Pettapiece responds to Auditor General’s SAMS investigation
QUEEN’S PARK – Today, the Auditor General of Ontario released her 2015 Annual Report, which included a value-for-money Audit on the government’s Social Assistance Management System (SAMS). Ontario PC Community and Social Services Critic Randy Pettapiece (MPP for Perth-Wellington) issued the following statement after reviewing the investigation:
“Since SAMS launched over a year ago, we in the PC caucus have been clear: the system isn’t working. We knew the implementation was flawed; now we know exactly how misguided it was.
Today’s report confirms that the government knew SAMS was not ready to implement in November 2014, but the government went ahead anyway. Despite advance warning that major performance issues plagued the system, the government failed to test it, and failed to fix it, before implementing it.
Now we know the pressure was on because the Ministry of Community and Social Services feared the government would cancel the SAMS project as it was costing too much and taking too long. The government went ahead at the cost of recipients’ well-being and privacy.
Based on the information the auditor uncovered, there are still 771 serious defects with the Social Assistance Management System. It takes the ministry an average of 40 days to fix one serious defect. Who knows how many more defects will be discovered as caseworkers continue to adapt to the system? At this rate, it could take the government years to address all of the defects, even if they make it a priority. As it stands, the auditor states: ‘…the Ministry has not made fixing defects a priority.’
Caseworkers are also paying the price—in money, time, and stress—for the government’s mismanagement. Some of our province’s most vulnerable citizens are receiving erroneous cheques, having their bank accounts frozen and their privacy breached. It’s been a disaster from the beginning, and there is still no end in sight.
The SAMS project is over a year behind schedule and $50 million over budget. We’ve known from the beginning that the government bungled this implementation. Today the auditor confirmed it in considerable detail.
It is now time for action. The government should start with an immediate apology—to the most vulnerable whose lives were disrupted; to caseworkers; and to taxpayers. Then it should immediately accept and implement the auditor’s five recommendations.”