Evidence of meeting #12 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was entities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
I don't think I was referring to shared services.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
What was the report you referred to about? You said you had submitted a report.
Assistant Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm talking about the Mazankowski-Tellier Report. That's the Advisory Committee on the Public Service appointed by the Prime Minister, co-chaired by Messrs. Mazankowski and Tellier, which has been conducting proceedings for nearly two years. They first targeted human resources. In their most recent 12-page public report presented last month, which is available on the Prime Minister's website, most of the attention is focused on questions regarding the web of rules. You can read it yourself.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
I thought it was a report on shared services, that you had conducted an assessment of the needs of the various agencies for shared services, and that a study had been conducted by the Treasury Board. Is there one?
Assistant Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Not in the sense you seem to be describing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Okay, thank you very much, Madame Faille.
What I'd like to do before we adjourn or ask for closing comments is to firm up some things with you, Mr. Wouters. You're going to provide us with a more detailed action plan in response to the Auditor General's recommendations. Would June 30 be okay? Is that fine?
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes. Again, I need to look at your recommendation.
I'm just worried about the reporting burden we have, because now in each report we have to have a set of recommendations and an action plan. There's an action plan in the recommendations, so now we have to come forward with another detailed action plan.
Is this going to be annual?
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
And now every department—and the small agencies too—is going to be required to submit an action plan to Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
That's not the case at all. We have declared, by a resolution of this committee, to ask any agency or any department that is subject to an audit by the Office of the Auditor General and that has agreed with the recommendation—they don't have to agree, but if they have agreed—to submit an action plan to us on how they plan to meet the recommendation.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Is that how this is applied to small agencies? Will there be recommendations that the Auditor General makes to small agencies?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No, they're recommendations in this report.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Okay, if a recommendation is made to a small agency, or if the audit covers a small agency, and the small agency says “I recommend...”, are they required to develop an action plan?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I will give the example of the last small agency that we did, which was problematic. That was the Office of the Correctional Investigator. I will admit--and the secretariat knows--that they produced a mountain of reports because things were so badly run. We've been asking for this for years. When departments agree with us, they give us a very small text saying they are agreeing and general broad strokes of what they're going to do, but we would expect them to have a detailed plan as to how they're actually going to carry out what they say they're going to do.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm just asking if you want this to apply to small agencies. They will then be required to develop an action plan, an additional report. I'm just asking the committee to consider that as part of its recommendations, because there will be recommendations that are specifically directed at small agencies.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I have a suggestion, sir. Most of us agree this is not that complicated and shouldn't be that onerous. Maybe we can ask Mr. Wouters and Ms. Fraser to meet, and if it's still unclear, sir, you could have access back to us. If you think it's going to put a reporting burden on you--and I hear you--that's fair enough. Then come on back to us, but if you talk to the Auditor General and get a little more clarity around what we're looking for, I don't think you'll be quite as shaken by what you are undertaking.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Members also have to be aware that we all have internal audit committees now that we have strengthened, and part of the role of the internal audit committee is that we report to them periodically on what we're doing. I'm just saying that overall we will follow through because this is what the committee wants. I'm just asking the committee to take a good look at what you're asking us to do, because you're asking for additional reports here to Parliament, which is just like what we have been talking about today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I'm just going to read for the record the motion passed by this committee:
That all departments and agencies of the federal government that have been subject to a performance audit by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada provide a detailed action plan to address the audit findings and recommendations - including specific actions, timelines for their completion and responsible individuals - to the Public Accounts Committee and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada within six months of the audit being tabled in the House of Commons; and that departments and agencies that are invited to appear before the Public Accounts Committee to discuss the findings of an audit should, when feasible, provide an action plan to the Committee prior to the hearing.
That's the basis we are working under.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
We will add one more report to this number of reports that we need to produce.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
So be it.
At this point in time, I'm going to ask for closing comments.
Ms. Fraser, the floor is yours.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the committee for reviewing this audit report. The issues we have raised are certainly of great importance and of concern to the small agencies. We heard a lot of frustration expressed by small agencies concerning, in particular, the reporting burden, so I am hopeful that the actions the secretary has outlined will address that going forward.