Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are pleased to be here today. We would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to discuss our 2006-07 performance report and our 2008-09 report on plans and priorities.
As you mentioned, I'm accompanied today by Lyn Sachs, Assistant Auditor General, who is responsible for our corporate services.
Each year we are privileged to contribute to Parliament's oversight of government spending and performance with the objective information, advice, and assurance that result from the audits we conduct. As you know, we conduct three types of audit: financial audits, special examinations of crown corporations, and performance audits. All our audit work is conducted in accordance with the standards set by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Our work is guided by a rigorous methodology and quality management framework and is subject to internal practice reviews and external reviews by peers. All of this provides assurance that you can rely on the quality of our work.
During the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the period covered by our most recent performance report, we used $77.8 million of the $78.6 million in appropriations available to us and employed the equivalent of 610 full-time employees. Our net cost of operations—taking into account services provided without charge by other departments and other smaller adjustments—was $88.1 million.
Using these resources, the Office provided Parliament with 30 performance audits of federal departments and agencies; provided territorial legislatures with two performance audits on territorial matters; provided more than 120 financial audit reports to financial oversight bodies—including those of the Government of Canada, crown corporations, the three territorial governments, and to international organizations; provided four special examinations of crown corporations to their boards of directors; assessed the performance reports of three federal government agencies; assessed the actions of 21 federal organizations in implementing selected commitments from their 2001 and 2004 sustainable development strategies; and monitored 37 environmental petitions.
Our 2006-2007 performance report contains a number of indicators of what the impact of our work is and what our performance measures are. The tables containing our targets and actual performance for these measures are attached to the statement.
In the 2006-2007 fiscal year, performance highlights included the following:
Parliamentary committees reviewed 63% of our performance audit reports—a significant increase from the previous two years. We participated in 64 committee hearings and briefings over the course of the 130 parliamentary sitting days, a record number for our office.
Departments reported they had fully implemented 46% and had substantially implemented 26% of the performance audit recommendations made in the reports we tabled four years ago.
When we surveyed users of our reports, 94% indicated that our findings were reported in a fair and objective manner and that our reports were clear and concise.
This was the first year that we surveyed members of select parliamentary committees on their assessment of our work. We would like to thank you for your responses and are pleased that so many of you found our reports to be valuable.
The indicators however reveal that we need to improve our performance in terms of budget versus actual cost of audits. We are taking a number of steps to improve the way in which we establish budgets and the management of individual audits.
Our 2008-09 report on plans and priorities has just been tabled in the House of Commons. Appendix II to this statement provides you with an updated list of our planned performance audits and special examinations for the coming years. Let me take a moment and draw your attention to our priorities for this year.
For a number of years to come, we will face challenges related to the core of our auditing and accounting practices. Recent decisions by standards-setting boards of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants to adopt international standards on auditing in 2010 and international financial reporting standards in 2011 represent changes on a scale that is unprecedented in our profession in Canada.
We will need to determine how the changes in auditing standards will affect the way we conduct audits and what impact the changes in financial reporting standards will have on the financial statements of the entities we audit. We will need to adjust our methodology to take these changes into account, to train our staff, and to ensure that our audit tools continue to help us do our work efficiently.
To respond to these challenges, the office is developing a multi-year plan that will prepare us to carry out our work in this new environment.
In that regard, I am pleased to inform the committee that I have been designated as the official representative of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions, known as INTOSAI, to the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board of the International Federation of Accountants. I have also been named as the chair of INTOSAI's professional standards subcommittee on accounting and reporting.
While I am very pleased to accept these positions, I do regret that they will cause me to be absent more often than usual.
We will continue to work to sustain our most precious asset—our staff. I am pleased that our office has been selected as one of Canada's top 100 employers and one of Canada's top 10 family-friendly employers for 2008. We hope to build on this success to retain and attract qualified employees. We are dedicating resources to ensure that effective recruitment and retention plans are in place. We are also focusing on compensation issues and on providing our staff with greater access to a variety of challenging opportunities.
The ongoing retirement of a significant percentage of our staff means that, like other organizations throughout the public sector, we face the loss of corporate memory.
In our 2008-2009 report on plans and priorities, in addition to these priorities, we also noted a concern that we want to address this year. Presently, management and other policies that government central agencies issue apply to officers of Parliament in the same way they apply to government departments and agencies. This is a concern to us and other officers of Parliament. It does not recognize the independence of officers of Parliament and the management autonomy needed to protect our independence.
For example, these government policies often provide a role for ministers or central agencies in the management and oversight of departments and agencies that are inappropriate for officers of Parliament. We are working with government officials to resolve the matter.
As most of you are probably already aware, we have recently announced the appointment of Mr. Scott Vaughan as the new Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Mr. Vaughan is an environmental economist who has more than 20 years of experience working on environmental and sustainable development issues for international organizations, such as the Organization of the American States, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, and the United Nations Environment Programme. He will be joining the office on May 5, and I look forward to presenting him to the committee at a future hearing.
Finally, Mr. Chair, today you're being asked to approve our estimates for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
We are seeking an additional $1.2 million to become the sole auditor for VIA Rail—for both its financial audits and special examinations, as the result of a recent order in council—and to undertake the audit of the International Labour Organization. It should be noted that we will recover the costs of the latter audit. This amount of $1.2 million also includes the technical adjustment of $700,000 required to cover the cost of the employee benefit plan for increases to our staff over a number of years. A table summarizing the request is provided in appendix III to this statement.
We appeared before the panel on the oversight and funding of officers of Parliament in November 2007. The panel unanimously recommended the approval of this additional funding to the Treasury Board.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, my staff and I appreciate your ongoing interest in and support for our work, and we look forward to continuing to assist you in holding the government to account for its use of public funds.
That completes my opening statement. We would be most pleased to answer any questions that committee members might have.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
