Summary
For each ministry, the Annual Report has a chapter describing our findings. The report also includes a Cross-Ministry chapter that applies to several ministries and the whole government, and a chapter on the Government of Alberta Annual Report.
Objective and Scope
We examined the practices of audit committees in board-governed agencies, boards and commissions in the Alberta public sector. We examined the government and ministry business plans for 2003-2006 and examined the government’s progress in establishing standards for ministry business plans.
We also examined the government’s progress in: improving its internal control systems; improving the results analysis in the 2002-2003 ministry annual reports; developing detailed service agreements for shared service arrangements; establishing an internal audit function; providing guidance to departments on the use of the government competency model for human resource management; and developing business case standards.
Conclusion
This Annual Report contains 77 recommendations. The government should improve the practices of audit committees in board-governed agencies, boards and commissions. It also needs to use consistent performance measure targets in the government and ministry business plans.
Key recommendation topics include:
- Governance of audit committees
- First Nation Agency Accountability
- Risk management
- Registry Renewal Initiative
- Alberta Corporate Service Centre—performance measures
- Performance agreements
- Health—Province Wide Services
- Infrastructure construction grants
- Physical security of government buildings
- Innovation and Science—systems development methodology
- Tuition fee policy and its related programs
- Internal control