First Quarter CEO Report

Here at the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation (CAAF), we are celebrating the fact that we have continued to thrive following an unbelievably difficult year. This message accompanies our first quarter activity report, at a time where we are all well into the second year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic—a time that has changed our lives forever.

We have observed the work of performance auditors and oversight bodies around the globe who have been actively exploring the lessons learned from COVID-19. Our COVID-19 library and COVID-19 resources in our Audit News database include examples of that work. The audits reinforce the need for both root cause analysis (Why did things go wrong? How could that have been avoided?) and the need for oversight bodies to ensure that audit recommendations are followed up (Would the follow up of previously issued recommendations have helped avoid a repeat of the past?). And we are all thinking about what the workplace of the future will look like.

The CAAF has also been reflecting and grieving from the tragic discovery of the graves of missing Indigenous children from Canada’s residential school system. CAAF is committed to learning from the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and seeking practices that can contribute to reconciliation and stronger accountability frameworks for everyone in the public sector. This is an area our new three-year strategic plan, which will be unveiled next quarter, will address.

As well, we continue to observe national and global public sector crises and look for ways to help performance auditors and oversight bodies deal with such problems. For example, having seen that organizational culture is a subject that, if not managed well, is a common root cause of such crises, we are now developing a course on auditing organizational culture.

We are thriving from working with a resilient and innovative group of people—at the CAAF and within the organizations we have the pleasure of collaborating with. There are a number of collaborative projects that are being considered and completed, from a virtual learning platform for Public Accounts Committees internationally and for municipal oversight bodies in Canada, to multiple new courses for performance auditors. Our quarterly activity report will tell you more about how we are sharing knowledge and building capacity.

To everyone at CAAF and to those who join us in strengthening public sector accountability in Canada and globally: Asante, Miigwech, Cảm ơn bạn, Murakoze, Merci, Thank You.