Backgrounder — Audits of the Agency of Record

Previous Agency of Record

In her November 2003 report on government advertising activities, tabled in Parliament in February 2004, the Auditor General (AG) noted that the government had not audited the agency of record (AoR), as required.

PWGSC hired Consulting and Audit Canada to conduct an audit of the Agency of Record — field work was conducted on the premises of Media IDA Vison Inc. during September and October 2003, and the report was finalized in November of that year. (It should be noted that the AG would have finalized her report several months before).

The audit was confined to the advertising activities of the AoR and focused on the most material provisions of its work, such as purchasing, consolidation of agency invoices, payments.

The audit covered the five years from 1998/99 to 2002/03 and drew from a population of 8000 files with a total value of $345 million. The audit sampled 184 files, with a total value of $170 million. This size sample gave the auditors a 95% confidence level that their findings were valid.

The auditors concluded that the AoR had complied with most of the material advertising provisions. They made some recommendations to the agency which they believed would strengthen management of these files even more. The agency indicated willingness to implement these recommendations.

They were unable to assess whether the AoR had achieved savings for the government and obtained the best possible price and they recommended that a specialist in advertising be retained to look at this.

The contract was concluded in 2004.

Current Agency of Record

Cossette Media has been the AoR since June, 2004. The contract calls for a third party audit of the company to be initiated two years after the start of the contract — June 2006. The contract also has provisions for interim cost/time verifications or audits of payments.

The contract also calls for a review of the AoR performance with regards to competitiveness after 18 months (fall 2005). This addresses the recommendation made by the audit of the previous AoR to engage a specialist to determine whether the AoR is achieving savings and obtaining best possible prices — essentially value for money. PWGSC plans to contract for this review within the next month.

In addition to this specific review, PWGSC has been monitoring the AoR performance and is satisfied with its findings.