Public PAC hearings are scheduled at the LA for next week as below:

Wednesday, 16 January 2019 at 1 pm

Thursday, 17 January 2019 at 10 am

Cayman Islands Auditor General’s Follow-up on past PAC recommendations

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) published its first Follow-up on past PAC recommendations in July 2017. The purpose of the report was to assess how well the Cayman Islands Government (the Government) was implementing previous recommendations made by the Legislative Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the OAG.
This report provides an annual update to the PAC (as at October 2018) on how the Government has responded to its recommendations. It covers PAC reports issued during 2017 and the first quarter of 2018 to which the Government has formally responded. It also provides an update on progress with four reports that were assessed as having limited or some progress made in the 2017 report.1
The PAC tabled two reports in 2017 and a further two reports in the first quarter of 2018. The Government is required by (Section 77(7) of the Legislative Assembly Standing Orders (2018 Consolidation)) to formally respond within three months of the PAC laying an Auditor General report in the House. The Government provided its formal response to these four reports in its Government Minute of June 2018, which was laid in the Legislative Assembly on 28 June 2018.
In its August 2017 report, that PAC stated that Government needed to take more seriously how it responded to the PAC’s recommendations and the submission of Government Minutes, as they are an integral part of the accountability process. The PAC also stated that future Government Minutes should be factual, informative, thorough and real-time updates on progress; and that they should identify resources needed to implement the recommendations and when they would be available.
PAC REPORTS TABLED DURING 2017 AND 2018
In its response, the Government has committed to providing the PAC with timely presentation of the Government Minute and appropriate responses to PAC recommendations. The Government has responded to the two PAC reports from March 2018 within the three month timescale (allowing for dates of Legislative Assembly sittings). However, the Government’s responses to the two PAC reports tabled in 2017 were not received within the three months required by the Standing Order; one was 12 months late and the other was 7 months late.

CONCLUSION

1. The Cayman Islands Government (the Government) continues to make progress in implementing the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) and my Office’s recommendations. However, overall progress remains slow.
2. My report covers the Government’s progress with implementing the recommendations in eight reports. Four of the reports were new PAC reports tabled in the Legislative Assembly between January 2017 and March 2018. I have also re-assessed progress in implementing the recommendation in four reports that I previously assessed as having made only limited or some progress in July 2017. Overall, I have assessed the eight reports as:
    Significant progress has been made with two reports i.e. all or most of the recommendations have been implemented.
    Some progress has been made with five reports i.e. some recommendations have been implemented; some are in progress; planned implementation dates are in the future; there has been no progress with some recommendations; or it is not clear what actioned (if any) is planned.
    Limited progress has been made with one report.
3. For the four new PAC reports that I have assessed for the first time, I am pleased to note that the Government has implemented a number of recommendations and plans to take most of the others forward. I have therefore assessed the Government’s progress with implementing the recommendations as ‘significant’ for one report and ‘some progress’ for three reports.
4. For the four PAC reports that I am assessing progress for the second time, progress has been made on implementing more of the recommendations than this time last year, but dates for implementing many of these recommendations have been rescheduled to the future. My overall assessment of these reports has improved for two reports and stayed the same for two reports.
5. The Government has taken a significant step by committing to provide the PAC with more timely presentation of Government Minutes and ensuring that it provides appropriate responses to recommendations. The Ministry of Finance has also been given responsibility for coordinating and preparing Government Minutes. These actions should further improve the accountability process but it is too early to comment on the effectiveness of this new approach. However, I am pleased to note that the quality of Government’s responses has improved since the last Government Minute in October 2016.
6. The PAC may wish to hold hearings with senior civil servants to ask for further updates with the implementation of some recommendations, particularly for those reports that we have assessed as limited or some progress (rated as Red and Amber respectively) or where target implementation dates are in the future.