Opening Statement to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts

A Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada to the House of Commons—May 2003

2 June, 2003

Sheila Fraser, FCA
Auditor General of Canada

Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to discuss my second Status Report, tabled on May 27. I am accompanied today by Assistant Auditors General Maria Barrados, Shahid Minto and Doug Timmins.

My reports tell Parliament how well the federal government is managing its resources, and whether or not it can demonstrate that its programs are achieving the desired results.

I'm often asked if the government corrects the problems identified in our audits. How quickly? And how completely?

We designed the Status Report to answer these questions clearly, based on rigorous follow-up audits of the government's action to address issues raised in our previous audits. The Status Report allows us to answer some of our own questions as well: Does our work promote positive change? Does it make government better? Do we, in fact, make a difference for Canadians?

This year, I am pleased to say that we can answer "yes" to all these questions. The results we saw in our follow-up audits are, by and large, positive. Of the six areas covered in the 2003 Status Report, we are satisfied with the government's progress in four, given the complexity of some issues and the amount of time that has elapsed since our original audit. Let me review these four areas briefly.

In chapter 2 on managing the risks of non-compliance for customs, we noted that, overall, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency has made satisfactory progress on improving the management of risks of non-compliance at borders, in response to recommendations we made in 2000 and 2001.

The Agency now has a system to collect advance passenger information from airlines to target high-risk air travelers, and an improved system for screening travelers at airports.

But while the Agency has taken these steps to make our borders more secure, it has yet to determine how effective they are. More activity doesn't necessarily mean better security.

In Chapter 3, we audited the economic component of the Canadian Immigration Program, which applies mainly to skilled workers and business immigrants. In April 2000 we reported serious problems in Canada's ability to protect the integrity of the Immigration Program and make the most of the economic and social benefits of immigration.

Our Status Report notes that Citizenship and Immigration Canada took our recommendations seriously, as did the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration when it considered the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—the first major overhaul of immigration legislation in some 25 years. Most of the Act's provisions came into effect in 2002.

Overall, we are satisfied with the Department's progress.

Amended selection criteria for skilled workers and business immigrants and the creation of a new permanent resident card are two of several improvements.

However, issues arose around medical surveillance of immigrants and refugee claimants. We would be pleased to discuss these issues with the Committee.

Chapter 4 notes that, overall, we are satisfied with Correctional Service Canada's progress in the reintegration of male offenders into the community—a vital part of its mandate.

It has increased parole officers' adherence to its standards for supervising offenders in the community, improved the quality of reports to the National Parole Board for parole decisions, made case management more timely, and shortened the time it takes to acquire critical documents on offenders.

I encourage the Service to continue this progress and address other outstanding issues we have identified in our report, such as employment and rehabilitation programs for offenders, training of parole officers, and testing of tools used in the initial assessment of offenders.

In chapter 5, we note that the Public Service Commission has redesigned its Post-Secondary Recruitment program and substantially implemented most of the recommendations we made in our December 2000 Report. Recruiting through the program is now faster and more flexible. I commend the Commission on how much they have accomplished in such a short time.

But managers in federal government departments are not yet taking full advantage of the program, nor doing the human resources planning required to help ensure that the government has the qualified people it will need in the future.

Now I would like to comment on the two disappointments in this report—issues that are important to good decision-making and the government's effectiveness.

The first one deals with performance reporting.

Parliament needs good information about performance in order to decide which programs to fund, which programs are effective and should be supported, and which programs are not effective and need to be improved or shelved.

In the nine performance reports we looked at in chapter 1, the departments failed to provide this kind of useful information. Despite some good practices, reports tend to focus on "good news" and omit or gloss over performance problems. There is scant evidence that departments use performance information to make decisions. And there is too little reporting on important horizontal issues that span the mandates of several government departments—security, for instance.

In an environment where people are all too ready to point fingers when any failures or weaknesses come to light, balanced reporting is risky. Unfortunately, departments are not rewarded for telling the whole story, warts and all.

The second one is reform of job classification and evaluation.

The government has known for years that the system used to classify and evaluate jobs in the federal public service is outdated and cumbersome and that it must be overhauled. The classification system is essential to managing the public service payroll.

In the 40 years since the system was created, changes in technology have transformed the way government works. Skills that were once highly valued have become obsolete and new skills have emerged.

Chapter 6 notes that after 12 years of trying to reform the system, the Treasury Board Secretariat has abandoned its second attempt. And since the just-launched third attempt at classification reform is based on features that made the existing system slow and unwieldy, we are concerned about the significant challenges the Treasury Board Secretariat faces in its new approach. The government needs to succeed with this important reform in order to ensure that it is paying its employees appropriately for the skills they use at work. It needs to both attract and retain people with the qualifications necessary for a modern and effective public service. Ultimately, this has an impact on the quality of programs received by Canadians.

There is no question that government faces enormous challenges in delivering large and complex programs and services. When we conduct our audits, we do find shortcomings—that is the nature of auditing—but we make every effort to be constructive in our criticisms and to suggest solutions to the problems we identify.

We are satisfied with the progress we found in four of our six follow-up audits this year. I hope this Status Report reassures those who wonder whether anything is ever done to fix problems identified in our audits. Clearly, the answer is yes.

Mr. Chair, we would be happy to answer members' questions.