Collaborative Climate Change Audit Project: Process Chronicle and Lessons Learned
Report ID: 294
In order to assess the progress their governments have made on climate change action, from 2015 to 2018, the Auditors General of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, partnered with the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (Canada, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon), which carried out audit work for the three territories in its role as independent auditor for Canada’s northern legislatures.
This was the first time that so many legislative audit offices in Canada coordinated their work in this way. A project working group was formed in November 2015, consisting of auditors from participating audit offices. Their work culminated in the summary report tabled in Parliament in March 2018 called Perspectives on Climate Change Action in Canada: A Collaborative Report from Auditors General (Available at https://intosai-cooperativeaudits.org/report/perspectives-con-climate-change-action-in-canada-a-collaborative-report-from-the-auditors-general).
The project team wrote a final report to document the process they used in the collaborative audit in order to assist those planning this kind of work in the future in Canada and elsewhere to assess issues of mutual interest and importance. The Lessons Learned report is divided in three parts.
- The first part chronicles the process developed and used to plan, conduct, report, and communicate during the project.
- The second part summarizes our efforts to identify lessons learned.
- The third part reflects on the above and provides some key perspectives from the Project Manager that could assist others doing similar work in the future.
In the planning of the audits, the report refers that, among others, the following model of cooperative audits were considered:
- The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA) Coordinated Audit on Climate Change 2010.
- The INTOSAI WGEA document Cooperation Between Supreme Audit Institutions: Tips and Examples for Cooperative Audits, 2007.
Source: https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/oth_201905_e_43380.html