The committee met at 1:34 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Hello, everybody. My name is Janet Routledge. I’m the MLA for Burnaby North and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

[1:35 p.m.]

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m joining you from the traditional unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. I thank them for their stewardship of the land and their leadership in preserving this bounty.

Review of Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL

J. Routledge (Chair): Today we are meeting again with the Auditor General, who presented his budget requests last week. The committee has a few follow-up questions. Now, we did send questions to him in advance. But for the record, I will read them out.

Our questions to the Auditor General. Do you see your staff returning to the practice of working from the office after COVID, or is it likely that many of them will continue to work from home? If the latter, do you have an idea of how much it would cost to get out of your existing lease, and might it be more cost-effective to lease a smaller space? That’s one question.

Four of the other independent officers share a digital case management system, and they are seeking to upgrade it, at considerable expense. Would you consider centralizing your case management system instead of upgrading your separate system and hiring more staff to maintain it?

Now, I know those are long questions. I know that you have also had an opportunity to read them in advance. Over to you, Auditor General.

M. Pickup: Yes. Thank you so much for that introduction.

In addition to the folks there were here last week, we also have our chief information officer with us today, Stephen Gordon, and our assistant Auditor General res­ponsible for the performance audit portfolio, Malcom Gaston. In addition, Russ Jones, the Deputy Auditor General; Sheila Dodds, the assistant Auditor General in charge of critical audit support services; and John McNeill, our manager of finance and admin.

Thank you for providing those questions and giving us the opportunity to reflect on those questions and to do some work over the weekend to provide a little more detail for you as well.

Do you want me to just jump in and start walking through the responses, then?

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, please.

M. Pickup: Okay. So in relation to the question of staffing, a little bit of context just to update, a little bit more clarity in the numbers that we provided. We have approximately 35 staff who are working now in the office. That could be anywhere from one to five days a week, and others coming and going, depending on if they have a meeting. They may be coming in. We are allowed up to 78 people on any one day out of our total staff complement of 120-some people.

The plan will be, in terms of answering that question specifically…. What does the workplace of the future look like? Essentially, in the short term, once we get through the pandemic and can safely get everybody back in accordance with all the provincial guidelines, we’ll get everybody back into the office and then take it from there as to what that means, in terms of what that workplace of the future might look like.

Jumping into remote working, because we were able to do it through the pandemic, it doesn’t necessarily work long term. This topic is going to now be studied by many, including, I’m sure, those who specialize in this area. Many a PhD, I’m sure, will also be written in this area. But there are a lot of questions that are now coming up beyond the short term.

In the short term, being able to get things done immediately and focus on the short term is one thing. But as we are now moving into medium and longer term, then we’re getting into questions about: are we really being as creative as we should be? Are we innovating? How do we work together as a team? How do you coach and supervise employees long term and develop employees and a team environment?

We are very much about working in teams. This is not necessarily individual work where you would pass off to somebody 10,000 invoices to process and say: “Call me when you’re done the invoices or if you have a problem.” This is teamwork-type stuff.

In the short term, as soon as it’s safe to do so…. That is where we were heading for when we had that period in between the first wave and second wave — getting everybody back and then looking at it.

[1:40 p.m.]

We will also be leveraging off the Public Service Agency and the work they’re doing, and we’ll be looking at this as well, recognizing that working remotely is not necessarily a given right and a choice that a person can make. That’s something that is to be entered into with analysis and discussion by the employer and the employees.

We’re already seeing negative consequences of remote working, such as coaching and developing people and working together. We didn’t have a choice. We had to do it to survive the pandemic and still be able to get some work done. But it’s a struggle now.

Now, having said that, when the time does come…. Let’s say we end up with some blended model where we don’t have everybody here, and perhaps let’s say we get to a point where we don’t need all of the space. Then the only options — and we’ve researched this over the last few days — available to us in terms of the space…. We can’t get out of the lease, they tell me. There are 15 more years in the lease. There is no out-clause. The only opportunity available to us — and I think it’s a real opportunity if we get there in the near time — is to offer the space to other organizations within government.

Right now we have the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. They are using some of our space. Some time ago, when we realized we had extra space as an office, that was offered to them. We don’t charge them. It’s money that’s coming out of our budget, I suppose, instead of theirs, but it’s saving them about $37,000 a year in rent.

I think, to me, that demonstrates a very practical, thoughtful approach to things. We’re not trying to sit on space we’re not using. There was an opportunity where we had that excess space, and we turned it over to another part of government so that they didn’t have to go and rent space. I am not opposed or stubborn or anything like that in terms of what makes sense if and when we get there in terms of spacing.

I think we’ve seen a good demonstration, for example, of the folks who work remotely in Vancouver, where we don’t have an office. In that case, when they have to come together or work together at times, they come here. Or at times, we’re given the opportunity to use the Auditor General of Canada’s space without charge for meetings and stuff.

We’re always looking to be practical and to make sense, but this is one that is going to have to be looked at very carefully in terms of the workplace of the future. We’re starting now, that strategic review of that. This time next year, we’ll have a much better idea.

Why don’t I pause there. I know, Chair, that’s a long answer to a long question, but I think that’s part of why we’re back, for these long answers. I hope you’re okay with that longer answer.

J. Routledge (Chair): Absolutely. I thank you for that. I think you’ve clarified a lot of things.

I should pause and ask if there are any other members of the committee that have any follow-up questions on that particular issue of the office of the future. There’s a question from Ben.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Mr. Pickup, I just wanted to ask. You indicate that you see things returning to the normal staffing of the people that are working in the office. You said 120 employees is the total complement today and, of that, about 35 are working in the office. I don’t know if, of that 120, they’re all located in Victoria in your office. I guess I’d like to confirm that, meaning that some may be in some other parts.

You mentioned Vancouver in our earlier meeting with B.C. Hydro and one other Crown corp. I’m forgetting which one it was, but anyway, they were permanently in Vancouver. I guess I would like to understand where they are working from. How many are part of that team?

Secondly, with the demographics that you have, and I’m thinking I don’t know if this…. You said it’s going to be studied, and I’m sure it is, but I think that there are certainly some people that are adapting to the remote working differently than some people like myself that are kind of in this latter part of working, I’d say, and probably less inclined to think that way.

[1:45 p.m.]

I guess my question is: is the age group within the Office of the Auditor General…? I mean, it must be, over time, getting younger people involved. I’m just assuming. Are they more likely to become more dynamic or flexible? I guess what I’m saying is: where is that inflexibility in the teamwork that you describe coming from that we couldn’t rethink how the future of the office — yours as well as other offices — could work?

M. Pickup: Thank you for that suggestion. I would start with a quick answer to your question on people working remotely.

There are eight staff working remotely in Vancouver. Six are on financial audits and two on the performance audit staff. There’s no dedicated office space. They are working from home. They do come to Victoria from time to time for various events, and at times, the OAG, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, will lend us meeting space if we need it from time to time.

In terms of what the office of the future may look like, I do want to go on the record as saying I have no perspective on it right now. Whether that means long term, 50 percent of people will be in the office and 50 percent of people will be home…. We’ll have to make some evidence-based decisions in terms of what is happening to innovation.

I will provide to you that some of our experience is the opposite of what you might think. It’s some the younger, newer people who actually are looking for and need the in-person coaching and guidance. What they find is….

That’s fine. Some of the more experienced and older people might be quite comfortable to pick up the computer, pick up a phone, coach from a distance and do it that way. But what some of the more junior folks are finding is that they need that in-person sit-down. “Go through things with me. Let us do back and forth. Be available for eight questions in an hour if I need it.”

There can be a lot of inefficiencies in trying to deal back and forth with the equipment, with setting up meetings, with emails. I mean, the email traffic that has gone up has been incredible for everybody. But this is in no way an age-based view.

I think, if anything, it will be an evidence-based review to say what is happening to our culture, what is happening to everything that they used to teach about. Some of the need for the coaching and the in-person experience…. It can mean, at times, meeting rooms available to us, having the space available to work in teams. We often meet in teams where we are seven or eight people together going through reports, drafting things, looking at analysis. That can be a little more challenging.

I guess I would leave you with: everything is on the table. I would suggest, in the future, after we study it and look at it — everything from everybody working remotely to nobody working remotely and everything in between — that the idea of getting people back in the office was a starting point so we can look at the evidence. We can have discussions, and we can work on it together as a team and say: what does this mean?

I would also point out that working remotely comes with legal requirements as well. There have to be remote working arrangements put in place. There have to be legal considerations and the almost contractual setup for working remotely, as well, that considers people’s health and safety, for example, the need for equipment and all of this stuff as well.

I would not want to leave the view that we in any way have our minds made up as to what the workplace of that future would look like. Anything I read or talk to in the public sector or private sector…. I think there are a lot of questions as to what it’s going to mean long term. We look forward to that and what that exactly means.

J. Routledge (Chair): I don’t see any other questions. I’ll just pause for a moment.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Chair, can I just ask a follow-up to that?

Thank you, Mr. Pickup. I know that your budget and your enthusiasm for the job are something that we certainly don’t want to take away from. I guess what we are faced with is the contrast between services that the government is trying to provide to the citizens and taxpayers…. I know that you are an important part of that.

[1:50 p.m.]

I guess in light of the current budget challenges and things like that, the lift that you’ve asked for…. I believe it’s over $1 million. I guess my question to you is: what things have you come up with to help mitigate or reduce that to look for potential savings? We’ve asked some questions that we obviously think about, but we’re not right there in the driver’s seat like you are. Could you share with us what items your team has come up with? What savings have you been able to achieve?

M. Pickup: Sure. I think, if I go back to what our mandate is as an audit office — to be auditing programs and services of government, to be auditing the financial statements of government….

I suppose that if I look at that total increase of $1.5 million of the budget, that is significant, and I wouldn’t suggest that it isn’t. Keep in mind that that is on a total government expenditure that has gone up significantly. The financial accounts that we’re auditing are much greater than they were, given the size of the government’s spending. Areas that we will be looking to do additional work that could result in savings…. Keeping in mind that when we do audits, whether they are financial or performance, the objectives of those vary.

If we look at the financial audit portfolio, for example, we had our financial statement audit coverage plan ap­proved this morning at Public Accounts Committee. One of the things we talked about there is the work that we’re doing related to COVID expenditures, which, of course, comes with a cost.

Some of the work we’re doing there is looking at the internal controls over buckets of money, with the idea being that we can make recommendations that help control this spending so that there are the controls in place and that extra layer of assurance to the people in the Legislature that this money is being well controlled. Likewise, we are doing work on fraud risk management, for example, across government, not just in the departments but in the broader public sector, including the Crown corporations, to look at how fraud risk is being managed as well.

If you look at these things in terms of a growing government with more expenditures and more risks, the risks have gone up from a financial and performance perspective. I think it probably wouldn’t be unusual, then, for the demands on an audit office to be auditing those expenditures and to be auditing those programs and services to be going up. I think we’re already seeing that in the increased demand that we’re getting from people in the Legislature to do more work.

Likewise, I’m seeing it in other jurisdictions. I’ve seen the Auditor General of Canada just get a significant in­crease in their budget from the Parliament of Canada, partially because the parliament is asking that audit office to do more work. Similarly, we’re getting requests to do more work as well, related to pandemic expenditure. But even outside of that, we do have to do more work, because we’re auditing the financial statements. Expenditures go up. That means more audit work in order to be able to give those opinions plus do this extra control work as well. Those are examples, going back to the mandate and this extra funding, looking at this in order to increase that.

Now, if you talk about how we run operations and how we may be saving money in order to offset some of that, we’re looking at reduced travel, for example. How we do these audits, particularly on the financial statement audits, has probably changed forever. The travel will probably bump back some, but travel on financial statement audits will probably never be what it used to be, as we work to do more of these audits differently, whether that’s remotely from people doing them at home or whether it’s being done from here in the office as well. Those travel increases — perhaps not all of them but a good chunk of them — are likely to be significantly reduced forever.

There would be some examples of how we’re looking at both fulfilling our mandate and the work that we do, in a time with increased expenditures and demand and at a time when we’re looking to run the office as efficiently as possible as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Our next question is from Megan.

M. Dykeman: I’d like to, first off, apologize if this has already been answered. When I first was having trouble logging in, I also didn’t have any sound until I realized that I had to check a box in order for that to work.

[1:55 p.m.]

My question is just one for clarification. In the proposed budget, it shows an increase from 2021 to 2022 of what I see as ten proposed FTEs. But then when I go down into the additional resources staffing, I see what I count as eight. I see four performance audit staff, two IT staff and two communications staff.

Once again, I apologize if you’ve already answered this, but I was just curious. If you could quickly run through that for me just so I better understand where the staff resources you’re allocating will be and if it’s ten or eight.

M. Pickup: Yeah, sure. Thank you for your question.

If we look at page 6 of the detailed report, we have outlined here the people that we need. So we have two communications, and then with the IT delivery, we require two there as well. Then we have the extra performance auditors as well.

Let me just see. I think we have all of that summarized on that one page. You’re right. We had the four for performance audit staff, two for IT, two for communications. That gives you the eight.

M. Dykeman: So there isn’t a request for ten.

M. Pickup: Where are you referring to? Are you referring to the ten in the detailed document?

M. Dykeman: It is in a graph, a chart we were provid­ed with, which has a breakdown of your requests. It shows proposed FTEs from 120 up to 130.

M. Pickup: Sure. Perhaps I’ll ask our manager, if I may, just to walk through that chart so I’m not messing up that chart for you as well.

John, do you want to walk through that?

J. McNeill: Do you know which page you are talking about specifically?

M. Dykeman: It’s actually in our select standing committee review of statutory office budgets. So it’s a summary we received. There could just be an error in that.

K. Riarh: Perhaps I can just respond to that. It would be based on the detailed budget submission table that shows the change in FTEs from year to year.

J. McNeill: I see. Oh, no. I can see it now. That’s probably just as we’re going through our numbers, a lot of these things are changing up to the last minute. Eight might be the one that we settled on in the end, and then we didn’t manage to update in all the places. So, yeah, eight is what we’re asking for. And 120 is kind of our average FTEs that we’re at right now. Of course, these numbers fluctuate based on turnover. Right? So that’s probably just a typo there that you’re catching.

Eight is our number, not to be confused with ten. That’s our mistake.

M. Dykeman: Okay, thank you. Sorry for the confusion. I’m still learning where everything sits.

M. Pickup: All questions are great. It gives us a chance to clarify.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions on the screen, but there was a second part to the question that we sent you in advance about the case management system that four other officers…. The shared services. Do you have any comments about that?

M. Pickup: Sure, yeah. Here at the Office of the Auditor General, we don’t use what you would call a case management system. We use audit software. We use various IT tools.

As you can appreciate, we’re not dealing with individual cases or cases from people similar to something like a community services might use. It’s very much audit software that we are using. On a financial audit, it would be something like CaseWare, for example, to record the audit. So very unique to the audit profession.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. That seems clear.

Any other questions, observations?

L. Doerkson: Mr. Pickup, just a clarification on your last presentation. I think with the eight new staff, you hoped to complete four more audits. Is that correct?

M. Pickup: That is correct — to go from eight performance audits to 12. I would also add to that, which I didn’t the last time…. This morning at the Public Accounts Committee gave us a great chance to talk about it.

[2:00 p.m.]

It also includes the addition of some new financial reports that we’re going to be doing in October where we’re looking at, for example, controls over buckets of COVID money. We are looking at fraud risk management. We are looking at a number of things that we’re going to be reporting to the Legislature in October of this year, and we’ll do it every year now after the financial audit season has ended. That is a new product as well.

I did just want to indicate that this getting back to 34 FTEs on the performance audits, which is an increase of four that we talk about, gets us back to where we were in ’18-19 when there were 34 staff. In ’17-18, there were 36 staff. In ’19-20, there were 33 staff. We’re not looking to grow incredibly. We’re getting back to the staffing levels where we are.

At the same time, to go back to your question, yes — to increase the output as well.

L. Doerkson: Just a follow-up. It was actually a follow-up on new information, a comment that you were making earlier about some of the negative impacts that you’re enduring because of people working at home. It sounds to me like you have a desire to have everybody back in the shop. Can you expand on that comment about the negative issues happening?

M. Pickup: I would just add to your first comment. It’s not to have everybody back in the shop forever. It’s to have everybody back until we can figure out what the workplace of the future looks like so that we can evaluate it across the organization in all areas, in those areas that do audits and in those areas that do support as well.

I can offer you, sure, some of the challenges that we are having. Coaching and training new folks can be quite challenging in a remote environment where people are connecting remotely. Keeping in mind, for example, you might be trying to do this by email. You might be trying to do this by the technology of Zoom or Skype or something else. You may be trying to do it by phone call. You may be brand-new to this office and have never worked in an audit environment before. All of a sudden you need that coaching and training, and you’re receiving it through all of these means.

We’ve had some challenges on that. I think, whether it’s in the private sector or in the public sector, certainly there’s much literature now around, a discussion around, decreasing the time…. At first, there was increasing efficiency. Now there’s a lot of discussion around decreases in efficiency and decreases in innovation and thought.

The type of work we’re doing is very much about working together. It’s about innovation. It’s about thought. It’s about audits where you’re sharing with each other. It’s not really that type of work that, long term, you can do individually, on your own, forever. There is a lot of working to­gether.

It’s not unusual here. From some of the things we’re experiencing here, it’s similar to what I read about in the broader public sector and in the private sector as well. It’s even the things like, for many people, the use of email. Emails might be up 50 percent now, whereas things that might have gotten settled with a ten-minute phone call now may be taking 15 back-and-forth emails. They may be misunderstood.

Then there’s the culture. How do you develop an inclusive, working-together culture where everybody is working remotely, where you only meet to discuss work? You meet for a work purpose, you get that done, and you’re over with. That can be fine short term. Long term, that doesn’t help create an inclusive, working-together culture where people are coming together — particularly, for example, in the public sector, even working remotely through Zoom or Skype or any of those.

I will tell you in probably 80 percent of the cases, people don’t even use the video feature. They don’t want to be seen at home. They don’t want, necessarily, for you to see their kitchen. In the public sector, you have to respect that. You can’t tell somebody: “You must turn on your video.” You’re even losing that contact with people by even seeing them. I’ve been here six months now. There are many people — other than to see them, talk to them on a phone call — I haven’t even met in person as of yet.

[2:05 p.m.]

I don’t want to leave you with a thought that we have our mind made up that we can only work in the office and that 100 percent of people need to be in the office forever. What I’m saying is that we will need to look at this. We will need to see what works best for the office, for the people in the office and for the people that we’re working for in how we do our work. That’s going to take some really careful considerations and thoughts as to what this means.

L. Doerkson: You had also mentioned, Mr. Pickup, that there were, obviously, costs associated with having that workforce work from their homes. I’m wondering if you have any sense of what that might look like or if you’re able to give us a clearer picture of what that has looked like over, for instance, the last quarter or even the last half.

More importantly, have there been any savings because people aren’t at the shop? I mean, I just look around here and think: no water, no this, no that. Are there any savings that are offsetting those costs?

M. Pickup: I think the biggest savings that we have seen, realistically, beyond the few dollars here and there…. The big, big dollar savings have been doing the financial audits remotely. So rather than travelling to the clients…. You will see the big underspend in the travel dollars. It’s not going to the client. There is an example — I think it was Mr. Stewart who asked the question — where I think that has probably changed forever.

Do I think we’ll necessarily be exactly where we are today? No. We’ll probably have to pull back a little and still have some time at these audited organizations, and some show up at these places. But do I think it’s going to go back to the way it was, with all of this work done on site? I don’t think so. There’s an example of likely hundreds of thousands of dollars of saved real money. That’s probably the biggest savings — the not travelling to the client.

Having said that, on the performance audit front, there are times, because of the nature of a performance audit, where we’re still going to have to work in the field. We’re going to have to work remotely. If you want to know what an inspector is doing and you need to get out and see the work of an inspector, or you need to get out and see bridges or you need to get out and see something, those things become a bit more challenging to do remotely. I mean, we’ve done what we can, but some of those will vary. If I was picking the biggest bucket of savings, it’s the financial audits working remotely.

J. Routledge (Chair): Shall we move on, or do you have another question, Lorne?

M. Pickup: He froze on my screen.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. We’ll have to come back to him when he’s unfrozen.

G. Kyllo: Michael, good to see you today. Thank you for the additional information.

I’ve got a couple of questions. Just riffing off of the re­duction in travel, I think it was about $309,000 in savings you’re anticipating for this current fiscal. Are you going to have a surplus, then, at the end of the year, or have you found other ways in order to spend that savings?

M. Pickup: Thank you, Greg, for the question.

Typically, the office underspends its budget, and we return money. That can range anywhere from 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent. So we don’t look to spend money for the sake of spending money, obviously. If we underspend, I have no trouble to go back to the government and say: “You know what? We are returning this amount of money” — whether it’s $500,000, $600,000 or $700,000 — “because we didn’t spend it, and here are the reasons why we didn’t spend it.” Typically, this office has had an underspend.

G. Kyllo: Are you able to forecast what you feel that underspend will be in this fiscal?

M. Pickup: Yeah. We’re heading into the last quarter, and we could give you an estimate without the last quarter results being in there, recognizing we are forecasting as best we can. Certainly, there will be a surplus returned, and I feel comfortable that it’s probably going to be in the 2 percent range. Obviously, don’t hold me to that. I mean, we’re still looking at, essentially, most of the last quarter in front of us, because we don’t have the third quarter results yet.

[2:10 p.m.]

G. Kyllo: Well, it is great to hear that you have no problem with returning a surplus to government. That’s nice to hear.

With respect to staffing, on the performance audits…. I may have written down the numbers incorrectly. Last week when we were speaking, it was my understanding that the plan was for 40 individuals to be undertaking the performance audits.

You’re looking at increasing that by four — so about a 10 percent increase in labour — and, as Lorne had pointed out, at upwards of a 50 percent increase in the number of audits. You had also shared with us last week that there has been a change in focus to maybe move away from the large, multi-year audits that might take a couple of years to complete, which I fully support.

I’m just wondering, with respect to the requirement for additional auditors, at the same time where you have the ability internally to determine the size and scope of the audits…. What kind of confidence do you have, with this new proposed budget, in your ability to hit those 12 performance audits for the next fiscal?

M. Pickup: I will directly answer the tail end of that question. I did just want to correct something that we may have left the wrong impression on before.

Essentially, what we want to get to on the FTEs working on performance audits is 34. I have a five-year summary now. As I look back, in 2017-18, we had 36. In 2018-19, we had 34. In ’19-20, 33. In ’20-21, 30. So the extra four is to bring us from 30 to 34. It brings us back to where we were, essentially, in ’18, ’19 and ’20.

In terms of how comfortable I am that we can get there with this budget, two things give me comfort. I’ve been here six months now. If I look at what we’ve been able to do in the six months since I got here…. I say we, because it is we. We tabled a report in September. We had three reports in January. We have one coming out tomorrow, and we have three coming out in March. That is eight since September. That’s a pretty good sign that my level of confidence, I think, is well warranted.

When we put this budget proposal together for $1.5 million…. I recognize that we are in tight fiscal times. I recognize that it is a pandemic and that many of the expenditures are going into that area. I’m also recognizing our need to have output on a government that is spending a lot more money. That’s not a judgment. That is a fact.

It means our work goes up on the financial audits because there’s more money that we’re auditing. It also, I think, increases the need to do performance audits and to get them done and to do the control type of work, which I was talking about, on the financial statement portfolio as well.

To directly answer your question, yes, I am confident. In Nova Scotia, when I was there…. I only say this to also answer your question. I said there were two points. One is what I’ve seen here in the last six months. The other point I would make is….

In Nova Scotia, when we had this discussion, when I was the Auditor General over the six years there, I talked about the vision I had for the office and what I thought we were capable of doing in terms of the numbers of reports — helping encourage government, increasing the completion of our recommendations from 50 percent to 75 percent over that six years, increasing staff engagement from 60 percent to over 93 percent over my six years that I was there, having a record level of financial audit output, doubling the size of our financial audit portfolio.

We did all of those things. The Legislature there also entrusted me with a 33 percent budget increase over the five years. I knew there, and I made the case to them, that this is what we needed.

I feel here that this $1.5 million, or 8 percent, which, when you take off the rent increase and you take off the salary increases…. Those, I would argue, are two things I really have no control over. I mean, the people who are in the public sector have to get what the public sector gets in terms of increases. The rent I have no control over.

[2:15 p.m.]

When you look at the number of things I have control over and what I believe I’m committing to do, I think that the case is there, fully recognizing that that is the decision, obviously, of the committee, in terms of the funding that we get, but recognizing the level of output we will have and that a vision that I am to deliver on will be impacted by the amount of funding that we get. That is the simplicity of the message, I think.

G. Kyllo: If I may, Madam Chair, just a few quick follow-ups.

Thank you very much, Michael. That’s great. My focus certainly isn’t necessarily just suppressing your budget ask. It’s to also ask the questions. With the extra spend, will we see an improvement in performance and productivity and all that sort of thing?

I was very happy to hear last week when you mentioned that we were one of the first jurisdictions in Canada that actually completed a COVID spending audit. You were referencing today in your presentation to the Public Accounts Committee earlier the intention to, I guess, complete some internal audits on some of these other buckets of COVID finances.

I wonder: could you share with our committee just a little bit more about what that looks like? Is this something that’s brand-new, obviously, because it relates to COVID? How much time and resources will that take? What are these reports, and how will they be presented to British Columbians?

M. Pickup: Sure. I love talking about this. So thank you for that opportunity. In respecting everybody’s time, I’ll try to keep it a bit shorter. If you want me to expand on part of it, I can do that as well.

Really, a new product for the Legislature in British Columbia. Coming this October and starting every year now in October, we will do what we would call an expanded financial report, the result of our financial audit work. It will have things related to the opinion on the public accounts, but then it’s going to have reporting to the Legislature on this other work that we’re doing, new work.

It will be things like looking at, in this case that we’re doing this year, financial controls over three buckets of COVID expenditures that we are looking at and reporting back to the Legislature on how those controls are working. The comptroller general is very excited about this, as well, and we’ve been working with him to say: what makes sense for us to look at? This is an area that he’s pleased we’re looking at.

That will be incremental work — things like looking at fraud risk management across government. We are looking at all the organizations, including the Crown corporations, and we’re looking to see how they’re managing fraud risk. This has never been done. Do they have fraud risk policies? Do they have fraud risk assessments done?

In a time with extra expenditures, increased risk, perhaps, because of the urgency of expenditures, of looking to get things out the door, fraud risk, in my view, has never been more important. So we are doing this for the first time, as well, and we’ll be reporting that to the Legislature.

Every year we’re going to have this annual report now. We will finish the financial statement audit in July. People will take a little bit of a vacation in August. Then we’ll come back and get this report to the Legislature in October.

This will tie the earliest in Canada. The only other legislative audit office to do it that quickly is Nova Scotia. This will tie them in terms of reporting back to the Legislature. That’s part of why I mentioned that September report, because that was one of the quickest reports that this office has been able to do, much to the credit of the people here. As you indicated, we were the first audit office to do that. So those things are giving me credit.

Anyway, I said I would try to keep a shorter answer to your question, and I’m kind of breaking my own promise. So why don’t I pause now and be quiet and let you do a follow-up?

G. Kyllo: No, that’s great. Thank you very much.

That’s the end of my questions, Madam Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Greg.

There’s another question from Ben.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Chair, I just wanted to make certain that Lorne got his question and that he heard the answer to it. I know he was cut off or frozen there before. Is that any help?

J. Routledge (Chair): I see in the chat he’s apologized. He has a connectivity problem.

L. Doerkson: Madam Chair, if it’s all right, I beg the forgiveness of the committee. My Internet is awful. I had the same challenges as Megan, but I see mine are a little more complex. I heard most of the answer to the question I was asking Mr. Pickup. My apologies.

Was there anything beyond the cost recovery other than travel? When I got cut off, you were referring to travel. Were there any other things that perhaps we’ve saved mon­ey on?

[2:20 p.m.]

I didn’t hear you speak to expenses. I just really was interested in knowing how much more it’s costing to have that workforce work from home.

M. Pickup: My colleagues on my team here can jump in and supplement, by all means, if they would like. The travel is the one that really comes to mind in terms of the reduced expenditures. But if any of my colleagues want to add to that, we can add to that.

In terms of the extra costs of people working from home, besides the obvious, I think, in terms of the extra demands on our IT time in terms of the need for the IT stuff to work well and to be functioning well, which we may or may not have uniquely quantified as a result of COVID, and whether there are any additional office expenditures related to equipment and things that may be needed at home…. I’ll probably open it up to my colleagues, whether John or Russ or Sheila want to add anything there.

J. McNeill: I can comment that any minor savings on office supplies or water, those kind of miscellaneous items, that we would have had for people being out of the office have been kind of balanced out by additional costs incurred due to COVID and COVID safety measures. For example, cleaning supplies, safety-type equipment like plexiglass dividers and those kinds of things.

Any of the small savings we’ve had from an office supply standpoint have been balanced out. That’s what I can comment in relation to those types of expenses — that it’s been a wash.

L. Doerkson: Okay. Finally, I guess the last question was: does the new budget ask reflect the lack of travel? In other words, has that been taken into account for the new budget?

M. Pickup: John, do you want to outline what we’ve included in travel?

J. McNeill: Yes, I can do that. Keeping in mind that this budget was designed in November, December, and we weren’t quite sure when things were going to open up…. It’s only just Friday that we realized that the social distancing health care guidance has been put to an indefinite date. So right now it’s a conservative estimate. We’re asking for enough money as if we were able to travel in the second year. We wouldn’t use….

It’s hard to say for sure because it’s all for a forecast. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up using less than what we’ve asked for, based on the most recent information I have today versus the information I had back when we were preparing this budget.

M. Pickup: John, what do we have for a travel estimate in there now?

J. McNeill: I think there’s about $300,000. I can look at the table, and I can tell you for sure.

M. Pickup: Just compare that to what it was in a typical year before. We’re estimating a $309,000 decrease in travel. On page 7, we point out that our budget includes a reduction of $309,000 for travel.

If you look at page 6, we had, in the ’21 estimates, $689,000 for travel. We’re asking now for $380,000. So we have baked in a savings of $309,000 for reduced travel.

Thanks, John.

Does that answer that? I’m sorry. Was it Lorne that asked the question? I’m losing track now.

L. Doerkson: It does. My apologies again. Thank you for the answer.

M. Pickup: Could I also add, Chair, just in case you find this interesting…?

I certainly want to leave the committee with the understanding that I am working hard, too, to run an efficient organization. I reduced the size of the executive team by two people, as well — those two people are no longer with us — in order to streamline at the executive level and structure a more efficient approach. Those savings are built in there as well. So I certainly don’t want anybody here thinking that I don’t realize the need for us to be as efficient as possible.

That was one of the things that I did in the early days — reduce the size of that executive team.

[2:25 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. Mike has a comment as well.

M. Starchuk: Michael, because I was there this morning in the Public Accounts and I’m reappearing here now, I really wanted to kind of give my Coles Notes version of what I see your office providing.

What I learned this morning is that the increases in staff…. The financial audits that we’re talking about doing are actually going to be in a timely manner so that they’re concurrent with what’s going on in the world, so that the audit doesn’t take so long to do that the findings aren’t relevant in the day that we do it.

As you talked about with regards to COVID spending, it’s taking some time off and then delivering it early in the fall so that we can actually know what’s happened. And the performance audits that are there that are being done more often are being done more timely to ensure that the business is being done correctly.

If I’ve got it right, that’s my Coles Notes version of why your budget reflects what it does.

M. Pickup: Thank you for that. I think you did a better job than I did at the opening. I should write that down. I think that’s a fair summary.

J. Routledge (Chair): I see no more questions or comments. I think that’s a pretty good comment to end on.

I want to thank you for taking the time to come back, explain things in more detail and give us some more insight into the role of your office, specifically the role of your office in these times. And, your foresight in seeing the impact that these times have on government and government spending and your attention to holding us accountable and therefore reinforcing the trust of the people in their government and government decision-making. Thank you.

M. Pickup: You’re welcome. Can I also thank the folks on my team who have taken this all…?

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, please do.

M. Pickup: I think, as you can tell, we take all of your questions, your input, very seriously. You are the folks that we are working for, the people in the Legislature. I hope that was reflected today.

I very much appreciate the efforts that my team made over the days since Thursday night when we got the re­quest to prepare us for today as well.

I thank all of you for your questions and for our opportunity to explain the work we do and to answer your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’d like to thank your team as well.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Commissioner, and your team.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. I think it may be time for a quick five-minute recess, and then the committee will come back.

The committee recessed from 2:28 p.m. to 2:37 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll now ask for a motion to move in camera.

Megan has moved it. Do we have a seconder? Pam.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 2:38 p.m. to 3:56 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): We are now out of camera.

Now I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Lorne and Harwinder.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3:57 p.m.