Quality Assurance Review of the
Aboriginal Digital Collections (ADC) Pilot Program

October 5, 1999

Summary

A quality assurance review was conducted by Goss Gilroy Inc. on the case files of the 26 clients who received Aboriginal Business Canada (ABC) funding under the Aboriginal Data Collections (ADC) Pilot Program. Six specific areas were chosen as part of the review process: Project Pre-approval, Project Approval, Letter of Offer and Amendments, Payments, Advance Payments, and Monitoring.

Overall, the proper procedures are in place and generally followed. However, problems were noted in the following areas:

Project Pre-Approval

• Eleven (11) of the 26 files contained duplicate and/or revised budgets making it difficult to identify the final version of the project budget.

Project Approval and Letter of Offer and Amendments

• Seven (7) of the 26 files contained incomplete photocopies of original documents which resulted in missing document information.

Payments

• Of the 5 files where final payment has been made, only 1 file was approved as per the signing authorities provided.

Advance Payments

• In 25 of the 26 files, the payment approval document was either not approved according to the signing authorities provided or information was missing due to the same photocopying error noted above.

Monitoring

• Final payment has been made to five clients, however, two of the clients have not yet complied with all of the terms and conditions of the pilot program; i.e., they have not submitted their final exit interview for themselves or their staff.

Therefore, it is recommended that:

1. Files be maintained in a more orderly fashion and that care be taken when photocopying original documents to ensure that photocopies contain all information.



2. ADC management ensure that the "final approved" budget is clearly identified in the file documents.



3. ADC management ensure that documents are authorized by the appropriate signing authorities.



4. ADC management ensure that all required documents be on file before final payment is made.

A formal management response was not prepared for this document as it pre-dates the 2001 implementation of this practice.

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