Photo: Controller and Auditor General
Poor performance reporting, difficulty tracing what government spending actually achieves, and the erosion of trust in the public sector have been key concerns of the Auditor General John Ryan.
He retires from the role of public spending watchdog on July 1 after a seven year term. In that time he has overseen thousands of audits of Crown entities including nearly 2500 schools.
The office has also investigated huge public spending projects from post Covid subsidies to the Provincial Growth Fund, to how the government is achieving its climate goals.
In other words - are taxpayers getting bang for buck?
With government spending more than $160b a year, Mr Ryan says whoever is in power should be able to say what it wants to achieve, how it's going to do so, how much it will cost, and what progress is being made.
