Liberals Promise to Strengthen Effectiveness of AGLG
Prince George, B.C. – The provincial government says the Auditor General for Local Government Act is going to be amended to strengthen governance and accountability.
Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Coralee Oakes says administrative amendments are expected to be introduced in an upcoming legislative session to more clearly define the roles of the minister, the audit council, the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG) and other parties.
The amendments are to include improved communication between the minister and audit council, opportunities for the council to review the office’s budget and operations and authority for the audit council to access information on the status of the performance audits undertaken by the Office of the AGLG.
The government also says recommendations from the report on the governance and operations of the Auditor General for Local Government will also be implemented.
The report identified a range of issues including an opportunity for greater clarity on roles, responsibilities and working relationships between the audit council and AGLG, practices that increased cost and delayed audit completions and reliance on external contracted resources.
Minister Oakes says “when implemented, the amendments proposed for the governing legislation, together with the recommendations coming from the independent report, will address shortfalls, provide opportunities for collaboration on pre and post audit initiatives, strengthen existing roles and responsibilities and increase accountability to taxpayers.”
Comments
What a waste of money yet again. The office of the AGLG can’t touch local government policies, and yet that is where the weaknesses are usually to be found.
This is a government that erases emails pertaining to the highway of tears..yep they are going to be honest and fair..
5.2 million spent so far, and only only 1 audit produced in two years (as of March), of the promised 18. The AGLG is a cluster$%$, a pet project of Clark’s to see if we are getting “value for money” from our municipalities. The irony here does not escape me. They can’t even give “value for money” from their own office.
“Coralee Oakes says administrative amendments are expected to be introduced in an upcoming legislative session to more clearly define the roles of the minister, the audit council, the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG) and other parties.”
You would think this kind of stuff would have been sorted out right from the start. Don’t we vote these fools in because they have organizational experience? (rhetorical)
The key words in Oakes’ statement of bafflegab are “expected”, “introduced” and “upcoming”.
Expected does not mean it will be. At the rate that this portfolio is running things, I would “expect” it a few years down the road. Introduced means we’ll still have to wait while it goes through legislative approval. Who knows how long that will take? The Upcoming session does not sit until October 5th, so things are going to remain status quo for the foreseeable future.
If everyone of us produced as horribly as this at our jobs, we’d all get fired. When you’re new to a position you get a three month performance review. These idiots get one every two years.
The AGLG cannot touch local government policies. However, municipalities, other than the City of Vancouver, are the creation of the Province and the Province can change legislation which impacts municipal operations.
The AGLG can make recommendations to the Province and the Province can act to change municipal operations.
For instance, in Quebec the province enacted legislation which requires municipalities with populations of 100,000+ to have a “value auditor” on staff and report out each year. Of course that would make the work of the AGLG that much simpler.
I think the Province did a lousy job of implementing the AGLG and hopefully correct the errors now. Since other provinces have had this function for well over a decade, as have some of the larger cities, this should not have been that difficult. I suspect it was simply a matter of having hired the wrong person to head the office.
“Don’t we vote these fools in because they have organizational experience?”
Good Lord, whatever gave you that idea? If they had that they would be working in private industry and getting double and more of the compensation.
Politicians are the last to be organized. Their so-called expertise is in governance. Operations is the job of the Ministry employees.
“When you’re new to a position you get a three month performance review”.
Not in senior management. Anywhere from 6 months to one year is the norm. One has to be given time to do the job they were hired to do.
Why do you have ‘Liberals’ in the headline? The story is about an act the provincial government is introducing…
Uhm…. because the Liberals are the Provincial Gov’t perhaps? (though admittedly they are Social Credit in sheep’s clothing) And it’s not an Act to be introduced. It’s been around for the two years and failed miserably so far. This story is about tweaking it.
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