Auditor General of Ontario: Value for Money AGCO Report

In December 2020 the Auditor General of Ontario published a Value for Money (VFM) Audit report on the AGCO, which identified areas for improvement. The report contained 26 recommendations and proposed 62 action items, along with management responses from the AGCO and the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Following the release of the final report, the AGCO established a VFM Audit Action Plan Project Team led by two C-Suite Executive Leads. The objective of the team is to coordinate, plan, and oversee implementation of a plan to address the Auditor General’s recommendations over the course of the next two years. The Project Team meets monthly at a minimum and reports to the C-Suite on a quarterly basis and to the AGCO Board of Directors’ Finance, Audit and Risk Management (FARM) Committee on the implementation of the audit action plan.

During the course of the VFM audit the Auditor General recommended that financial statement audits be performed annually, starting with the year ended March 31, 2021. The preparation of a full set of financial statements is anticipated for the year ended March 31, 2022. However, the AGCO has prepared a Statement of Revenue and Expenditures for the year ended March 31, 2021, which has been audited by the Auditor General. The audited statement can be found here.

The AGCO is committed to its action plan, which is derived from the Auditor General’s report and aligns with the AGCO’s management responses. Status updates outlining the completed and outstanding undertakings for each recommendation will be provided to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in April 2021.

The AGCO values the strong reputation it has earned with government and businesses thanks to its history of hard work, dedication and partnership. The Auditor General’s report is an opportunity to improve its effectiveness even further.