Video—Auditor General of Canada Releases 2015 Fall Reports

Video Transcript

Government departments and agencies are tasked with implementing programs and services that respond to the needs and issues that matter to Canadians.

So if intentions are good at the outset, why is it that our audits often show that government programs fall short?

The audits presented in our 2015 annual report show cases where results fall short of the underlying program intentions. However, there are promising results also.

Promising in the case of the creation of the British Columbia First Nations Health Authority, where a different approach and existing information were applied to chart a new course.

As other governments and First Nations from across the country consider how to improve programs and services to Canada’s First Nations, we note that taking stock of what has worked, and why it has worked, may be an important place to start.

Concerning results include, for example, the gender-based analysis initiative, which is still not implemented across the federal government twenty years after it was launched, and the creation of the Social Security Tribunal, where an ill-planned transition and unclear expectations caused delays in appeal cases to increase rather than decrease.

These audits suggest that government departments do not always pay enough attention to continuous improvement and learning, to considering what has worked and what has not, and to using that knowledge to lay the groundwork of better programs and services for Canadians.

In other words, departments may be missing opportunities to work at improving the quality of their programs and services.