The audit reports, which examine the 2010-11 fiscal year, packed a much softer punch than many observers expected. Mr. Ferguson said “with one exception,” they had found no major weaknesses in the Senate or House of Commons administration.
“Nothing that we found indicated to us that there was any wrongdoing or anything that meant we needed to drill down further, and if we had found something like that we would have gone further. So overall we were generally satisfied with the results,” said Mr. Ferguson.
That one exception, said Mr. Ferguson, was in procurement. The audit looked at 59 procurement purchases, worth a total of approximately $15-million (out of the total $60-million spent by the House annually on procurements), and found that in 41 of those cases, the House did not comply with the rules.
“The manual intended to provide detailed guidance on how to carry out procurement is unclear: its guidance for managers is contradictory or insufficient and has contributed to inconsistent procurement practices,” reads the report.
Mr. Ferguson found instances of contracts not having been signed, having been signed retroactively, or where contracts were missing documentation, “such as a statement of work or the rationale for not choosing a competitive process.” The audit also found in five out of seven procurements that required a conflict of interest form, the form was either missing or was signed only after “a significant milestone.”
Auditors said they believe failings with the House procurement process are due to “a lack of guidance, inconsistent application of controls, and high turnover in senior positions.”
“The manual needed to be improved and the staff doing the actual work needed to have appropriate training and oversight and that type of thing. And when you have significant turnover at senior levels, that means things like ensuring that manuals are up to date and that manuals agree with the framework and that staff are getting the appropriate training, there’s not sort of that continuity of leadership that makes sure those things are happening,” Mr. Ferguson said last week in an interview with The Hill Times.
The House agreed with the AG’s findings and has stated it will provide additional guidance and training for staff, which will start in 2013-14, as well as develop a procurement control framework to ensure that policies are followed and properly documented.
The two audits have been in the works since the spring of 2010, after former auditor general Sheila Fraser won a lengthy fight to get permission from the secretive, all-party Commons Board of Internal Economy Committee to conduct a performance audit of the House and Senate administrations, but only after repeated attempts and mounting public pressure. These performance audits are the first of their kind in approximately 20 years; previously Parliament has been subjected to financial audits by private accounting firm KPMG, but these only publicize a broad outline of expenses.
As indicated by Ms. Fraser at the time, the House and Senate administration performance audits don’t include the names of individual MPs or Senators, and the audits didn’t examine individual office management or Parliamentarians’ spending decisions. Instead, the AG’s two audits into the combined approximately $500-million in Senate and House annual budgets looked at whether they have “sound management processes and key administrative systems and practices,” as described by Ms. Fraser in June 2010.
In both the Senate and House audits, Mr. Ferguson found instances of insufficient documentation for expenses. In the House, auditors found compliance with expense claim rules to be overall “satisfactory,” but did find some problems, such as the fact that seven per cent of expense items didn’t have sufficient documentation to show they were properly authorized. Meanwhile, in the Senate, auditors found some issues with a variety of expense claims from hospitality to travel to living. Among the findings, auditors found that out of 36 travel and 24 living expense claims, four claims did not provide a purpose for travel. One living expense claim was found to have no purpose stated and other travel or living expense transactions were not properly supported, such as a trip to Washington, D.C., which “provided no details beyond stating that it was for Parliamentary business.”
The House audit also found that the administration does not have a policy covering the hiring and use of “term employees”—that is, employees who are not full-time—and found that what guidelines do exist are “outdated and not applied.” Auditors pointed out that in the 2010-11 fiscal year, the House administration hired 377 term employees, compared with 163 permanent employees. House administration has agreed to Mr. Ferguson’s recommendation to develop a policy governing term employees that is set to come out in 2013-14.
The AG also examined both information technology security and physical security operations. While both the former and the latter were found to be largely sufficient—and auditors noted that security concerns have been “well integrated into decisions on planned renovations” in the Parliamentary precinct—auditors found that no security force has been designated with “primary responsibility for the roofs of the buildings in the Precinct.” He suggested that the Hill’s security forces be unified under one point of command.
Auditors also examined the annual Report to Canadians which is meant to provide Canadians with a “summary of member’s activities,” a performance review and a financial report.
“The report does not link strategic objectives to measures of performance or to results for the Administration’s ongoing operations, all of which would enable readers to better understand the Administration’s performance...transparency could be further increased by including budget information and Members’ use of travel points in the report,” reads the audit report.
The House agreed to “enhance the performance measures” currently included in the report.
The Senate audit also found that Senate staff hiring policies were not wholly monitored and reviewed to ensure that they were being followed. A 2009 Human Resources Directorate policy review “which noted reductions in the time needed to fill positions and the use of term employees, as well as progress in opening competitions to the public … did not examine whether staffing actions complied with the merit principle and staffing values.” The Senate has agreed to “enhance” its monitoring.
Mr. Ferguson said the question of whether such audits should become some sort of regular practice isn’t something that’s been considered.
“Our focus has been on completing these audits, getting them done, getting them issued and right now we don’t have any plans around future audits,” said Mr. Ferguson.
Mr. Ferguson equally declined to say whether he would like to conduct an audit of individual MP expenses, an examination many have said they were disappointed to find lacking in the House and Senate Administration performance audits.
“The audits that we did were the audits that we suggested … which is audits of making sure the administration’s doing what they should be doing, because they’re the day-to-day people who are making sure all the payments are properly processed, whether it be for professional services, salaries or members expenses. The administrations are the ones that have to look at all those, process them and make sure they’re right, … so that’s why the audit was focused on making sure that control…was working properly,” said Mr. Ferguson.
But many watchdog groups are unhappy with the scope of the audits and feel that by simply auditing whether the rules and policies in place were being followed, they didn’t go far enough.
Tyler Sommers, coordinator of Democracy Watch, said a full audit of MP and Senator expenses is needed. He said it’s something his organization is arguing is a legal requirement for the AG in order to fulfill his duties.
“I think that what the auditor general pointed out, the issues with some staffing and some procurement, does point to the probability that there may be larger issues, and this is another reason why we need a full audit of all expenses,” said Mr. Sommers, pointing out that such audits have already been done in Newfoundland, among other places.
A 2006 audit in Newfoundland found that all three parties had been responsible for millions of dollars of questionable spending.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Laura Ryckewaert
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