Mission Statement

CCAF’s mission is to provide exemplary thought leadership and to build both knowledge and capacity for effective governance¹ and meaningful accountability, management and audit. The focus for, and beneficiary of, our work is the public sector.²

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¹ Our reference to 'governance' is in the specific context of oversight and fiduciary responsibilities and processes.
² Our reference to 'public sector' is explained more fully in the latter part of this document.

 

CCAF’s Vision

CCAF’s vision is the achievement of excellence in public sector governance, management and accountability.

Governance and accountability is a matter of national interest. Achieving excellence will have important benefits for all Canadians and for all private and public sector institutions and corporations. We believe that the most important benefits of achieving excellence in governance and accountability are better performance and better stewardship.

Better public sector performance directly affects the individual health, education, social and economic well-being of each Canadian. It also directly and indirectly impacts the conditions that contribute to a well-performing private sector and sustained economic vitality and competitiveness.

Better stewardship means that the public sector should enjoy the benefit of well-placed confidence that:

• appropriate results are being achieved
  
  
• management and delivery capacity are being maintained
  
  
• risks are being managed
  
  
• control is being exercised
  
  
• performance reporting is meaningful
  
  
• values and ethics are all in line with the reasonable expectations of Canadians for how the public sector ought to go about its business.

CCAF’s principal activities are: research and education, and other capacity building support activities.

 

Core Areas of Expertise

CCAF focuses on public sector organizations (usually relatively large) that operate in an environment of complex accountability relationships.

Our work is aimed at providing intellectual leadership and developing good practice in the following subject areas:

• Governance information and related governance and accountability practices.
  
  
• Integrated (non-financial & financial) performance information used to report publicly or to support strategic and business planning and results improvement.
  
  
• Comptrollership and related management practices comprising performance information, risk, control, and ethics.
  
  
• Performance auditing, including but not limited to, audits of performance information reported to governing bodies and/or the public.
  
  
• Auditing of stewardship, management, comptrollership and other results- oriented management practices.

 

Organization

CCAF is a public-private sector partnership organized as a national non-profit foundation, established in 1980.

 

Defining Characteristics and Principal Strengths

There are three characteristics that contribute to the value and acceptance of CCAF’s work. Collectively, and in some cases individually, these characteristics set CCAF apart from many other organizations that engage governance, management, auditing and accountability issues.

1. Providing a bridge between governance, management and professional leaders. CCAF consistently brings together and accords equal weight to the insights, experience and creativity of governing body members, executive management and top professionals including legislative auditors and public practitioners and advisors who provide counsel or assurance services. As a result, our thought leadership, practical guidance and products reflect the valuable synergy that derives from these three key groups working together to find meaningful approaches to tough issues.
   
   
2. Public-private sector: shared interest and synergy. We recruit top public sector, business, and professional leaders to work with us in fulfilling our mission. The composition of our Board of Governors reflects our recognition of the shared interest that the public and private sectors have in the quality of governance and public accountability. We believe that these groups can work together to produce practical solutions to existing and emerging issues in our fields of interest. And because of their genesis, these solutions will stand a good chance of being implemented. The public and corporate sector leaders who are involved with us find a valuable network of counterparts who can benefit from each others knowledge and experience.
   
   
3. A neutral forum. CCAF has no ideological bias. At the heart of our work is a core belief that meaningful performance information and reporting goes to the essence of good public and corporate sector governance and management. This reporting, in turn, has a significant impact on the value that organizations ultimately provide to their stakeholders, shareholders, publics, employees and customers.

CCAF’s Board and management seek to distinguish its work as " best in class":

• by the relevance of the work to key issues of public and corporate interest (within its mission profile)
  
  
• by the quality and breadth of the people we bring to the table and the influence of their leadership
  
  
• by the quality of our products and services.

This commitment is illustrated in the composition of our Board of Governors and by those who participate with us in our research and capacity development work.

 

Financial Support

Financial support for CCAF is provided by taxpayers of Canada and the provinces, effected through contribution arrangements with their legislative audit offices and/or governments. Other financial supporters are drawn from the ranks of leading public accounting and consulting professional service firms, professional accounting bodies and large Canadian corporations.

 

CCAF’s Name

CCAF-FCVI Inc. is our formal and full name. It is a contraction of the name that we were incorporated under in 1980—the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation—La Fondation canadienne pour la vérification integrée. Although some still know us by our original name, several years ago our members approved its formal contraction to CCAF-FCVI. This was done in recognition that to fulfill our mission we needed to go beyond an unalloyed focus on audit and also deal with aspects of governance and management that are also essential to strong accountability, good stewardship, and well-performing organizations.

 

Public Sector Definition

Our interest in the public sector extends across a broad spectrum of governments, institutions and organizations that create, deliver or regulate activities that are undertaken in support of the broadly defined health, educational, social or economic well-being of Canadians. Our interests and activities extend to:

Governments

• federal, provincial and municipal
  
  
• agencies, boards and commissions of the above governments
  
  
• Crown and other government-owned or controlled corporations including those engaged in providing financial services

Other Public Sector Institutions

The following types of organizations also serve important public interests and our interests extend to them as well:

• health, education and social service providers such as hospitals, regional health authorities, school boards and commissions, universities and colleges, and social service agencies
  
  
• non-profit organizations that receive significant amounts of public funding (for example: social service funding agencies, research bodies, cultural institutions)
  
  
• charitable organizations
  
  
• regulatory agencies for health, safety, cultural, communications and natural resources
  
  
• financial service regulators
  
  
• institutional investment bodies that administer public or government pension plans
  
  
• institutions (professional bodies) that regulate professions.

Public-Private Sector Shared Responsibility Arrangements

The public and the private sectors frequently share a measure of responsibility for activities that are of a public service nature. Such shared responsibility comes about through a wide variety of collaborative means including partnerships and joint ventures, privatization of certain activities, subsidies to maintain or deliver public services by widely owned shareholder corporations and in some cases, through the granting of monopolies or the establishment of privileges or restrictions (e.g. quotas).

CCAF’s interests extend to specific points of intersection between the public and private sectors on these issues, especially in respect of public–private sector partnerships, joint ventures, privatization etc.