Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am very pleased to be here today to discuss the results of the peer review recently completed by several of our international counterparts.
As you mentioned, I am joined today by John Wiersema, Deputy Auditor General.
My comments will be brief.
I would like to start by thanking Ian McPhee, Auditor-General for Australia, and his staff for leading this review.
I would also like to thank the other members of the peer review team for their participation and contribution to this important project. They included representatives from the national audit offices of the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
Mr. Chair, as you know, the peer review was undertaken at my request. The objective of the review was to provide an independent opinion on whether the Quality Management System used by the Office of the Auditor General to manage its audit practices was suitably designed and operating effectively.
I believe that this type of external review is important. It provides independent assurance that you can rely on our work. It also leads to improvement in our practices and helps respond to a question often asked: Who audits the Auditor General?
Mr. Chair, I am pleased that the peer review report concluded positively with respect to the design of our Quality Management System and concluded that the system was operating effectively for the performance audit and special examination practices.
With respect to the annual audit practice, the report concluded that the quality management system was generally operating effectively, but it identified certain implementation issues that need attention, and it made two recommendations aimed at addressing them. These issues concerned risk assessment and related audit work, and the sufficiency of audit documentation recording the results of the audit work performed. These findings are similar to those of our own recent practice review.
We have accepted the report's findings and agreed with the recommendations, and we have developed an action plan to implement the recommendations as well as the additional observations and suggestions for improvement included in the report. Our response and action plan, as was mentioned, were provided to the committee in June. We are also presenting an update on the current status of the action plan, and you will note that overall we are progressing according to plan.
In closing, I would like to assure committee members that we are strongly committed to taking the necessary steps to ensure that you can continue to rely on our work.
Mr. Chair, that concludes my statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions that members may have. Thank you.