Accountablity in public office

[myata]

We had Radvansky, Stewart, this time its the Ontario's Childrens Aid society: CBC report.

What (if anything) can be done to ensure that PS delivers value for money for the taxpayers?

[geoffrey]

Hire more auditors, give them the resources to go after these people that misappropriate funds.

[jdobbin]

Hire more auditors, give them the resources to go after these people that misappropriate funds.

Each department could have an Inspector-General that investigates the department.

[geoffrey]

Hire more auditors, give them the resources to go after these people that misappropriate funds.

Each department could have an Inspector-General that investigates the department.

Maybe. I do think there is a serious lack of oversight in many of these organizations/departments. Sometimes funding is an issue, but then we see money being squandered like this... hmm...

As an accountant that's moving towards more audit work, I can tell you that it's not really an accountant's job to decide the merits of an expense... unless it's absolutely absurd. If they get the execs Lincoln Navigators, it's not my job to say wow, I don't think so. This is more of a management issue, management without oversight, than an accounting audit failure.

Hell, the auditors caught it.

But... especially when it's government money, more money needs to be spent on auditing the validity of expenses and just not the reporting structure itself. In a private company, who cares, it's not my money... I just want to know the financial reports are accurate. But when it's taxpayers dollars, I figure the audit function needs to (and it does already to some extent) change to focus on more value per dollar type things.

An Inspector-General doesn't really fix the problem. In the private sector, corporate governance is what would be called for... someone needs to keep those at the top in line.

I figure since this is government funded, it should ultimately fall upon the deputy minister and possibly the minister him/herself.

[jdobbin]

An Inspector-General doesn't really fix the problem. In the private sector, corporate governance is what would be called for... someone needs to keep those at the top in line.

I figure since this is government funded, it should ultimately fall upon the deputy minister and possibly the minister him/herself.

The Deputy doesn't have an investigative forces to check these things. They depend on regular audits which are forensic. This is what an Inspector-General does. An Inspector-General can carry a gun and make an arrest in the U.S.

[geoffrey]

This is what an Inspector-General does. An Inspector-General can carry a gun and make an arrest in the U.S.

These allegations aren't criminal though, just poor management ability. It should be terminations, not criminal charges, coming from this.

[jdobbin]

These allegations aren't criminal though, just poor management ability. It should be terminations, not criminal charges, coming from this.

Inspector-Generals are also auditors. And the RCMP has been called in for this latest Auditor-General report so arrests might be made in this case. An Inspector-General wouldn't need to call the RCMP. After their audit, they could make the arrests themselves

[geoffrey]

Audit works best with co-operation, I'd be concerned about how much co-operation your going to get when you carry a gun and can arrest people.

People get apprehensive around cops even if they've never committed a crime in their whole life. Having police do audits won't be successful.

[jdobbin]

Audit works best with co-operation, I'd be concerned about how much co-operation your going to get when you carry a gun and can arrest people.

People get apprehensive around cops even if they've never committed a crime in their whole life. Having police do audits won't be successful.

Is that how it is in the U.S.?

[geoffrey]

Audit works best with co-operation, I'd be concerned about how much co-operation your going to get when you carry a gun and can arrest people.

People get apprehensive around cops even if they've never committed a crime in their whole life. Having police do audits won't be successful.

Is that how it is in the U.S.?

I'm not really sure how audits work in the public sector in the US.

I just can't see much success coming out of a process when it becomes even more apprehensive and reticent. Creating a feeling of cooperation surely gets the best answers for your audit questions, and you might get a few slips of information that you wouldn't get in an confrontational format.

[myata]

Maybe supervision (accounting and managerial) is only a part of the solution. A greater issue, in my view, is the disconnect between the well being of such unit and the results it delivers. If direct market exposure is impossible here, maybe, it should be simulated? E.g. the monolith public service can be broken up into smaller independent funding units each with its own set of objectives (for the year) and budget. These will report to managers and so on, up the chain. Cases of overspending and/or underperformance would have less chance of being lost in the mass, and people in the units would have better incentive to report cases of abuse.

[jdobbin]

I'm not really sure how audits work in the public sector in the US.

I just can't see much success coming out of a process when it becomes even more apprehensive and reticent. Creating a feeling of cooperation surely gets the best answers for your audit questions, and you might get a few slips of information that you wouldn't get in an confrontational format.

No one likes an audit. I can't imagine anyone not being nervous.

[geoffrey]

I'm not really sure how audits work in the public sector in the US.

I just can't see much success coming out of a process when it becomes even more apprehensive and reticent. Creating a feeling of cooperation surely gets the best answers for your audit questions, and you might get a few slips of information that you wouldn't get in an confrontational format.

No one like an audit. I can't imagine anyone not being nervous.

I figure I'd be more nervous and tight lipped if the auditor carried a gun and had the power to personally arrest me.

[myata]

That's btw my problem with the Cons approach to "accountability". Even more controls and supervision may stall already underperforming PS completely. I already heard complains about extensive meaningless supervision from people who work in PS. Someone has to understand that as long as delivering the result is not required, the safest possible way of action for a bureaucrat is to do nothing.

The real solution to accountability lies in 1) recording information (performance, results, expenses); and 2) making it available, i.e., what is called "transparency". As far as I can tell, it's not one of this government's priorities.

[Rue]

Myata I hear you and Geoffrey on this. All I can add is I believe that what this guy did borders on fraud or could possibly even be fraud which is of course criminal. I don't think it is just a matter of a typical sheltered civil service not accountable wasting money, I think he went further and deliberately misappropriated money in a pre-meditated manner. He knew he was taking money under false pretenses.

He should end up having to pay every penny back he was not entitled to and be forced to run naked around an outdoor stadium during the Grey Cup.

[geoffrey]

I strongly disagree Rue. We both play this game from different teams here, I think this is poor management, poor cost control and overall poor judgement. But fraud? Unlikely.

One of the problem with not-for-profits and agencies like the CAS is that they bring in execs and managers from the private sector to run them. What we then see is them running the show like a private business, sometimes to success, sometimes in this case, irresponsibly.

This would have been fine in the private sector, but not in the public. So what's the deal? I say it's bad public management, not fraud. I don't think getting a more expensive car on the company account is fraud, there was no attempt to cover up the trail or disguise the expenses, it was all perfectly disclosed. Which means I think there was no pre-mediatation to rip off the government... unlike say, the sponsorship scandal, where a plan was actually in place to steal money for the Liberals in Quebec. No plan was in place, just poor decisions.