Auditor General concerned with number of recommendations not fully implemented after 3 years
WINNIPEG – Manitoba Auditor General Norm Ricard today released his report Follow-up of Recommendations. The report gives the implementation status as of Sept. 30, 2018 for 196 recommendations made between January 2015 and July 2017.
The Auditor General follows up on the status of past recommendations for three consecutive years, beginning 12 to 18 months after being issued. This is the third and final follow-up for 58 of the 196 recommendations. These 58 recommendations were included in two reports issued in July 2015 (Manitoba Home Care Program and WRHA’s Management of Risks Associated with End-user Devices).
Ricard noted only 34 of the 58 recommendations (59%) have been implemented. An additional 13 (22%) are close to fully implemented, for a total of 81% of the third-year recommendations either implemented or close to fully implemented.
Ricard said he is concerned the implementation rate following his office’s third follow-up continues to trend below 85%, as it has since 2013.
“Some of our recommendations can be difficult and time consuming to implement, and efforts to implement the recommended changes must be made amid other operating priorities,” said Ricard. “That said, I think three years is sufficient time to implement most of the recommendations included in our performance audit reports.”
The Auditor General began limiting the number of follow-ups to three in 2014. Since that time, the total accumulated number of unimplemented recommendations has increased to 173. “An unimplemented recommendation represents lost potential,” Ricard noted. He encouraged the Public Accounts Committee to actively monitor the status of the recommendations it judges as significant from among the 173.
To view the Follow-up of Recommendations report, please visit our audit reports page.
About the Auditor General of Manitoba
The Auditor General is an officer of the Legislative Assembly mandated to provide independent assurance and advice to Members of the Legislative Assembly. Through its audits, the Office of the Auditor General seeks to identify opportunities to strengthen government operations and enhance performance management and reporting. For more information visit http://www.oag.mb.ca./
For more information contact:
Frank Landry, Communications Manager
204.792.9145