Auditor General's report highlights 100 recommendations to fix government departments

Nova Scotia's auditor general is calling for an overhaul of the province's Industrial Expansion Fund, saying it has too few controls.

In a report released Wednesday, Jacques Lapointe says the multimillion-dollar business development fund relies too heavily on
secret reports to cabinet, has no application system or risk assessment and little information in its files.

Lapointe says this is no way to manage public funds and the government is making poorly informed decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete information.

The Industrial Expansion Fund made more than $38 million in loans and other assistance in the last fiscal year.

Shortly after the report was made public, Premier Darrell Dexter announced he's setting up another economic development fund to replace the current one.

He says it would have measures in place to boost accountability and adds the fund would have documented policies to monitor
loans and a formalized application process to ensure companies seeking help are consistently assessed.

He says his government plans to wind down the Industrial Expansion Fund by March 31, 2012.

Lapointe also pointed out the province's fire marshal is compromising public safety through poor inspections and lax management and says the office of the fire marshal has no inventory of buildings that require fire safety inspections.

He says management doesn't know if fire safety inspections have been done or if identified deficiencies have been addressed.

Lapointe found in his review that 47 per cent of required inspections were not completed.

The auditor also warned that the fire marshal's office does a poor job of monitoring municipalities to make sure they inspect buildings for fire safety.

He says only five of 56 municipalities have been reviewed since 2003 to see if they comply with the Fire Safety Act.

Lapionte's audit also shows the government isn't doing enough to keep high-risk drivers off the road.

He found a 10-month backlog of collision reports and a three-month backlog of medical reports.

The audit also found the government isn't enforcing deadlines for drivers to provide medical assessments used to determine whether they should continue to drive.

The government's controls over the renewal of inspection station and tester licenses were found to be poor by the auditor.

Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations says while it agrees with many of the auditor's recommendations and is implementing some of them, it is not practical to eliminate the backlog of collision reports given its resources.

You can see the entire report at www.oag-ns.ca