Review Of Crown Corporations And Agencies

Reports a review of comptrollership at both the central agency level of the federal government and in operating departments, but not in Crown corporations or other arms- length agencies. Begins with an overview of the character, underlying assumptions, key stages of evolution, and the advances needed in the current state of federal government comptrollership. Three views of modern comptrollership are presented: as a way of thinking and state of mind, as a management-centred function, and as an integrating function. A new direction for comptrollership is then set out, including some key principles and the responsibilities and capacity of departments and the central government. A framework of responsibilities is proposed within which elected officials, executives, specialists, and professionals can achieve modern comptrollership in the federal government. Proposals are made to achieve previously stated objectives and certain results or outputs that can be expected from exercising those responsibilities are described, along with the implications for the system. The final chapter identifies critical success factors, actions, and measures by which to make and gauge progress in the modernization of federal government comptrollership.

"This discussion focuses on the proposals relating to Crown corporation governance contained in the prospective Federal Accountability Act as outlined by the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2006 election platform, and the related recommendations included in the Gomery Commission’s Phase 2 report, Restoring Accountability: Recommendations. The proposals are compared to the substantive recommendations recently put forward both by the federal government in its 2005 review and by the Auditor General in a series of reports on Crown corporation governance. The paper begins with a brief overview of the current governance and accountability framework"--Introduction, page 1.