Perspective
Transparency, Accountability and Results
FROM:
MAY-JUN 2003 ISSUE
Today more than ever, there is a new and welcome focus on accountability. We can see it within the world of corporate financial reporting. We can see it among governments. And we can see it within society as a whole. For us in the accounting profession, this new focus on accountability is good news. Because this is what we do best.
Indeed, at the very core of our professional and ethical mandate is the philosophy that we will create clear, accurate, understandable and useful financial reporting and analysis — information that will be strategically useful to a broad spectrum of key stakeholders. Those stakeholders might be a company's shareholders. They might be the electorate. They might even be members of society as a whole.
Recently our federal budget submission called on Ottawa to increase its transparency and accountability related to "earmarked" taxes. A good example of an earmarked tax is the special levy for air travel security. For Canadian taxpayers, there is simply no way to track those taxes collected and determine if they are being well spent on their intended purpose. In short, there is a complete lack of transparency, accountability or measurement of results.
Likewise, in our budget submission, we said Ottawa should be more transparent about how it allocates and accounts for national health care dollars spent. If Canadians are to truly understand the costs and benefits of our national health care system, they must have clear and transparent financial data on which to base their analysis and opinions. We are pleased to note that in this respect, the government is listening. Recently it moved to create separate and transparent envelopes for federal health transfers to the provinces and territories.
A key element of this broad accountability equation is the measurement of results. It's not sufficient to simply say, "Here's what we are doing, and here's what it is going to cost." We also have the right and the responsibility to ask, "What have we truly achieved for our dollars spent?"
The corporate world has embraced the notion of performance measurement. From key performance indicators (KPIs), to measuring return on investment (ROI), the notion of performance reporting is fully embedded in corporate practice. But measuring performance in government is not quite so easy. Yet Canadians are increasingly asking if they are getting real value for tax dollars spent. And governments are listening. Performance measures are increasingly being used within governments, and will be used more so in the future.
Recently I participated in a timely round table on this very subject, hosted by the Centre for Collaborative Government. The CCG is an Ottawa-based organization with a mandate to build greater understanding between Ottawa and the public on key policy matters. Participants included
CGA-Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Environment Canada, Treasury Board and The Office of the Auditor General.
Our discussion group looked at how Canadians can hold governments accountable for their performance. We raised the idea of measurement not only of activities undertaken, but measurement against actual results. As a CCG report recently put it: "Because little information has been available on (real) outcomes, public debate has been less than disciplined about how it uses the information available on inputs and outputs to support claims about outcomes."
Clearly we have a way to go yet before we can say how effectively governments are spending our tax dollars. But the debate and discussion is getting underway, which is a very good thing. Because today, there is far too much at stake for us to back away from asking these kinds of tough questions.
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