Audit of Water and Wastewater Infrastructure - Follow-up Report Status Update as of December 31, 2013
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Action Plan Implementation Status Update Report to the Audit Committee - As of December 31, 2013
Regional Operations
| Project Recommendations | Action Plan | Expected Completion Date |
Program Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Senior Assistant Deputy Minister (SADM) of Regional Operations should ensure all Regions have a Capital Review Committee in place to prioritize and approve capital project and planning decisions, with Terms of Reference which are up-to-date. Decisions made by the Capital Review Committees should be adequately documented. | SADM has directed RDGs to ensure they have a robust Regional First Nations Infrastructure Investment Plan process and Capital Review Committees (or equivalent), with terms of reference, in place. Community Infrastructure Branch (CIB) will start a follow-up process with Regions which will continue during fiscal year 2013-14 to confirm that adequate investment planning and capital review processes have been established and decisions documented. |
November 2012 | Status: Ongoing. Update/Rationale: As of 31/12/2013: CIB has conducted a follow-up process with the regions to confirm that the requirement for adequate investment planning and capital review processes is implemented and decisions are properly documented. Currently, Capital Review Committees (or equivalent) are active in all regions except Manitoba. Manitoba region plans to have a committee in place by April 2014. Expected completion: Q1, 2014-15 AES: Ongoing. |
| 2. The SADM of Regional Operations should develop guidance to assist Regions in implementing a consistent approach for the conduct of annual inspections and ensure inspections are completed appropriately in all Regions and results are properly recorded. | Revised annual inspection guidance, providing clear instructions was issued in October 2012. Further, the Regional Operations Working Group will develop a framework by June 2013 for a risk-based scheduling of inspections to be implemented in the 2014-15 annual performance inspection cycle. The Management Control Framework (MCF) for the Capital Facilities and Maintenance Program (CFMP) sets out requirements for the timing of inspection reporting. To ensure inspections are completed appropriately in all Regions and are properly recorded, regions are required to report progress on annual inspections in their Quarterly Reports. CIB monitors this reporting, and the rate of data uploaded to ICMS to ensure that inspections are completed appropriately and results are properly recorded. Uploads of inspection data will take place during December 2012 and January 2013 according to the established timetable. |
October 2012 June 2013 January 2013 |
2.1 Status: Underway. Update/Rationale: As of 30/09/2013: Revised annual inspections guidance was issued in October 2012. This package included clear instructions for annual performance inspections (API) of water/wastewater systems. Over the past year, Regional Operations API Working Group has refined and reduced the API questionnaires which will be used for the 2014-15 cycle and beyond, as planned. Options for the frequency of inspections, including risk-based, were analysed and a draft recommendation has been made to continue with the annual frequency of inspections. Should senior management approve this recommendation, a framework will no longer be required. (revised expected completion date: Q3, 2013-14) AES: Recommend to close. Update/Rationale: As of 30/09/2013: In the Quarterly Reports, Regions are required to report on completed inspections within the quarter in which they are completed. CIB performs random audits to determine the quality of data as they are uploaded. Then at the end of the results cycle, all data is examined. Most regions met the deadline to upload the 2012 results (by Jan 31, 2013), although some results were uploaded later (before the end of March). |
| 3. The SADM of Regional Operations should clarify Water and Wastewater Infrastructure (WWI) project management information requirements, identify information sources, and develop a consistent approach for how project management information is to be collated using a single system. | 3.1: A long-term strategy to enhance the effectiveness of the ICMS project tracking and support regions in meeting the project management information requirements of the MCF will be presented to the ICMS Steering Committee for approval. | December 2012 | 3.1: Status: Completed, request to close Update/Rationale: As of 30/06/2013: The long-term strategy for enhancing ICMS has been approved by the ICMS Steering Committee. The first phase of this strategy is the enhancement of the capital planning and project tracking module. Development of the enhancements is underway, and should be implemented with Release 6.5, scheduled for November 2013. AES: Implemented. |
| 3.2: To support regions in using ICMS to track projects, the ICMS team will provide regional offices with a guidance document: ICMS Infrastructure Investment Planning and Project Tracking (Instructions for the use of ICMS Project Tracking and Capital Planning modules). | June 2013 | 3.2 Status: Underway. Update/Rationale: As of 30/09/2013: The ICMS Budget module was sent to Regions for feedback. The ICMS manual for FNIIP and Project Tracking is up to date, but will be expanded pending User Acceptance Testing results. Consultations with regions took place for its development, as well as discussions about implementation. Training will be provided to regions after the November Release of ICMS 6.5, when the manual is in use. (revised expected completion date: November 2013) AES: Recommend to close. |
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| 3.3: Work to explore the feasibility of integrating the ICMS and FNITP project reporting systems into a single system will not be undertaken until the planned change to the underlying platform of the FNITP has been completed. | 3.3 Status: Request to Temporarily Close until December 2014. Update/Rationale: As of 30/09/2013: The corporate effort to align major data systems has not progressed to a point that the feasibility work can be undertaken at this point. Nevertheless, our intent is still to examine the feasibility of connecting to GCIMS in early 2014/15. AES: Recommend to postpone until December 2014. |
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| 4. The SADM of Regional Operations should clarify MCF requirements and ensure Regions understand and comply with all aspects of the MCF for the CFM Program, including the delegated levels of authority, and Regions complete project risk assessments for all current and future projects. | CIB is updating the MCF to provide greater clarity on approvals processes for projects that are high risk and of high materiality ($10M and above) and on how to calculate and apply risk management to capital projects. This includes new text in the body of the MCF as well as more robust instructions in the Annex. CIB will be presenting the revised MCF to Operations Committee for approval in mid-November, 2012. | November 2012. | Status: Complete, request to close Update/Rationale: As of 30/06/2013: Complete: The Operations Committee approved version 3 of the Management Control Framework, including greater clarity regarding projects identified as high risk and high materiality (revisions were made to both the body of the MCF and Risk Management Annex). The Management Control Framework will be reviewed and updated again in the fall of 2013. Expected completion date: Q2, 2013-14 AES: Fully implemented. Recommendation to be closed. Closed. |