New management has fixed some inherited problems but serious issues remain
Chapter 4, May 2006 Report of the Auditor General
Ottawa, 16 May 2006—In her Status Report tabled today in the House of Commons, the Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, said that the Canada Firearms Centre has made satisfactory progress in implementing her 2002 recommendation on financial reporting—except for two significant errors in financial information given to Parliament. These are detailed in a related report also tabled today, "Government Decisions Limited Parliament's Control of Public Spending."
"Faced with some serious problems, a new management team has established the organization and systems needed to operate as a government department," said Ms. Fraser. "But there are still major difficulties that it needs to resolve."
The audit found that the management team that arrived in May 2003 established adequate financial management systems and met operating challenges such as spreading out the timing of licence renewals, expanding service, and consolidating its application-processing sites. But the report criticizes the Centre's reporting to Parliament.
"I'm concerned about remaining operational problems and about the accuracy of the information Parliament receives from the Canada Firearms Centre," said Ms. Fraser.
The audit found that performance reports contained errors about the Centre's performance in meeting its service standards, giving Parliament an incomplete picture of how well the licensing and registration activities have done.
The report notes that longstanding problems in the registration database still exist, and the Centre does not know how many of its records are incorrect or incomplete. Moreover, the audit found weaknesses in the network of volunteers who verify information on registered firearms, and there is no check on the quality of their work.
The Canadian Firearms Information System II was scheduled for completion in March 2003 but is not yet operational. The report says that due to legislative delays and poor management of contracts before the new management team arrived, the cost of the system has grown from the $32 million originally budgeted to more than $90 million.
The audit found that the program's total net cost to March 2005 as reported by the government was a little under its earlier estimate of $1 billion.
The Auditor General's Status Report, first released in 2002, is one of the reports from the Office of the Auditor General tabled each year in the House of Commons. It follows up on the government's progress in addressing recommendations from previous reports. The Auditor General concludes that progress is either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, taking into account the complexity of the issue and the amount of time that has passed since the original audit.
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The chapter "Canadian Firearms Program" and a related report, "Government Decisions Limited Parliament's Control of Public Spending," are available on the Office of the Auditor General of Canada Web site.
Information:
Julie Hébert, Communications
Tel.: (613) 952-0213, ext. 6292
E-mail: communications@oag-bvg.gc.ca
