The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration is drifting into the future without a clear vision of what it should be doing, how it should be doing it or how to measure what it does, says federal auditor general Denis Desautels.
And the federal government seems to be in the same bind in figuring out how to deal with the 62-year-old agency, created during the Depression as a soil erosion fighter.
Ottawa now asks PFRA to provide or administer new programs and to be concerned with rural economic and social issues, as well as sustainability, even as its staff and funding are cut.
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“As budgets continue to decline, the need becomes much greater for a systematic decision-making process in order to be fair and to obtain greatest value for money,” said a report on the PFRA tabled in the House of Commons Dec. 2.
The auditor general encouraged the PFRA to collect more of its $70 million budget from farmers who benefit from its services.
“Cost recovery has been implemented for approximately $10 million of its services but there is an opportunity to expand these cost recovery initiatives,” said the report. “There is inconsistency in what is presently recovered.”
Most of it comes from community pasture fees.
Each year, the auditor general examines a number of federal departments and agencies to investigate whether money is being pilfered, wasted or not properly managed.
This year, PFRA was one of the targets and auditors found it financially proper but adrift in focus and mandate where value-for-money is measured.
“Although the (PFRA) has adapted to the changing needs of the prairies, it clearly needs to clarify its strategic direction and priorities, linking its business plan, its operational planning and decision making and its financial planning to the results it expects to achieve,” said the report.
From an original role as a promoter of shelterbelts, soil and water conservation, the Regina-based branch of Agriculture Canada now is charged with encouraging the “rehabilitation of the agricultural prairie landscape.”
Yet there is no clear plan and not even a definition of what that means.
“The lack of a shared understanding of terminology and strategic direction has the potential to impede the pace and consistency of rehabilitation across the prairie landscape,” said the auditor’s report.
Strained resources
It noted that as the federal government asks PFRA to take on more special projects, such as distributing Crow Benefit payout cheques, the focus of the branch is further diluted and its resources further strained.
And when a program is completed, federal auditors found there is no established process by which the PFRA judges results.
“It does not have a basis for determining how well a program has been delivered nor can it measure the program’s impact on the prairie landscape,” the auditor general’s office concluded.
Feedback from direct PFRA clients, such as community pasture users, are “a useful but limited form of performance measurement.”
Agriculture Canada said it accepts many of the criticisms and is working on improvements, including development of a performance reporting and accountability system.
