The Auditor General released her annual report today. This years report covers a wide range of issues from the province’s home care services to economic development funding. Notably the report provided the AG’s latest review of the Ministry of Community and Social Services’ (MCSS) troubled Social Assistance Management System. On SAMS the AG found that MCSS launched the program despite not property piloting or testing it during the development phase.

Auditor General:

The Ministry launched (the program) anyway because it considered the risks of dealing the launch greater than the risks of launching a system that was not fully ready…Further, the decision to launch was based on incomplete and inaccurate information about SAMS’ readiness.

As of November 2015, SAMS glitches had resulted in $89 million in potential overpayments, and $51 in potential underpayments, with the system itself costing the government an additional $41 million more than what was allocated.

The report also noted that Ontario electricity consumers paid $37 billion more than necessary from 2006 to 2014 as a result of poor government planning, unnecessarily high green energy costs, and poor service from Hydro One.

Other highlights of the report include:

• CAS investigations of child protection cases are taking too long and often are not completed at all
• The provinces planning process for electricity infrastructure has essential broken down over the past decade
• Eighty percent of the province’s economic development funding goes to companies that were invited to apply through an unadvertised process
• Inspections and follow-up of complaints stemming from long-term care homes are falling behind
• Few of the issues raised in an audit of Community Care Access Centres five years ago have been addressed
• The province does not coordinate or track its investments in research and innovation
• Ontario does not have a coordinated plan for cleaning up contaminated sites across the province
• Hydro One’s assets are degrading, resulting in service outages

For more: Auditor General: 2015 Annual Report