Our first internal audit will be considered by our Audit Committee next week. It is significant in many ways and not just because it is our first. I learned about the role of an Internal Auditor during a module on Audit Committees and their financial oversight responsibilities.  This was part of the curriculum of The Directors […]

Our City Clerk has recently consolidated and updated our accountability and transparency measures. They can be found on the following webpage – Accountability and Transparency Measures.

In 1967, Guelph, Wellington and Dufferin freely entered into an agreement to amalgamate the Guelph Public Health Unit with that of the Wellington-Dufferin Health Unit. A newly-constituted Board of Health was established to provide the governance for the delivery of public health programs in the three municipalities. There are risks with any partnership. What if […]

Not unlike the shareholder of a company, taxpayers want to know two key things about how the money is used:  There has been no fraud or misappropriation of funds Quality of decision making (has it delivered results) Taxpayers elect members of Council to ensure that management is accountable for the funding that is entrusted to […]

Unlike other levels of government, municipal government does most of its decision making in open meeting – that is to say our meetings are open to the public to attend. There are only few instances that Council can meet in closed session – they are prescribed by legislation.  There has always been a lot of […]

Municipal politicians often campaign on a platform of making local government more responsive and yet when elected introduce or entrench practices that only serve to paralyze City Hall by further centralizing control over decision-making. The principles of accountability and transparency are often loudly touted as the reason to centralize the control of decision-making.  This is […]