Between 1978 and 1992, the Office of the Comptroller General (OCG) promoted and enforced sound financial management practices throughout the federal government through development of standards for internal financial controls, reporting structures, program review, evaluation, performance measurement and internal audit procedures in departments, and through independent effectiveness studies of departmental programs. The Comptroller General also had the responsibility for developing the official response to the Annual Report of the Auditor General. During the years, 1978-1992, the Treasury Board Secretariat was, in effect, divided in two, each half having the status of a separate department of government but both reporting to the President of the Treasury Board and both serving as elaborate secretariats for the Treasury Board as a Committee of Cabinet with a broad and expanding mandate to manage the material, financial and personnel resources of the Government of Canada. In 1992, the Office of the Comptroller General and the Treasury Board Secretariat were merged once again into a single Department of Government with the deputy head bearing the two titles, Secretary of the Treasury Board and Comptroller General. The reintegration of functions of the two secretariats involved an organic reorganization of the merged department, reflected in the mixture of new branch prefixes attached to files originally created by the antecedent OCG.
The records in this series document the activities of the OCG as a separate Secretariat in establishing policy, maintaining standards and reviewing departmental practices in regard to financial control, management accounting and reporting, financial management systems, program evaluation, internal audit and comprehensive audit techniques. Files from block 8057 in the series comprise detailed program by program evaluations which, in conjunction with other accessions, will eventually provide a comprehensive analytical portrait of federal government programs circa 1980-1990, just before the massive program review innovations that began in 1993. Records documenting the Comptroller functions of the Treasury Board Secretariat after 1993 appear in other series.
See also accessions 90-91/163, 93-94/043, 1994-95/767.
