Thank you, Chair.
We thank you for inviting us to discuss chapter 5 of our May 2007 report, entitled “Managing the Delivery of Legal Services to Government”, an audit of the Department of Justice. It should be noted that our audit work for this chapter was completed in December 2006.
Accompanying me today, as you mentioned, are Hugh McRoberts, Assistant Auditor General, and Gordon Stock, principal of the public safety and justice audit team responsible for this audit.
The Department of Justice can be characterized as Canada's largest law firm, with approximately 2,500 lawyers and a budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year of close to $1 billion.
The department provides legal services to the government and its departments and agencies. Many of its lawyers work on-site in the departments and agencies, providing legal advice and representing their clients' interests. They draft legislation and regulations and represent the government in court.
As noted in our report, our audit also included examining the management of prosecution services that were provided by the federal prosecution service, a branch of the Department of Justice at the time. The service was transferred to the office of the director of public prosecutions with the coming into force of the Federal Accountability Act. Our findings and recommendations relate to the work now carried out by the office of the director of public prosecutions as well as the department.
Our audit looked at three primary areas: whether progress had been made since our last audit on this topic in 1993, whether management had assurance that it was delivering quality legal services, and whether it was doing so in a cost-effective manner.
We found that the department had made progress since our last audit in its management of litigation risk. Its lawyers regularly assess the likelihood and potential impact of an adverse outcome, and use this assessment to determine the level of management involvement required. The department also showed progress in its screening and supervision of its legal (Crown) agents for the Federal Prosecution Service, and had demonstrated its progress towards completing an action plan in this area. However, this progress did not extend to its use of civil agents in other areas of the department.
We also found that departments and agencies were satisfied with the quality of lawyers assigned to them, and that the department puts considerable effort into ensuring the quality of the services it provides. However, the department has not defined what it means by quality, does not have an overall quality management system to ensure that it is delivering consistent quality to its client departments, and cannot assess whether it is meeting its overall quality objectives.
We found that, while the department was responsive to the needs of government, its financial arrangements with client departments and agencies provided few incentives to control costs and manage the demand for increasing legal services. We found more than 100 financial arrangements in the eight departments and agencies that we examined. In general, they were inconsistent, poorly documented and inefficient to administer.
The department lacked basic information on its volume of work and the amount of time its staff needed to deliver services requested by departments and agencies. As a result, we found that it was not in a position to know whether it was delivering legal services cost-effectively. Without good information on costs and time spent on requests, it is difficult to manage and control the growing demand for legal services and to find more efficient ways of providing them.
In this chapter we mention that the department would benefit from having someone in a senior executive position to lead planned improvements. This person could play the role of a chief operating officer, helping to “manage the law practice”.
I find it encouraging that the department appears to be making progress in addressing our observations and recommendations. In some cases these improvements were initiated before we tabled our report.
While we have not reviewed an action plan since we completed our audit, or performed any further review, I understand that the department has improved its financial arrangements for the services provided to departments and agencies. As well, it has organized a number of its corporate functions under the assistant deputy minister for the new management sector. I believe that the department is on the road to making positive changes in the way it manages the delivery of its legal services.
The committee may wish to ask the department for further information on its plans for improving the management of its costs and on its plans to introduce a quality management framework.
Mr. Chair, thank you. This concludes our opening statement. We would be happy to respond to any questions the committee members may have.
Thank you.