Ontario auditor general says Liberals have made 'little to no progress' on some recommendations

Provincial ministers are now under fire for their inaction after the Ontario auditor general's searing report Wednesday slammed the Liberal government for ignoring past recommendations on issues ranging from child welfare to Hydro One service.

• Ontario's auditor general slams Liberal government over litany of problems
• Auditor general identifies 'gaps' in child welfare system
• AUDIO: Ontario auditor general blames lack of oversight for high hydro costs

The report from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk says that the government has made little or no progress on action she called for two years ago, including failing to ensure that nutrition and physical activity guidelines were being followed in the province's schools to help curb obesity, improving security at women's shelters, and lowering fees at ServiceOntario.

Under questioning from reporters at Queen's Park Thursday, several ministers said they "welcome" the auditor general's recommendations, which they take "very seriously."

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown called the report a "critique of nearly every aspect" of the government's managerial skills.

"It's one thing to welcome the auditor general's report, it's another thing that you ignore all the recommendations, that you show no remorse," Brown told reporters.

"This is a 773-page indictment of the government in almost every department."

Deputy Premier Deb Matthews said Thursday that the government looks "very, very closely" at all recommendations from the auditor general, noting that it has either completed or is making progress on 76 per cent of them.

"It's a very important check and balance in our democracy that there's somebody from the outside with clear eyes who looks at what we're doing, gives us advice on what we could be doing better," Matthews told reporters at Queen's Park on Thursday. "And we do act on that advice."

Healthy Schools Strategy

In this year's report, Lysyk identified numerous areas where the government is making slow progress, or none at all — and even found some cases where recommendations will simply not be acted upon.

On the implementation of the Ministry of Education's Healthy Schools Strategy to improve students' nutrition levels and physical activity, "little or no progress has been made on most of our recommended actions, and few are in the process of being implemented," the report says.

The ministry had set nutritional standards for the types of food and beverages that could be sold in publicly-funded schools. It had also revised the school curriculum to require that all elementary school students get 20 minutes of physical activity.

But the ministry "needed to put more effort into ensuring compliance with these requirements," the 2013 report said, noting that neither the ministry nor the school boards had effective monitoring processes in place.

The auditor general "made a number of recommendations" for improvements and received assurances that action would be taken, the latest report says.

But information from the ministry and the three boards audited in 2013 indicated that there has been little or no progress made on 82 per cent of the Healthy Schools Strategy recommendations, while only 18 per cent were in the process of being implemented.

ServiceOntario

Over at ServiceOntario, which offers a range of government services, the 2013 audit identified "several key areas" for improvement to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and reduce risks when issuing certain licences, registrations and permits.

The 2013 report found that 43 per cent of service centres are considered "high-risk" locations because of the number of processing errors uncovered by its own audits.

Nine of 21 recommendations had been fully implemented, while progress had been made on another six. However, there had been "little or no progress" on three recommendations, including lowering fees to reflect the actual costs of transactions, conducting client satisfaction surveys at service locations, and implementing a system to share address-change information between ministries.

Minister of Government and Consumer Services David Orazietti said Thursday that his ministry will "continue to look for efficiencies" in how it delivers services, including driving residents online for things like drivers' licence renewal.

"We obviously want to have as much downward pressure on fees as we can," Orazietti told CBC News. "We don't want to see fees any higher than they absolutely need to be for Ontarians to provide those services."

And three recommendations that had been issued for ServiceOntario will not be implemented at all, the 2015 report says.

Other findings include:

• The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has made "little progress" on three recommendations concerning land ambulance services, including developing processes to make ambulance services more efficient.
• The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has made "little or no progress" on 17 recommendations on delivering in-hospital rehabilitation services, including assessing and developing a plan for offering therapy services on evenings and weekends.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the good news from the report is that the problems can be solved. What's clear to her, she said, is that the Liberals "aren't capable" of solving them.

"Theoretically, the job of the auditor general is to help government achieve better results," Horwath told reporters on Thursday.

"But if you're not following the recommendations, if you're not actually looking at where the corrections need to occur and implementing the corrections, then you have the same problems over and over and over again."