The government’s formal response to a Public Accounts Committee report on improving accountability and transparency was delivered months later than it should have been.
The minute was tabled the year after the finance ministry received the report and seven months after its official deadline, committee chairman Roy McTaggart revealed last week.
The matter was brought up during the latest meeting of the government finance watchdog in Parliament on Thursday, 27 July.
In response, Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson explained that the delay was due to other issues taking precedence.
“It gets caught up with the priorities of the government of the day, the pressures of the government of the day,” he told the committee.
“And to be quite frank, it might not get the same level of relevance and attachment to it that an important budget matter might get.”
The report McTaggart was highlighting was the committee’s response to the auditor general’s 2021 report, ‘Improving Financial Accountability and Transparency: Budgeting’.
It endorsed the auditor general’s recommendations detailing what the government could do to improve budgeting – but very few have been completed to date.
Jefferson acknowledged that the process of getting a government minute – a written response to a report – prepared should not be difficult.
He said Deputy Governor Franz Manderson, who is responsible for management of the civil service, has made a point to actively work on this issue because he saw it “floundering”.
Staff from Manderson’s office will visit the chief officer in the relevant ministry and present them with the report, Jefferson said.
Their response will be sent back to the deputy governor’s office where a paper will be prepared for Cabinet with the ministry’s position.
Following the premier’s approval, the minute will then be read in Parliament. The entire process should take fewer than 90 days.
The financial secretary said the reason why it took so long in this particular case is because the government had other priorities.
“That is one of the chief reasons I think that would describe why it takes a fairly lengthy period of time to get here.”
He said the delay on the response was not because of a disagreement with the report’s contents, but “simply it’s the pressures of the government of the day”.
“It is the business of the of the civil service that leads to this, and sessions like this will help… underpin the need for improvement.”
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Mr Manderson’s description of “floundering” in relation to delays in the C.S ‘s response is most appropriate, it remains to be seen if the Minute reaches Parliament in 90 days. However the Minute will no doubt give “reasons” for the floundering, but it must also give a finite date for compliance with the Auditor General’s recommendations.