Every year, each federal government department and agency produces a “Departmental Performance Report” or DPR and — you won't be surprised to hear — the news is generally good. Departments are doing what they are supposed to be doing! Departments are doing things efficiently! Departments are wisely spending tax dollars!
Well, retiring Conservative MP John Williams (left), who's had a keen interest in his Parliamentary career in pink ties (really!), audit and oversight, isn't quite so believing.
And so, a couple of weeks ago, Williams asked the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to adopt this motion: “That in the interest of accountability, the Auditor General of Canada be requested to select two departmental performance reports at random each year and audit them …”
That motion found support among members of all parties and has now been submitted to the House of Commons where, presumably, it will pass as well, and give Auditor General Sheila Fraser and her staff one more annual task.
Here's Williams, telling the Public Accounts Committee why this is a good idea:
I have believed for a long time that accountability is the thing that drives good performance. I have been concerned over the last many years, in fact since we started with departmental performance reports in the mid-1990s, that they tell a good story but they sometimes ignore telling us the whole story. On that basis, I thought it would be appropriate that we put in some kind of motivator for [bureaucrats] to feel obligated to tell the whole story.
Mr. Chairman, that's why I said “two…at random each year”. You never know whether your name is coming up, and therefore you're motivated to say, “I'd better do a good performance report, because I really would prefer to avoid having to come to explain my fluffy, self-serving report to the public accounts committee.”
Liberal MP Boris Wrzesnewskyj gives this idea the Parliamentary equivalent of a “hell-yeah!”:
Too often we're given a good story here, but not the whole story. It's quite unfortunate. What this motion speaks to is a lack of confidence in this committee among parliamentarians that even when reports are compelled because of concerns, those reports perhaps don't accurately reflect everything that's transpired. On a number of occasions, what has been tremendously worrisome is how the resources in departments are utilized when they're called to account before this committee. Too often, instead of people having been briefed so that they can provide us with the information, it's actually departmental communications people with whom they sit to discuss these issues, and strategies are laid out not on how to provide us with accurate information, but on how in fact they can spin us.
Mind you, Conservative MP Brian Fitzpatrick (who is also retiring) believes this still may not get rid of “fluffy, self-serving reports”:
I find it really unfortunate, if that's really the state of affairs with these performance reports, that we have to hire more auditors to check up on their reports. It's really a disappointing state of affairs that we have in the public service. I'm not sure that ultimately would be the cure. If that's a real problem we have here, I'm not sure
hauling in more auditors, with all due respect to Mr. Williams, is the cure for that problem. It's a leadership problem in those departments.
That's my frustration with having to reluctantly support this thing. I don't see it being the answer.
As for the NDP, David Christopherson is two thumbs up for the idea (and for Mr. Williams):
I remember the first time I read one of those reports. I was infuriated. I thought it was a public relations piece. I think it's also an opportunity for us to mention that the legacy Mr. Williams leaves, because he's not running again, is phenomenal.
His impact on this work is that the impression of it within Parliament has been changed forever for the positive. I think we'll be referring to Mr. Williams' legacy and the things we've all learned from him for many, many years. I hope that's the case beyond, for those of us who are here, because I think he's got us going on the right track. Accountability is everything.The only other thing I would add is that I hope even now this motion, before the Auditor General even responds, is circulated to all the key people who generate these reports, to let them know what's coming. Start now, folks, because the world's changing, and these reports are not going to be what they have been before. We're going
to drag them into what they should be.So I'm pleased to support this.