as rejected.

Table 1, found below, represents a summary of the assessments outlined in the Appendix. As can be seen in the table, a significant percentage of the Committee’s recommendations, 63%, are assessed as addressed. It is difficult to draw any underlying conclusions about the effectiveness of the Committee’s recommendations or the willingness of the government to act on them because the status of Committee recommendations depends a lot on the nature of the recommendations themselves. Recommendations that are fairly uncontroversial and straightforward, such as providing a progress report or undertaking very specific actions, are much more likely to be addressed than recommendations that are more controversial or require more in-depth changes to government practices. These latter recommendations are more likely to be assessed as status quo, or be explicitly rejected.

Table 1:
Summary of Assessments of the Status
of Public Accounts Committee Recommendations

Status	Number	Percentage
Addressed	50	63
Ongoing	10	13
Status quo	7	9
Not addressed	2	3
Rejected	10	13
Total	79	100

Instead of drawing overall conclusions about trends in the status of the Committee’s recommendations, the follow-up process allows the Committee, and other interested observers, to monitor the status of particular issues and, if deemed necessary, revisit these matters in order to encourage the government to clarify its intentions or to make better progress in needed improvements to government management and administration.

AREAS OF CONCERN

Among the various issues addressed by the Public Accounts Committee’s reports during the 39^th Parliament, 2^nd Session, the status of several recommendations for the two studies noted below merit further discussion.

A.  Report #2: Chapter 9, Pension and Insurance Administration—Royal Canadian Mounted Police of the November 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada

The Committee held extensive hearings on allegations of wrongdoing in the administration of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)’s pension and insurance plans. In its comprehensive report on the many issues that were raised during these hearings, the Committee made over 30 recommendations. A number of these recommendations remain ongoing, due, in part, to the RCMP’s current process of reform, which is being overseen by the RCMP Reform Implementation Council.

The Committee understands that reforming an organization as large and complex as the RCMP requires a considerable amount of time and effort. However, the Committee had hoped that further progress would have been made by now. There are two issues of particular concern to the Committee: the powers of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP and the need for a Police Accountability Board.

The Committee continues to believe that the Commission needs to have the authority to conduct self-initiated reviews, as well as have full access to the documents and persons needed to conduct these reviews. Also, the problems uncovered during the Committee’s study demonstrate that the RCMP would benefit from independent oversight by a Police Accountability Board. The Committee hopes that the government will move forward with these reforms in a timely manner.

B.  Report #7: Chapter 3, Large Information Technology Projects of the November 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada

In its report on the audit by the Office of the Auditor General of large information technology (large IT) projects, the Committee expressed concern that some large IT projects may not be well managed thus putting substantial amounts of public funds at risk.

The Committee recommended that business cases be required for information technology projects, as well as an options analysis on the possibility of breaking large projects into smaller, more manageable projects. The government agreed and stated that enhanced requirements for business cases and independent reviews, which could include options analyses, were being completed. However, further information provided by the government indicates that the Treasury Board Secretariat has developed guidance on business cases and independent reviews, rather than mandatory requirements.

Given the risks large IT projects pose, the Committee is disappointed that the Secretariat decided to move forward with guidance documents rather than mandatory requirements, contrary to what was originally proposed in the government response. The Secretariat asserts that deputy heads are accountable for the management of departmental projects. Nonetheless, the Committee continues to believe that the Treasury Board and its Secretariat have a fundamental responsibility to ensure that public funds are well managed and spent wisely. Should further problems arise with large IT projects, the Committee will want to be assured that the Secretariat had adequately fulfilled its challenge function before these projects were approved by the Treasury Board.

CONCLUSION

The Public Accounts Committee’s follow-up process, as outlined in this report, represents the Committee’s effort to maintain a continuing dialogue with the government with respect to issues raised by the OAG in its audits and the Committee’s subsequent reports. However, simply issuing a report with recommendations and then moving onto new subjects does not ensure that the government is responding to the Committee’s concerns, even on straightforward matters, and thus does not ensure accountability for effective management and administration. The Committee believes that it has a responsibility to follow-up on the status of its recommendations in order to monitor progress being made. The government may not agree with the Committee or the OAG in certain areas, but the Committee welcomes an open and transparent discussion with the government that may lead to more effective Committee recommendations and clearer, more precise government responses and subsequent actions to address the Committee’s and the OAG’s concerns.