The Auditor General has a number of advisory bodies that provide advice to the Auditor General personally. We have a panel of senior advisors made up of former politicians--very credible and senior politicians. Mr. Broadbent is a member of our panel of senior advisors. Mr. Joe Clark is a member of our panel, as is Gordon Ritchie. We meet with them once or twice a year to get advice on our performance audits.
I have an independent advisory committee, made up of the most pre-eminent accountants in Canada, to give us advice on our financial audit practices. We have a panel of advisors on aboriginal issues. We'll be talking about aboriginal issues later on this week.
The Commissioner of the Environment has his own advisory panel on environmental issues.
We have an audit committee chaired by a retired private sector public accountant who is very familiar with the public sector. We've had that audit committee in place for the better part of two decades. It advises me on the management of the office.
As to our accountability, members of this committee will be aware that we appear at least once a year before the PACP to explain the management of the office and to talk to you about our report on plans and priorities and our performance report. So we are held accountable once a year before this committee.
We have been working to encourage the formulation in the Standing Orders of an advisory panel on the funding of officers of Parliament. As officers of Parliament, we think our funding should be determined primarily by parliamentarians. I like Michelle d'Auray, but I don't think she is the person who should be determining the funding of the Office of the Auditor General. So we have been working toward the creation of an advisory panel that would oversee the funding and administration of all officers of Parliament.
The Office of the Auditor General is subject to an annual financial audit by a private sector accounting firm. We are subject to the scrutiny of the other officers of Parliament. The Privacy Commissioner and others can come in to look at the work of the Office of the Auditor General. The Office of the Auditor General is proactive in its disclosure of all the administrative functions in the office. I would point out that under the Access to Information Act, we are prohibited from disclosing audit information. The audit information we collect is not subject to access to information requests, which I believe is appropriate to protect the integrity of the audit process.
I mentioned that we've had three peer reviews. In 1999 an accounting firm reviewed our financial audit practice. In 2003 the national audit office of the U.K. led a review of our performance audit practice. In 2010 we had a review done of all of the work of the office, led by the Australian national audit office. That report was discussed with this committee in the previous Parliament. The conclusion of that report was that Parliament could rely on our work, but there were some things that we needed to improve as well.
As for the impact that we have, there are a number of performance measures reported in our departmental performance report. The key one has to do with the implementation of our recommendations. The good news is that if you look at our status reports on the follow-up of our previous work for the last three years, we've reported satisfactory progress in implementing the Auditor General's recommendations in seven of thirteen areas. That's not bad, but it could be better. We will continue to work to improve our own follow-up and reporting on the implementation of our recommendations.
Members will be aware that the government is undertaking a strategic review, or deficit reduction action plan, looking to achieve savings of $4 billion by 2014-15. The Office of the Auditor General has voluntarily decided to conduct its own review. We are in the process of finalizing that review now. I would like to present the results of the strategic review that we have done of the Office of the Auditor General and discuss them with this committee in the coming weeks. I'll be sending you and the chair of the advisory panel on funding of offices of Parliament a letter shortly on how we propose to proceed with our strategic review.