Thank you very much.
I won't bother to read out our opening statement. I'll just go through what our presentation is.
As you're aware, and I'm sure your Parliament is no different to ours, members of Parliament and the public look to the Auditor General of Canada for independent, objective, and reliable information upon which they can rely in assessing the government's performance and holding it to account.
This is by way of background information so that you're aware of what we're doing in terms of the peer review.
The Office of the Auditor General's audit work is guided by a rigorous methodology and quality management framework that is aimed at providing reasonable assurance that the OAG discharges its legislative authority in accordance with applicable standards of professional service. The objective and independent review that's being undertaken by our office and other experienced reviewers provides an opportunity to constructively examine and strengthen the work of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
The OAG has a quality management system for each of its product lines. The QMS, as it is called, covers areas such as audit and examination management, people management, and continuous improvement as some of the areas. The review objective is to provide the Auditor General of Canada with an independent opinion on whether the Office of the Auditor General of Canada's quality management system is suitably designed and operates effectively to provide reasonable assurance that the work of the OAG complies with its legislative authorities and professional standards.
The scope of the peer review will include all audit and assurance practice lines as well as key support areas that directly support the audit and assurance areas. These will be professional development, the resourcing of individual audits, and the continuous improvement processes that the OAG has in place.
The period under review will cover audit and assurance engagements reported during the period of September 2008 to October 2009. As has already been mentioned, the Australian National Audit Office is leading the peer review team, and it will cover all product lines. We have split the team to cover those lines.
The Netherlands and Denmark, with Australia, will be involved in the review of the performance audits and special examinations of crown corporations. Again, with Australia, Norway and Sweden will be involved in the review of the audit of the annual summary financial statements, the Government of Canada, and financial audits of crown corporations and territorial governments.
The review criteria we are using are going to be based on the OAG's quality management systems, key legislative authorities such as the Auditor General Act, the Financial Administration Act, and the Federal Sustainable Development Act, and it will be based on the Chartered Accountants of Canada assurance and auditing standards.
The peer review will be conducted in a number of stages, and it is our intention to provide a report by June 2010. The actual review commenced with a planning meeting with the OAG and the peer review team members from Australia in June this year. In August, the OAG provided the whole peer review team with comprehensive briefings and explained all elements of the quality management framework. These briefings will assist the team in assessing whether the QMSs are suitably designed for performance audit, special examination, and annual audits.
We've also analyzed the OAG's quality management system, auditing standards, their policies, and guidance as it applies to each of the audit categories. Our current visit is perhaps the most important one because we will look to see how the OAG implements its quality management system, and we'll do this by reviewing a sample of audit files.
The sample that we have chosen covers 17 audits as well as components of the consolidation of the summary of Public Accounts of Canada. It will include performance audits, special examinations, departmental financial audits, financial audits of crown corporations, a territorial financial audit, and other statutory financial audits.
For your information, when we looked at selecting our sample we based it on a number of factors. These included the risks that were associated with either the entity or the audit topic, the materiality of the particular audit, the timing of the audit, the number of agencies involved, how complex it was, and the audit practitioner and assistant auditor general of the OAG.
We are also seeking, as part of our peer review, to get the views of a number of key stakeholders and their view on the work of the OAG. As well as appearing before this committee and speaking to your chair and vice-chairs, we will be speaking to the chair and vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the Comptroller General and his assistant, the chief executive officer of Export Development Canada, the Privacy Commissioner, the Deputy Receiver General of Canada, and senior executives of the Department of National Defence and Revenue Canada. So we have a broad section of stakeholders that we will be talking to.
The final report, which, as I said, we will be able to present to the Auditor General by June 2010, will include findings of the performance audit, special examinations, and financial audit reviews. It will provide an opinion against the review objective. It will also include examples of good practice at the OAG and suggestions for improvements.
We would also like to acknowledge this committee and to thank the Auditor General and her staff for their cooperation and full support for this peer review.
If you have any questions you would like to ask, we are more than happy to answer them.
Thank you.