Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to talk about the Auditor General’s report on the health programs and services. I also want to note here that the Auditor General did not look at social services during her review, just health.
The health report findings are similar to those of the findings in the Auditor General’s report last year on education. The report indicates a lack of evaluation, monitoring and data collection on the part of the Department of Health. The Auditor General gives credit to Health for its strategic plan, described by Ms. Fraser as a clear direction to improve the system. But Ms. Fraser also says that the department needs to follow through with the health authorities. By that she means monitor their activities to ensure that the priorities of the department and of the system as a whole are achieved by the regional authorities.
When the Auditor General examined the relationship between the Department of Health and the health authorities, she found that the department lacks performance agreements with those health authorities. As a result, there are no performance indicators on which the success or the failure of an authority can be measured.
Any devolution of programs and services from the government to a subsidiary organization should have as a basic component assessment, monitoring and evaluation structure. The Health department and its authorities do not. There are contribution agreements, Mr. Speaker, between the parties, but those contribution agreements do not address monitoring of the actions or the work of the authorities. There is no mechanism to gauge how the authorities are doing to determine whether they are successfully delivering programs and services to the residents in their region as is required by the department.
We give almost $225 million annually to health authorities. I think we really ought to know what they are doing with our money. As a government, the GNWT has a poor track record when it comes to assessment, monitoring and evaluation of our programs and services. We’re quick to decide on new initiatives and to put new programs in place, but we do not at the same time establish how we will evaluate them in both the short and the long term. That is the message from the Auditor General in her report, Mr. Speaker. The government as a whole and particularly Cabinet must change its mindset, its approach, if you will, to the implementation of new initiatives. When approval is given to fund a new program or initiative, that decision must be based on a proposal which includes a comprehensive evaluation plan.
I will have questions for the Minister of Health at a later time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
