July 2014 Recommendations
We conducted our audits in accordance with the Auditor General Act and the standards for assurance engagements of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada.
This report contains one new and six repeated recommendations to government. The repeated recommendations have been made because we do not believe there has been sufficient action taken to implement our previous recommendations.
As part of the audit process, we provide recommendations to government in documents called management letters. We use public reporting to bring recommendations to the attention of Members of the Legislative Assembly. For example, members of the all-party Standing Committee on Public Accounts refer to the recommendations in our public reports during their meetings with representatives of government departments and agencies.
We believe all of the recommendations in this report require a formal public response from the government. In instances where a recommendation has been made to a board-governed organization, we expect the organization to implement the recommendation and report back to its respective government ministry as part of proper oversight of the organization. By implementing our recommendations, the government will significantly improve the safety and welfare of Albertans, the security and use of the province’s resources, or the governance and ethics with which government operations are managed.
Reporting the status of recommendations
We follow up on all recommendations. The timing of our follow-up audits depends on the nature of our recommendations. To encourage timely implementation and assist with the planning of our follow-up audits, we require a reasonable implementation timeline on all recommendations accepted by the government or the entities we audit that report to the government. We recognize some recommendations will take longer to fully implement than others, but we encourage full implementation within three years. Typically, we do not report on the progress of an outstanding recommendation until management has had sufficient time to implement the recommendation and we have completed our follow-up audit work.
We repeat a recommendation if we find that the implementation progress has been insufficient.
We report the status of our recommendations as:
- Implemented—We explain how the government implemented the recommendation.
- Repeated—We explain why we are repeating the recommendation and what the government must still do to implement it.
On occasion, we may make the following comments:
- Satisfactory progress—We may state that progress is satisfactory based on the results of a follow-up audit.
- Progress report—Although the recommendation is not fully implemented, we provide information when we consider it useful for MLAs to understand management’s actions.