Auditor General

by Firestrike Tue 07 May 2019, 1:06 pm

May 7, 2019

Millions of calls to government agencies go unanswered: Auditor General

Rearview shot of a young woman working in a call centre

Half of the 16 million Canadians trying to reach one of three government agencies by telephone are unable to speak to live humans, according to Canada’s interim auditor general.

In a new report released in Ottawa today, Sylvain Ricard says callers are facing too many barriers when trying to call the government for services or information.

Ricard’s office audited call centres at three departments that receive a lot of telephone calls: the Immigration Department, Employment and Social Development Canada and Veterans Affairs.

“Overall, we found that getting through to government call centres took time and persistence,” the audit report says.

“In fact, we found that half of the 16 million Canadians who tried to speak to an agent could not do so.”

Seven million callers were sent to an automated system or were told to go to a website or to call back later.

“This audit is important because call centres are a key source of government information,” Richard says in the report.

“Callers make millions of calls to the government every year to get the information they need to make time-sensitive, important decisions. For example, they may be calling to ensure that they receive benefits on time or to find out the status of an application.”

Callers to the Immigration Department face the longest wait times: 30 minutes or longer to speak with an agent. One key problem is that the Immigration call centre does not have targets for how long callers should have to wait. A decision by the previous Conservative government to close a number of in-person client offices across Canada in 2012 contributed to the longer wait times, the audit found.

At Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which manages employment-insurance claims, the Canada Pension Plan and old-age security benefits, callers are sent to an automated system when call volumes exceed a certain threshold.

In its response to the findings, ESDC noted its ability to manage and improve access to call-centre agents is limited by existing technology and funding.

Veterans Affairs Canada’s call centre allows all callers to wait in a queue to speak with an agent. However, the audit found the department stopped offering a teletypewriter (TTY) service for people with impaired hearing without telling veterans. No documentation was found to justify this decision.

For all three departments, more than a million callers who did make it into a queue for an agent eventually gave up on waiting and hung up.

And the auditor general says the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon.

A government strategy to modernize client services adopted in 2017 did not include call centres, even though more than 25 per cent of Canadians use the telephone to contact government. The strategy prioritized providing services online.

In addition, a call-centre modernization project by Shared Services Canada that has taken five years to get off the ground has managed to upgrade only eight of the government’s 221 call centres and has no plan for the remaining 213.

“While these call centres wait for modern technology, they face the risk of aging hardware breaking down and software no longer being supported,” the AG report says.

All government agencies have accepted the auditor’s findings and say they are taking steps to improve service delivery.

The Immigration Department hired additional call-centre agents in 2018 and is developing strategies to increase access. ESDC says it will review operations once it has been migrated to a new telephone system – a move planned to be completed in 2020. Veterans Affairs said it would extend its TTY services to include all calls handled by its national contact centre.

Shared Services Canada says it has realized that “one size does not fit all” when it comes to its modernization strategy and has begun to reassess the plan to determine the best solutions for call centres in need of upgrades. It is to present an updated plan to Treasury Board this year.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5249257/calls-to-government-auditor-general/

by Terrarium Tue 07 May 2019, 6:08 pm

Question Period: Auditor General report on immigration, UN report on biodiversity — May 7, 2019

by Ranger Wed 08 May 2019, 4:03 pm

Justin Trudeau SLAMMED by the Auditor General's report | Conservatives & Michelle Rempel respond

MichelleRempel
Published on May 8, 2019

by Mojave Wed 15 May 2019, 9:07 pm

’Not acceptable': Audits of federal government's performance cancelled due to insufficient funding, AG tells committee

Marie-Danielle Smith, Postmedia News (mdsmith@postmedia.com)

Published: May 15, 2019

Auditor General Httpsapipddataservicescomlistsfeede7492f72-8207-450b-8ece-f95faea8a2fe_large

Auditor General Michael Ferguson, who died in February, received $10.8 million in additional funding for his office last year, but no additional funding was budgeted this year.

OTTAWA — The office of the auditor general, stretched thin by additional oversight of such new Liberal government entities as the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, has had to drop some of its other audits.

“Although the 2018 federal budget provided us with some new ongoing funding, we did not get any of the new funding that we requested in the 2019 federal budget,” interim Auditor General Sylvain Ricard told a House of Commons committee. “We are continuing to explore our options to ensure that we are properly funded and accountable only to Parliament. In the near term, we have no choice but to decrease the number of performance audits that we conduct.”

Outgoing auditor general Michael Ferguson had requested $10.8 million in additional funding last year so his office could accommodate an expanding mandate. But with no new money on offer in 2019, the office had to drop five audits of the government’s performance, including on cyber crime and Arctic sovereignty.

“At the risk of putting words in Mr. Ferguson’s mouth, I can tell you that had we received the $10.8 million that he requested last summer, our office would have considered ourselves to have been properly funded. We would have been able to do the work that was expected,” said Andrew Hayes, the deputy auditor general. Planned spending for the current financial year is $93.8 million, an amount that has not risen in proportion with total government spending.

The news that the oversight body had to cancel some of its work caused some consternation on the committee. David Christopherson, a veteran NDP MP, said he had never before heard an auditor general tell a parliamentary committee that the office was unable to fulfil its mandate.

“In the past when there was reduction, the AG testified to us that they could manage it within their budget and it wouldn’t affect the work that they wanted to do and felt needed to be done. The difference now is the AG is being very clear,” said Christopherson. “They are being impeded in carrying out what they want to do and feel needs to be done because their funding requests were denied. That is new.”

An $8 million funding increase in the 2018 federal budget was not enough, Hayes said, and because of the mandatory workload — now larger because of the new entities created by the current government — their only discretion was to reduce the number of performance audits. In the past, on average, the office would have conducted 25 or 26 a year, but they would now have to go down to about 14, Hayes said.

He added that the commissioner of the environment is facing a similar crunch because new government legislation has upped his oversight responsibilities to 96 entities from 26 without a funding increase.

"This government already has a bit of a deficiency on the democratic front."

The five performance audits cancelled this year were about combating cyber crime, protecting Canada’s North, heritage service to Canadians, training for service delivery and the government’s travel system, said Ricard. They were deemed the least important areas out of a list of planned audits, but “any audit we identify is of importance,” he said. “Facing what we’re facing, we had no choice but to reduce the level of effort and reduce the number of audits. We had no choice. We can’t do it.”

“This is the premier oversight committee of Parliament and the one thing in my opinion that we cannot stand, and I don’t care who the government is, is cutting the auditor general. That’s what autocrats do when they want to deny accountability,” Christopherson said, imploring Liberal members of the committee to bring the issue back to their own government.

“I would hope that we would begin turning the wheels necessary to undo this because, just to be political for a moment, this government already has a bit of a deficiency on the democratic front. Here is yet one more knock against the professed belief and adherence to democracy and democratic values. … I am beside myself, this is not acceptable.”

Martin Potvin, a spokesman for the Treasury Board Secretariat, said the government is committed to supporting the work of the auditor general.

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/canada/not-acceptable-audits-of-federal-governments-performance-cancelled-due-to-insufficient-funding-ag-tells-committee-312129/

by **Accer** Thu 09 Jul 2020, 10:50 am

Poor supply chain management within DND leads to late deliveries to military half of the time: AG report

July 08. 2020

Auditor General Poor-supply-chain-management-within-dnd-leads-to-late-deliveries-to-mi_a1J9e2x_original

Article

by **Vmaxocalz** Thu 04 Feb 2021, 4:46 pm

Brace for impact - DND gets ready for Auditor
General’s report on National Shipbuilding

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Feb 04, 2021

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/brace-for-impact-dnd-gets-ready-for-auditor-generals-report-on-national-shipbuilding

by **Zoneforce** Thu 25 Feb 2021, 4:18 pm

02.25.2021

by Armoured Thu 25 Mar 2021, 5:15 pm

03.25.2021

by Slider Thu 25 Mar 2021, 8:33 pm

After $500M of double CERB payments made, investigation needed into fraud: AG

Published Thursday, March 25, 2021

OTTAWA -- Canada’s auditor general said while the she applauds the government’s efforts to get money out the door quickly to Canadians who had been impacted financially by the COVID-19 pandemic, less rigorous eligibility screening did lead to cases of abuse.

In a report released Thursday, Karen Hogan said that approximately $500 million of Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments were made to recipients who had applied for support under both the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Employment and Social Development Canada.

This issue was addressed with subsequent pre-payment control measures.

“Information on applicants was shared between the department and the agency as of mid-April 2020, about a week after the benefits were launched. A control was introduced by the organizations to stop payments to an applicant when the applicant had already received the other benefit,” the report reads.

Hogan states the risk of instances of overpayment and fraud was surpassed by the need to quickly get funds out, which both ESDC and the CRA understood prior to the implementation of the program.

“We found that ESDC and the CRA focused on delivering the benefit quickly to help workers who had lost income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both organizations understood the risks of emphasizing quick delivery instead of their usual approaches to validating eligibility, which includes more controls,” she noted.

Hogan said the two bodies relied instead on applicants’ general good faith, and attestations to assess eligibility for the CERB. Applicants were required to confirm that they did not quit their jobs voluntarily and that they had stopped working because of the pandemic, rather than be required to provide documentation needed for other support programs, like record of employment or a medical note.

The CERB was one of the government’s signature COVID-19 benefits, providing immediate relief to Canadians who had lost income as a result of the pandemic. Eligible recipients – those 15 years of age and older and who had earned a minimum of $5,000 in 2019 or in the 12 months prior to the date of their application – could receive a taxable benefit of $2,000 for up to 28 weeks, following an extension announced in August 2020.

In the fall of 2020, the Liberals transitioned CERB beneficiaries to a revamped EI program.

Hogan also said a pre-payment screening measure could have been applied at launch to identify and weed out “suspicious” applications.

In May, following reports of fraudulent applications and of the government’s instruction of bureaucrats to ignore warnings or red flags, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa’s priority was getting support off “rapidly and efficiently.”

“Of course there’s going to be a few people that misrepresent themselves and try to defraud the situation," said Trudeau at the time, adding that the government would “clean up” the mess later.

Shortly thereafter, the CRA announced it had opened a snitch line so Canadians could report suspected abuse of the system.

Hogan said while there is an intention from both organizations to undertake a post-payment investigation of fraudulent claims, there must be a streamlining of efforts and details on when that would be completed and what resources would be needed to conduct it.

As such, the auditor general recommends the ESDC and CRA “finalize and implement” their plans and determine what if any of the findings can be used to guide the distribution of future emergency aid.

Both bodies agreed with Hogan in their response.

“Following confirmation of funding in the Fall Economic Statement 2020, the department developed a comprehensive four year operational plan for post-payment integrity activities and has begun execution of cases of serious fraud. Integrity activities are underway and will continue as per the four year operational plan. The plan will be refined on a regular basis as the department gains experience and knowledge from its investigations and ensures that it remains responsive to the continued pandemic context while maintaining alignment with the Canada Revenue Agency,” said ESDC.

The CRA meanwhile said a plan remains “evergreen” because of the variable economic and public health landscape and the reliance of data that will become available during the spring 2021 tax season.

“It is important that our risk assessments include 2020 tax data to calibrate our verifications using current data. This will help avoid unnecessary reviews of recipients that may in fact have been eligible to receive benefit payments or may have already completed voluntary repayments, or both. Post compliance work will commence in September 2021,” the agency said.

They also agreed to provide assessments of failures and successes, to determine what aspects of the current program can be harvested for future emergency scenarios.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Hogan said her office will be following up in the fall with ESDC and CRA to look at the “effectiveness” of their planned review and to ensure errors are corrected and recovered.

CANADA EMERGENCY WAGE SUBSIDY
As with the CERB, the auditor general also found that in the implementation of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the government chose speed over heavy scrutiny.

For instance, to get cash out quick, the CRA – with oversight from Finance Canada – didn’t require that applicants provide employee social insurance numbers, nor did they obtain all relevant earnings and tax data.

“We also found that 28 per cent of the subsidy applicants did not file a return for the goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) for the 2019 calendar year. Therefore, the agency did not have all the information it needed to validate the reasonableness of the applications before issuing payments,”

“The subsidy was paid to applicants despite their history of penalties for failure to remit and other advance indicators of potential insolvency. Indeed, the agency held no legislative authority to deny access to the subsidy on the basis of an employer’s history of non-compliance with tax obligations.”

Also announced in March 2020, the CEWS applies to individuals, corporations not exempt from income tax, registered charities, and non-profits with an active CRA payroll account on March 15, 2020, and who meet a revenue decrease threshold. Eligible applicants can see up to 75 per cent of employee wages subsidized.

Hogan said the CRA missed an opportunity to conduct post-payment reviews during the summer and fall of 2020 based on June findings and will now have to rely on “costly and comprehensive” reviews starting in spring 2021.

POLITICAL RESPONSE
In a subsequent press conference, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough praised the department and CRA’s ability to move nimbly throughout the pandemic and make changes on the fly.

“We delivered this major income support program to help buffer some of the hardest economic circumstances we faced in a century, and we did it despite not having the usual time required to design, analyze, and implement a new benefit of this size,” she said.

Qualtrough added that her team will start addressing more deliberate cases of fraud in their upcoming investigation and work their way down to simple application errors.

The Conservative Party weighed in on the reports in a statement to CTVNews.ca.

“It’s very concerning the Liberal government was not transparent with this information 12 months ago. How much more mismanagement of tax dollars are they hiding? The OAG report is only the beginning. Taxpayers will be on the hook for Liberal mismanagement during the pandemic for years to come,” said Raquel Dancho, Conservative critic for future workforce development and disability inclusion.

Correction:

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that payments were paid to recipients of the federal Employment Insurance program.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/after-500m-of-double-cerb-payments-made-investigation-needed-into-fraud-ag-1.5362115