The recent allegations of financial abuse at the legislature raise a broader question. Is it possible these are merely the tip of an iceberg? How sure can we be that other branches of government aren’t taking liberties with the taxpayer’s dollar?
Part of the concern is that just days before the storm broke, the legislature had received its third clean audit in a row.
But if the provincial auditor general was unable to confirm mismanagement in a relatively small office, what are the chances that larger agencies are playing by the rules?
It might seem there should be no issue. Every year, the government releases detailed financial statements. Every year, departments publish lengthy performance reports.
Yet appearances can be deceiving. On small matters, such as travel costs and meal allowances, our ministries have learned the hard way that excess doesn’t go unnoticed.
The legislature might be run like an old boys club, but government operates in the open. Voters call their MLA or media outlets if they see the public purse being abused.
But while little things get attention, larger operations are more difficult to track.
Take those financial statements, for example. Can anyone read or understand them?
The public accounts, which detail taxes and expenditures, are almost completely unintelligible.
One reason is that modern accounting standards are impossibly complex, and worse still, counter-intuitive. A simple example: According to the province’s summary financial statements, a surplus of $6.7 billion was recorded in 2017.
In fact, the surplus was about $300 million. The remaining $6.4 billion is purely an artifact of government bookkeeping. But how can we hold politicians accountable if we can’t understand their math?
Perhaps the answer lies in those performance reports that public agencies produce. But here, too, sleight of hand plays a role.
Most ministries forecast results that are pretty well guaranteed to occur. The Ministry of Attorney General and Public Safety, for instance, promises to reduce the rate of traffic fatalities and injuries over the next three years. However, those rates have been falling for decades, with or without government intervention.
The Education Ministry sets its sights on continually graduating a larger percentage of high school students. But here, too, long-term trends make this generally a safe bet.
In fairness, most public bodies admit to a degree of failure on some of their targets. They don’t claim perfection.
However, on balance they steer away from bad news. And if that’s not possible, they take refuge in huge data dumps.
The City of Victoria’s 2017 financial plan, for example, ran to 1,093 pages. A report that long virtually defends itself against being read.
And here we come to the real crux of the issue. Our governments, federal, provincial and municipal, have learned to camouflage their operations. They do it by flooding us with numbers that no one understands, while burying uncomfortable admissions under swaths of meaningless bafflegab.
Unlike the legislature, which in a sense was hiding behind closed doors, the rest of government hides in plain sight.
What can be done about it? First, we need financial reports that are written in plain English. If some bond-rating company in New York City wants an extended version, very well. But ordinary citizens shouldn’t require a degree in accounting to understand what their government is doing.
Second, have each ministry survey its main client group, and ask them what they like and dislike about the service they receive. Then make those preferences or complaints the real target for improvement.
There’s an old saying that if you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. In government, taking care of the pennies has become an excuse for not taking care of the pounds.
Far more rigour — and transparency — are required.
