Audit and evaluation

Assurance services

• Internal Audits: Provide a high level of assurance. This is obtained either by directly examining an activity and concluding on the effectiveness of associated controls, or by assessing the accuracy of a management assertion.
• Targeted Control Audits: Similar to audits; however, they are designed to provide in-depth testing of specific key control(s) within the activity under examination.
• Reviews: Provide an assessment of a particular area without the same rigour of examination and/or testing as an audit (i.e., less depth and/or coverage). This can provide management with moderate assurance and sufficient information for decision-making purposes. Reviews may be requested by management or initiated by Internal Audit.

Advisory (consulting) services

• Advisory: Includes engagements through which internal auditors provide advice to PCO management without providing assurance or taking on management responsibilities. The nature and scope of advisory services are subject to agreement with relevant stakeholders. These engagements are intended to add value and improve the organization’s risk management, control, and governance processes. Encompasses formal and informal advisory services, which may be planned or ad hoc. Advice may be requested by management or initiated by Internal Audit. Scope may include identification of control weaknesses and/or significant risks.
• Lessons Learned: Outline lessons from past experiences, on a given topic or topics. Data gathering typically limited to interviews and document review. This service may be requested by management or initiated by Internal Audit.
• Risk Management Support: Includes a range of services to support enterprise risk management (ERM).

Program improvement services

• Standard Evaluations: These evaluations are used to conduct a comprehensive, neutral and formal assessment of a program, policy or an organization’s relevance and performance.
• Calibrated Evaluations: Calibrated evaluations are similar to standard evaluations in terms of credibility and objectivity; however, they may not include the depth and detail of a full evaluation. They may also have reduced methodologies and/or lighter reports. These evaluations can be conducted at any stage of program delivery.
• Developmental Evaluations: This type of evaluation involves early engagement, perhaps before an evaluation may normally be possible. The evaluator is embedded into the operations, questioning and researching in real time to inform implementation, delivery and decisions-making, as well as documenting innovations, tracking progress and facilitating needs for adjustment.

Consulting services

• Targeted Research: Offers management with insights on global trends or new practices. This service may involve specialized skills or services from externals. This type of research is discretionary and can supplement other services such as performance measurement.
• Performance Measurement: Supports creation of logic models, performance measures/indicators and frameworks as part of Performance Information Profiles to outline intended outcomes and the ways to achieve these. Led by the Head of Performance Measurement, evaluators are involved to ensure logic models, performance measures/indicators and targets are valid, reliable and useful for evaluation and decision making purposes.

Publications

• Internal Audit of Federal Government consulting contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company (March 23, 2023)

Proactive disclosure

• Departmental Audit Committees