Rating Selected Departmental Performance Reports

The quality of departmental performance reports remains disappointing

Chapter 5, April 2005 Report of the Auditor General

Ottawa, 5 April 2005—The quality of performance reporting to Parliament is still disappointing, according to Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada, in her Report tabled today in the House of Commons. The Report presents the results of rating three departments’ performance reports at three points over the last nine years. The three departments were Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.

Departmental performance reports are submitted to Parliament every fall by 90 federal departments and agencies. The reports allow parliamentarians to hold departments accountable for the money they spend. These reports give Parliament information on how well departments have performed, compared with plans they submitted the previous year.

“Despite the modest improvements over nearly a decade, the most recent departmental performance reports still fall short of providing complete information to Parliament,” said Ms. Fraser. “By and large, performance reports tend to focus only on good news—they provide little discussion of shortcomings or of any lessons learned.”

The audit found that while most of the nine reports rated provided a good overview of their department’s context and strategic outcomes, they neither reported their results very well nor clearly explained why readers could rely on the information they contained. Generally, the reports provided little evidence that performance information in past reports was used to improve results in later years.

In 1997, in 2000, and again in 2003, the Auditor General reported that departments were not moving quickly enough to improve their performance reports.

“Parliamentary review of performance reports through the various standing committees is essential for improving the quality of these reports,” said Ms. Fraser. “Only when parliamentarians are engaged with departments in an ongoing dialogue about departmental performance will the quality of these reports improve.”

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The chapter Rating Selected Departmental Performance Reports is available on the Office of the Auditor General of Canada Web site.

Information:

Julie Hébert, Communications
Tel.: (613) 952-0213, ext. 6292
E-mail: communications@oag-bvg.gc.ca