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Summary

When conducting the 2016 audit, we found Department of Justice and Solicitor General processes did not have clear and effective guidelines for programs to follow when requesting funding and preparing business cases to support their need to engage external contractors.

Objective and Scope

In the 2016 audit, we examined processes followed by one of the department’s contractor areas: the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) program for transporting deceased rural Albertans to its Calgary or Edmonton medical examination facilities. We found that the OCME frequently used non-contracted transporters, contrary to its policy to use only pre-qualified vendors under contract for transporting deceased rural Albertans.

Our 2016 audit was centered on the OCME; however, our report resulted in one recommendation directed toward the department as a whole (business case guidelines) and one for the OCME program (using pre-qualified contract vendors).

For this follow-up audit, we decided to broaden our scope to more fully examine the department’s pre-qualification contractor processes. Accordingly, we included two additional support areas within the department using pools of pre-qualified contractors: Gladue report writers, plus court reporters and transcript preparers. See Appendix A, which provides an overview of these two programs: OCME rural transportation and pre-qualified contracting.

Conclusion

Based on our findings obtained in completing audit procedures between January and July 2018, we conclude that the Department of Justice and Solicitor General has implemented our 2016 recommendations,