OTTAWA — The people who work for Ottawa’s top watchdog are quietly sounding the alarm on their own office.
Investigations by the Office of the Auditor General consistently flag cost overruns, broken systems and fishy contracts in offices and programs across the Canadian government.
But now hundreds of employees in the OAG have signaled their lack of confidence in senior management, a stinging takeaway POLITICO has uncovered in a federal employee survey conducted late last year.
Few departments or agencies fared worse on that score than the OAG in the most recent Public Service Employee Survey, a regular temperature check of the bureaucracy with questions about well-being, mobility, compensation — and how the bosses are doing.
The findings, published online earlier this year, raise serious questions about the work culture at the OAG, a federal agency that scrutinizes billions in spending every year — and reports to Parliament.
No watchdog has more reach into the work of the Canadian government. A 2003 audit of a federal sponsorship program eventually sank the Liberal government of the day and led to jail time for a handful of figures connected to the scandal.
Karen Hogan has helmed the office since 2020, following the death of her predecessor Michael Ferguson a year earlier. In March 2024, federal records indicate the OAG employed 836 people.
POLITICO requested an interview with the OAG. In a statement, a spokesperson said the results "deeply affected the senior management group."
Five hundred and seventy employees in the office filled out the 2024 survey, which ran from Oct. 28 to Dec. 31. (Overall, more than 186,000 employees across 93 federal departments and agencies responded — a rate of 50.5 per cent.)
Alisha Kang, the national president of the Union of National Employees that represents audit support workers in the OAG, said members were tightlipped when she asked about their worklife in response to survey findings.
"The atmosphere was one of extreme nervousness to answer the very pointed questions I was asking," Kang told POLITICO.
The questions on senior management revealed a clear four-year trend, which traces to Hogan's earliest days as auditor general.
A mere 27 percent "have confidence in the senior management" — down from 50 percent in 2022 and 80 percent in 2020.
Only 49 percent of OAG employees say their senior managers "lead by example in ethical behavior" — down from 71 percent in 2022 and 90 percent in 2020.
Less than one in five (19 percent) said "information flows effectively … to staff," a decline from 42 percent in 2022 and 73 percent in 2020.
And less than one in six (16 percent) said senior management "makes effective and timely decisions" — another marked decline from 37 percent in 2022 and 65 percent in 2020.
The numbers decline further among respondents from teams in the office responsible for "performance audits" and "audit services."
Pandemic bumpy ride
The OAG's workload has expanded in recent years.
In 2021-22, the office completed 12 "performance audits." That output doubled to 24 a year later. Auditors eventually examined a pile of pandemic spending programs whipped up by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and delivered at unprecedented speeds.
In 2021 and 2022, the OAG's unionized employees went on strike for 128 days for better pay. (They eventually got a deal.)
In 2023, the office acknowledged to POLITICO following the 2022 employee survey that the strike "had a significant impact across our organization" — and committed to a "workplace initiative" to address lingering issues.
Employee confidence in senior managers has only dropped since then.
In a statement to POLITICO about the 2024 survey, the OAG acknowledged the results offer a "clear indication" that the office's earlier efforts "did not have the intended impact for all employees."
The OAG said Hogan has recently hosted "a series of engagement sessions across the organization, creating opportunities for open dialogue and feedback for employees."
Kang told POLITICO those sessions did not address the survey. "If you're going to make claims that meetings were about a subject, and we know that they were not about that subject, it makes it even harder to have confidence in management," she said.
Tough transition
The OAG is adamant the survey results "do not describe the causes" of the apparent rifts between senior managers and the rest of the staff.
Still, the office offered context on what could be disrupting the workplace.
"We recognize the significant changes employees have been experiencing with their work tools, our office space, and the decisions that we have made to increase the volume and value of our work for Parliament and the northern legislatures," read the statement, which noted Hogan's role as auditor for the governments of Canada's northern territories.
The auditor general's office has recently adopted a hybrid work model, renovated its workspace in Ottawa and "launched a project" to update its audit management software.
The OAG has committed to "a series of in-house pulse surveys in the coming year to monitor the impact of changes."
Kang says she'll read future audits with a skeptical eye.
"If I thought that things were going well and the staff felt comfortable and safe with senior management, I would not be questioning what was coming out of there," she said. "But with the steep decline, which has been ongoing for at least a good four years, this really concerns me in terms of the data that Canadians are receiving."
Automation station
More workplace changes are likely to come.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Cabinet has asked federal departments and agencies to identify — by the end of the summer — spending reductions of 15 percent to be rolled out by 2028. The OAG is not immune from that process.
"The federal government will be undergoing significant transformation, and we will also be seeking more efficiencies and increasing productivity to conduct the most effective and efficient audits possible," read a statement.
That appears to mean less of a human touch in places — that is, more automation.
The OAG is looking at "automating auditing processes to increase efficiencies, and leveraging technology to identify the right audits and generate insights that can improve public services and programs for Canadians."
Comments
Post a Comment