The Auditor General has released her monitoring report on previous audit recommendations that have yet to be acted upon by government departments and agencies.

Denise Hanrahan says her monitoring report covers the status of recommendations made in previous audits dating from 2017 to 2021.

Harahan says one in three recommendations made, or 37 per cent remain outstanding and even more alarming according to the AG is that two out of three of those are more than five years old.As an example, NL Health Services has not implemented eight recommendations (28 per cent of the total recommendations made in the period in question) including seven related to the home support program.

That’s left “serious gaps” according to Hanrahan in the timely review of home support service assessments and the monitoring of home support hours.

Also of concern are seven outstanding recommendations involving Transportation and  infrastructure regarding the training of school bus drivers and the root cause of ferry vessel mechanical issues, as well as the management of road condition complaints received.

Of particular concern:

• Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services has not implemented eight recommendations (twenty-eight per cent), including seven related to the home support program. As a result, serious gaps continue with respect to the timely review of home support service assessments and the monitoring of home support hours.
• The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure has seven outstanding recommendations (twenty-four per cent), including those related to training of school bus drivers, root cause analysis of ferry vessel mechanical issues and road condition and complaints management.
• The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation has not completed any of the four recommendations (0 per cent) made from the 2019 report on the Oversight of Provincial Wellness Priorities. It was recommended the department:
  • Develop an action plan for healthy active living to support government’s health outcome targets and bring indicators in line with the Canadian average by 2025.
  • Develop a monitoring/evaluation framework for overall healthy active living programming and ongoing assessment of progress against established targets and desired outcomes.
  • Develop a reporting framework for partnering departments on the information required to monitor, evaluate and report on the progress of healthy active living priorities.
  • Work with partnering departments to improve the effectiveness of oversight of provincial healthy active living priorities across government.

• The Department of Education does not have a nutrition policy that applies across the province and certain elements of internal control oversight related to the K-12 system continue to be unaddressed.
• A key finding from the NLC audit remains outstanding, specifically the issue of conflict of interest within the public service and Crown entities.

• • The department should adequately address conflicts of interest within the public service and Crown entities, including consideration of any legislative amendments required to improve accountability and transparency.

• Recommendations related to compliance with compensation policies by entities and those charged with their governance remain outstanding.