DAVID MOYNAGH'S 16 YEARS AT CCAF

Before David’s departure, CCAF Executive Director Michael Eastman asked him about the evolution of the organization and its major accomplishments over the years.

Michael: When you joined CCAF, it was 10 years old. What had its focus been up to that point?

David: The initial focus was to establish a basic understanding of the concept of comprehensive auditing, encourage and support the adoption of comprehensive auditing legislation across Canada, and build the professional capacity to undertake this work.

One of the first major projects was to develop a definition of comprehensive auditing and to document its major components. The result was the booklet Comprehensive Auditing - Concepts, Components and Characteristics, published in 1983. During the 1980s, and since, CCAF published more than 15 studies on accountability and comprehensive auditing addressing a wide range of practice issues relating to Crown corporations, internal audit reliance, government transfer payments, audit reporting and practitioner competence.

Another major thrust - starting in the 1980s and extending into the 1990s - was professional development. A workshop program was designed to provide a base of core learning to legislative audit and internal audit practitioners - in comprehensive auditing and in the closely aligned subjects of performance reporting and governance and accountability. During this period, over 300 workshops were delivered to over 5000 practitioners.

Michael: What led CCAF to move beyond comprehensive auditing?

David: In 1985, following its first strategic review of the organization (such reviews are a requirement of CCAF's bylaws), the Board decided CCAF should expand its focus by bringing management more directly into the conversation about accountability.

This was a key crossroad in the evolution of the organization. Consideration of the role of management in public sector accountability led CCAF to look at effectiveness, or performance, reporting. An Independent Panel was formed and the results of its work was published in Effectiveness Reporting and Auditing in the Public Sector.

Following this major research, CCAF launched an extensive applied research program and series of joint ventures to test the applicability and value of these ideas in a variety of public sector contexts. This resulted in the publication of a number of case studies over the 1989-1992 period and a major synthesis document that reported on lessons learned, and provided additional guidance and tools for managers and practitioners.

Michael: That would have been when you came on the scene. What happened then?

David: CCAF's second strategic review, completed at the beginning of the 1990s, concluded that achieving effective accountability needed to involve not just management and audit, but also a third set of players - those responsible for governance.

Members of governing bodies are at the apex of accountability, charged with giving direction to their respective entities, assuring themselves that operations and critical issues are being competently managed, and holding management to account. Those involved in governance also have an important responsibility to report to those whose interests they represent.

The frontier of CCAF was expanded once again. We embarked on a major program of research in the governance area. The overall objective was to provide concepts, frameworks and tools that members of governing bodies could use to diagnose their governance situation and then create an action agenda towards its improvement.

This began with an articulation of the characteristics that help identify an effective governance situation. Another element was to define the 'governance information' component, an essential ingredient of a governing body's capacity to exercise its role and responsibilities. A third component was to suggest strategies a governing body can adopt, and conditions it can create or influence, to succeed in getting the right information. We produced a number of publications and, again, developed a workshop program to support those involved in governance, chief executives and their senior advisors to deal with all of these issues.

Michael: So by the mid-1990s, CCAF had produced research and related products in the areas of accountability, audit, management and finally governance.

David: Right, and it was time to reflect back on this array of work, determine how to integrate it, and consider where and how to build into the future. We mounted a major initiative to offer a holistic and integrated picture of the development of accountability concepts, theory and principles, their connection to governance and management, and the role, evolution, theory and practice of performance reporting and comprehensive auditing.

The result was a 400-page reference textbook, Accountability, Performance Reporting, Comprehensive Auditing - An Integrated Perspective, published in 1996.

Following the Board's third strategic review, in 1997, CCAF moved to:

• provide a broader range of support to practitioners
• support the advancement of excellence in public sector comptrollership
• advance public performance reporting by government, and
• extend the work of the Foundation through joint ventures and partnerships with other organizations.

Also, at the same time, a new organization name was adopted, CCAF-FCVI Inc., together with a revised mission statement to better reflect the Foundation's broader scope of interests.

Michael: What did CCAF do to support practitioners?

David: Using the consolidated text as a basis, we redesigned, augmented our professional development workshops aimed at auditors and performance management practitioners to form an integrated program of learning. We also conducted additional research in the area of knowledge, skill and experience requirements for comprehensive audit practitioners, the results of which were published in Proficiency Requirements for Comprehensive Auditing in 1998.

Michael: CCAF played a substantial role in the federal government's modern comptrollership initiative, didn't it?

David: It certainly did. CCAF's chief executive officer, J.P. Boisclair, headed the Independent Review Panel on Modernization of Comptrollership in the Government of Canada, which directed a very intensive exercise that started in 1996 and reported in 1997.

The Panel report concluded that 'comptrollership' goes to the heart of executive and managerial responsibility at the top and throughout the organization, and should not be thought of as something that can be delegated mostly to “financial and other specialists.” It proposed a new public sector comptrollership model that places emphasis on integrated financial and non-financial results reporting and information, risk management, control, and values and ethics.

The federal government accepted the Panel's recommendations, and incorporated them into a major initiative to modernize comptrollership in the Government of Canada.

Michael: How did CCAF begin its program to help governments improve the quality of their public reporting on performance?

David: This was another multi-year program of research and capacity development, started in 1999 and only now drawing to a close. The Board felt we needed to search out consensus among the main stakeholders - those involved in governance, management and audit - as to what this new level of performance reporting needed to look like, and how, as a practical matter, it could be put into practice.

CCAF encouraged input from, and brought together, public sector managers, legislative auditors and elected representatives to consider how this could be accomplished. The result has been a rich body of research, captured in numerous publications and information products.

A central accomplishment was the publication in 2002 of Reporting Principles: Taking Performance Reporting to a New Level. The report identifies nine principles that define better performance reporting and advises on their application in practice. Since then, CCAF has been encouraging the adoption of these principles and the development of good practice around them. A number of Canadian jurisdictions have adopted or adapted them as a basis for their own performance reporting and we are working closely with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants to build on these nine principles and expand and improve public performance reporting at all levels of government across Canada.

Michael: This takes me to another matter that emerged from the 1997 strategic review; that is, an increased emphasis on joint ventures and partnerships with other organizations. How has this played out over the past few years?

David: In the later part of the 1990s, and since, we have undertaken a number of projects with other organizations, including the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation, the Ontario Ministry of Finance, and the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation.

In each case, we sought cooperatively to apply CCAF's work in accountability, governance and performance reporting to specific sectors to address issues of particular concern to these organizations and to ourselves and, more generally, to be able to share what was learned from these ventures with others and thus advance thinking and practice.

Michael: How has the Foundation moved forward over the last few years?

David: Our current research agenda, which finds its roots in part in work that has carried over from the late 1990s, is organized around three broad and interrelated strategic directions, each with its own research program.

The Public Performance Reporting program is completing the research and capacity building work begun in 1999. As I mentioned earlier, we were very encouraged by the take up of our work in the area of Reporting Principles by governments and through our ongoing work with the Public Sector Accounting Board of the CICA. Also, Canada's legislative audit community has adopted the reporting principles as a basis for developing related audit criteria and methodology. Following on from this, we have just completed another major piece of research that is looking at the performance reporting issue from the 'user' perspective seeking to identify how and by whom public performance reporting is used, the opportunities and barriers to such use, and strategies to better align the production and use of performance information. This last piece of research, building off earlier work, provides the Foundation and its members with an important basis to pursue its mission in this area.

A second aspect of CCAF's research agenda, our Accountability and Audit program, launched at the end of 2003-04, is exploring the evolving interaction between accountability and audit. One major project is looking at parliamentary oversight committees. This research has attracted significant interest in the public accounts and legislative audit communities and with government management. The results will be released shortly. Two other research projects, one in the area of Crown entities, and the other in the area of transfer payment arrangements, are just getting under way. We also helped launch the National Forum for Government Chief Internal Auditors Council of Canada.

A third component is the Shared Governance-Responsibility Arrangements program. This program is examining cross-institutional, cross-jurisdictional and partnership arrangements to determine how such arrangements affect the ability to govern public enterprise, manage performance and demonstrate accountability. The objective is to develop frameworks, tools and strategies that would assist governments and their partners to establish and manage these arrangements.

Our first project under this program was the development, in partnership with the Canadian Healthcare Association, of the 2005 publication, Excellence in Canada's Health System - Principles for Governance, Management, Accountability and Shared Responsibility. The ideas in this publication have attracted wide interest in the health sector.

Michael: Why do you think CCAF has been so successful over the past 25 years?

David: In my opinion, it comes down to three factors. The quality of the people who have led, worked in and worked with the Foundation …. the success of CCAF in reaching across and bringing together the governance, management and audit communities …. and the capacity of this organization to constantly reflect on the perspectives of its members and the priorities of the public sector, and adjust itself to meet those expectations and requirements.

It's been a privilege to be a part of such an important and exciting enterprise.

Michael: David, you have been a major factor in that success, and I know CCAF is going to miss you. Good luck in your new assignment.

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