To follow up on Michel's point, in the interests of comprehensiveness and to answer your question, it is important to have these at the meeting. Generally, the members of the committee have the action plans, which are a more concrete explanation and “go forward” with regard to the way they are going to address the recommendations of the Auditor General.
In very complex audits that are pan-governmental and that may involve multiple departments, the coordinating efforts required to ensure that everybody is playing from the same rule book and that everybody is going to integrate their responses and actions.... Sometimes, depending on when the report is done, there is still a lot of negotiating between the audited entity and the Auditor General. That can happen up until a report is finalized, packaged and tabled in the House. Sometimes those things require more time for certain departments, and in certain cases to provide a proper action plan.
It's a very good thing to have them at the meeting, absolutely, but there may be an occasion when a department may not have been able to be as thorough with regard to preparing an action plan.