Public Accounts Committee on May 18th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

Thank you very much, Ms. Fraser.

Ms. Ratansi, eight minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madame Auditor General. You have such a wonderful job.

[Sheila Fraser]

I do.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Comprehensive accounting, performance management--you see it and are able to point out what people are doing well and what people are not doing well. The underlying theme that I see from your report is that information systems, performance systems, do not seem to give the information for proper decision-making.

As I looked at one of the chapters on information systems...departments seem to have various information systems. Some have SAPs, some have other systems, and some are using CFIS I and II. Could you tell me, are there scientists in departments who decide they want these individual systems? Are these systems talking to each other? What is the issue?

Going forward, how can these systems or the bureaucracy do a better job of ensuring that systems give the information they are supposed to? For example, is the proper needs analysis being done? Is the contingency planning being done? Is there flexibility within the system? Why are systems producing reports that perhaps nobody uses? You made an allusion that in the first nations there are 60 reports being given. Why are there so many reports? Are the report requirements too onerous?

We have to bring some simplicity. I know government is not simple; it's very complex. If you could highlight something on that, I'd appreciate it.

[Sheila Fraser]

I'd be glad to, because I think you've raised an important issue that is recurrent in many of our audit findings. Of course, in government, given its complexity, there are a multiplicity of systems. Some are used for financial information--the SAPs, Oracles, and whatever.

In 1999, just before the year 2000, the government required that all government departments move to one of seven authorized financial systems at the time, I believe, and it has recently indicated its preference for all departments to move to one financial system, which is SAP. These are obviously very expensive and very time-consuming exercises to move from one system to another. I presume it will take several years before everyone actually moves to SAP, if everyone eventually does.

In addition to the financial information systems, there are also a number of operating systems. For example, CFIS, which you mentioned, is the database for the weapons registry. That is obviously not linked to a financial information system, but it should be linked to other systems--the police information system and others.

We've noted in many of the reports, and in particular the work that Mr. Kasurak has done on public safety, that many of the systems, or I would say probably most of the systems, do not talk to each other. It's because the departments still very much work in a stovepipe fashion and develop the systems for their own needs. I think we even said at the time that especially when you get into law enforcement, the security agencies are very jealous about protecting their information. It will quite frankly take a change in culture before they start sharing it with ease.

Information systems are an issue. They probably don't get the attention they need. I think part of it is that when you come to priorities, are you going to develop and spend money on systems or are you going to spend it on programs? That's part of the issue.

On the reports, you were absolutely right. In several audits on the first nations we raised the fact that there were far too many reports. We mentioned in this report that recipients of grants and contributions are also now saying that the reporting requirements are too onerous. I think if you take each individual program, in and of itself, it looks appropriate. It's when you add them all up that it suddenly doesn't make any sense.

In the case of first nations, we said that the government really needed to streamline programs and to better coordinate programs, and it needs to do the reporting on a risk basis. Quite frankly, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is dealing with about 630 communities. Why can't there be a reporting of all programs by community, rather than each program having all its own reports? I think there are ways to do this in a more streamlined and less onerous fashion for the recipients of those funds.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Whose decision is it to purchase a system off the shelf or to get it off the shelf and then modify it to suit their needs? Is it a decision by program managers? Is it a decision by the deputy minister? How much do those systems cost?

[Sheila Fraser]

I hesitate to get into this, because we haven't really looked at it. I believe it is the department concerned, along with the Treasury Board Secretariat. The chief information officer is still at the Treasury Board Secretariat, I believe, and there is some oversight approval given by the Treasury Board Secretariat on any system work that is done.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

For example, if SAP was purchased and then modified for agriculture and agrifood, would the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food need to have consensus from the Treasury Board?

[Sheila Fraser]

I say with all reserve that we would really have to ask the departments or the Treasury Board Secretariat. I believe that is the case.

There is also an identification of what are believed to be high-risk projects; they call that major capital projects. An entire special monitoring goes on around those projects as well, and a very large computer program development is often included in that.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How much would a computer program development generally cost in large departments?

[Sheila Fraser]

It would cost a lot.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

The reason I ask you that is.... Everybody jumps onto systems. I would have taken agriculture and agrifood, because it was not a contentious issue; nobody bothered with it.

But logically, systems, when you're trying to blend them together to provide the information you need in a complex government department or environment, do have their hiccups. And as they go through their hiccups with legislative changes, etc., we seem to find issues around those systems. That's why I wanted to see, from your perspective, what ballpark a system can go through.

I can only go by the example I know of, in the province of Ontario, where a social assistance review system went into a huge overrun because proper planning was not done.

Therefore, I'm trying to get a handle on what happens in a department ten times the size of the province of Ontario, for example. What do we see?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ms. Fraser.

[Sheila Fraser]

We have done some work in the past on systems under development, but it goes back quite a few years, so I would hesitate to give a lot of comments on that.

Obviously, the whole planning, the rigour of the estimates initially, and the control over all the changes that people make are essential to the success of the project.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ratansi. Thank you very much, Ms. Fraser.

Mr. Watson, eight minutes.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.

Ms. Fraser and staff, thank you for being before the committee today.

I believe the proceedings are being televised today. Just for some context on this audit, the audit we're considering today was done on the previous Liberal government before the election. Is that correct?

[Sheila Fraser]

All of the audit work that we are reporting in this report was completed, for the most part, in December 2005.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Okay. It was before the change of government.

So presumably the responses to the recommendations, also included in here, are from the previous government?

[Sheila Fraser]

No. The responses were received from the current government. The deputy minister provided us with responses before we printed, which was actually into March. But I think most of the responses were received around the end of February or beginning of March.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Very good.

Going back to your 2002 audit for just a moment, your 2002 audit indicated--I'm coming back to the gun registry here--that between 1995-96 and 2001-02 , I believe 70% of the Department of Justice's funding for the firearms program, which is about $525 million out of $750 million, was obtained through supplementary estimates.

Is this a usual or unusual practice for a single program in such a short time period?

[Sheila Fraser]

That would be an unusual practice.

I don't know if Peter wanted to add something, but at the time we raised it because it was a concern that so much of the funding was actually coming through supplementary estimates.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

You also reported in that audit that there were serious shortcomings in financial reporting to your office. In fact, they were serious enough to keep you and your team from continuing a critical portion of the audit.

Is that true?

[Sheila Fraser]

That's correct.

We had to curtail the audit because we weren't able to get all of the financial information, in particular the costs that had been incurred by other departments. There was not a system in place.

We're reporting in this audit that we tabled on Tuesday that there has been satisfactory progress made in addressing that recommendation.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

It seems the previous government shifted secrecy from your office to Parliament after that.

Returning to the present audit, in 2002-03, there's evidently a high-level conspiracy by senior government officials to hide critical financial information on the true and full costs of the gun registry.

You talked about a meeting of high-level government officials to discuss what to do with the spending that exceeded by $17 million what Parliament appropriated that year.