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ARCHIVED - National Research Council Canada - Supplementary Tables


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Response to Parliamentary Committees and External Audits

Response to Parliamentary Committees
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts, in follow-up to the chapter on intellectual property in the Spring 2009 Report of the Auditor General (AG), invited departments and agencies named in the chapter, including NRC, to appear before the Committee on November 16, 2009 to discuss the AG's recommendations and to table action plans. Only one of the AG's recommendations pertained to NRC, specifically that NRC more accurately identify the intellectual property expected to result from Crown procurement contracts and ensure that it is accurately reported. NRC's action plan to address this concern has been fully implemented. NRC was identified by both the AG and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts as being a source of best practices and expertise for federal intellectual property management and is currently examining the feasibility of tailoring some of its existing offerings for other departmental mandates.
Response to the Auditor General (including to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development)
The OAG made recommendations emanating from their follow-up in 2007 to their 2004 performance audit of NRC Management of Leading Edge Research pertaining to governance, human resource management, business planning, research project management and performance data collection and reporting. All of the recommendations have been fully implemented. Web links: 2004 report; 2007 report.
External Audits (Note: These refer to other external audits conducted by the Public Service Commission of Canada or the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)
NRC was one of 18 departments scoped in the Office of the Comptroller General's Horizontal Internal Audit of High-Risk Expenditure Controls in Large Departments and Agencies. Of the seven recommendations identified in the report, four were applicable to NRC; these included developing policies and procedures to guide risk based account verification processes, management representation for identifying risks, sampling of low risk payments, and reporting of results. All of the recommendations have been fully implemented.

NRC was one of eight departments scoped in the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman's Procurement Practices Review of Verification of Suppliers' Records, which recommended that departments include a guideline for how and when to use the audit provision for cost-reimbursable contracts. While no management action plan was required, NRC will take into consideration risks posed by these contracts when identifying audit risks. The summary findings of this report are included in the Procurement Ombudsman's Annual Report.