I maintain that if you are publicly accountable, which is to say that you have to state publicly what you intend to do and why you intend it and what your performance is and all that stuff, then the fact that you have to report publicly and can be audited by someone for fairness and completeness is a motivation to do the right thing. I agree with all these intermediate inspectors general and whatever.
You probably haven't really thought that since 1978 the Auditor General of Canada has been doing government's reporting job for it. In 1978, when the Auditor General Act was passed for the value-for-money mandate, the Treasury Board did not accompany that with amendments to the Financial Administration Act requiring department heads and officials themselves to account for the performance of their own duty. They passed the buck to the Auditor General. You mustn't pass the buck to the Auditor General; that's not what you're there for. That would have allowed the Auditor General to attest to the fairness and completeness of what management itself was reporting. The Auditor General served the accountability relationship, but she stands outside it.