Evidence of meeting #144 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A video is available from Parliament.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm not responsible for the outcomes for all of those departments. The deputy heads administering such programs for those departments are in a better position to provide the answers to your questions.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Would the deputy minister of environment know about the net-zero accelerator fund for that?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes. This program is part of his department. That's correct.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
It's interesting, because he said he didn't know anything about it. I guess we'll have to get him back here in front of the committee.
Is the environment department fully monitoring the results of its grants and contribution spending?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
They're doing audits, like I said.
I would also like to add that, as per the Financial Administration Act, every program greater than $5 million needs to be evaluated every five years. That is a requirement in the law. Every department needs to do that.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'll ask the question again, just so we're clear.
Is the environment department fully monitoring the results of its grants and contributions spending? Is it law, then?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Like I said, every program above $5 million, as per the Financial Administration Act, needs to be reviewed every five years. All those evaluations will be accessible on the department's website.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much.
We'll finish up with Mr. Bains.
Please go ahead, sir.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our Treasury Board Secretariat officials for joining us today.
I want to talk a bit about the oversight to the transfer payments. You mentioned that you're looking for efficiencies and for the effectiveness of how these things are done. What's the process there? How do you measure the effectiveness and the efficiencies?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
As I was just saying, there is a requirement to do evaluations as well as a requirement to do internal audits in each department.
Having said that, my group is responsible for doing internal audits for what we call “small” departments. Within the Government of Canada, we have roughly 44 departments for which we are in charge of doing the audit on their behalf because they don't have the tools and the manpower necessary to do it. As well, we have some agreements with regional development agencies in order to do some audits for them. Again, they don't have the—
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
You said you can't do all of them, though, so then, there are mechanisms in place to measure things that are being processed appropriately. What are those?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
This is a risk-based approach, so we look at the nature of—
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
We look at the risk indicators. We look at the amount of funding. We look at the programs. Is it a new program? Is it a program that has been there for several years? We look at the initiatives in place. We look also at other elements. We look to make sure that there is continuous monitoring.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Can I stop at the programs that are there for several years?
We've seen processes that have not changed for over 20 years, and we've seen that run into problems. We've studied other funding pieces within this committee as well.
The fear is.... If there are programs that have been there for several years, is there less oversight on those? That's my question.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
It's not less oversight.
The risk-based audit plan is a three-year audit plan that needs to be refreshed every year. Those plans come to my group, and we look at them to make sure that, at the end of the day, we have good audit coverage on all programs.
Again, if there are some challenges, or if a deputy minister believes that they would like to have more information about a particular program, then the deputy minister, in their role, can decide to ask for a specific audit from their internal audit shop.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Can I direct my question to Ms. Thomas?
Considering you're the executive director of costing, charging and transfer payments, can you talk a little about your role in all of this and your oversight?
Executive Director, Costing, Charging and Transfer Payments, Treasury Board Secretariat
I can build upon what the comptroller general spoke to you about, which was internal audit.
You'll notice that some of the thematics that come out of those reviews are strengthening processes and strengthening capacity within the department to deliver those programs. We play a role with that community of practitioners. We provide guidance. We provide advice.
We work with the Canada School of Public Service to provide training so that we can help address some of those issues that come out and proactively target themes. We also have governance committees with departments, where they can raise common concerns and considerations in their implementation.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
You're a little more hands-on and more actively involved in these applications.
How many people are part of the overall broad group looking at this and doing this work together?
Executive Director, Costing, Charging and Transfer Payments, Treasury Board Secretariat
We're not involved in the actual implementation of the programs. That's all within departments.
What we do is provide that policy centre of expertise support to departments. We have a relatively small team within our organization. We work across departments to facilitate the sharing of best practices and provide concrete advice when they're doing their design.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That's our time.
Thanks, as always, for being with us.
Before you go, I have a couple of quick questions myself, if you don't mind.
How many of the departments have chief audit executives?
I ask that because that is who did this one. We've had several other less than stellar audits—one about Global Affairs on their horrific non-practice of following the rules on procurement, this one....
How many other departments have chief audit executives, and what direction are they taking to do these audits and uncover messes similar to the ones we have with Global Affairs and elsewhere?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I will provide you with the specific number right after the meeting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Who's giving that direction, though, to the auditors? Is it the deputy minister in each department?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The deputy minister gives directions. Each big organization also has what we call a “DAC”—a departmental audit committee. Those are external representatives who give feedback and recommendations.
As I was saying, we also review all the risk-based audit plans—