‘Just the next step’: Ontario launches financially focused audit of children’s aid

Four years after announcing it was planning to overhaul the province’s child welfare system completely, the Ford government is launching a more financially focused audit of the system, hinting the original overhaul may now be part of general, ongoing efforts to improve.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services issued a request for service for a group to complete an audit of the current system and offered some new details of an audit plan first publicly mentioned by Premier Doug Ford at a news conference in the summer.

The minister in charge of the file said the audit is not a change of policy but the latest step in an ongoing project to improve and review the entire children’s aid sector.

“This is just the next step, the announcement today is just the next step in our ongoing efforts to improve the supports and services that are being provided to children and youth in our province,” Michael Parsa, Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, told global News.

“We’re talking about the protection of children and youth in our province. We should always look at ways of improving supports and services that are being delivered for them.”

During a technical briefing, officials focused on the financial indicators in the province’s child welfare sector, including salaries, real estate portfolios and value for money.

Data presented showed over the past decade there has been a 49 per cent decrease in open protection cases, a 30 decrease in children in care and a 51 per cent decrease in investigations that get transferred to ongoing service.

Children’s aid societies are also reporting losses, according to the government, with $55 million in deficits recorded over the past five years, with further deficits projected for this year.

At the same time, officials showed a three per cent increase in the number of staff and said funding allocations have increased nine per cent. Inflation in that period has increased 28 per cent, according to the Bank of Canada.

Premier Ford first mentioned the idea of an audit in August.

“It’s very unfortunate that that’s happening, but we’re pouring money into that,” he said during a question and answer at a news event. “We’re going to do a complete audit of the entire system because I feel we have some issues there.”

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Later, at another event at the start of October, the premier referenced “abuse of taxpayers’ money.”

Details of the audit shared on Wednesday revealed it would look at all 37 non-Indigenous children’s aid agencies in Ontario, with the initial audit including service delivery, executive compensation, staffing, capital assets and operational costs.

Depending on the results of that study, further probes could be triggered into specific areas if the ministry decides that they’re necessary.

Although the request for service launched on Wednesday, the government said some key terms and details — including who would be able to have input into the audit — were still to be decided.

“Today we started the process, it will be a third-party vendor that will be selected,” Parsa said. “We want to make sure that we (do) whatever we need to do. We’ll leave no stone unturned.”

The review is set to launch this fall and result in a final report sometime in the spring of 2025. It is not yet clear if they will be made public.

The recent and rapid launch of an audit focused especially on the financial health of children’s aid societies comes more than four years after the government announced a complete review of child welfare.

In response to a separate media request in September relating to an Ombudsman review into children’s aid organizations using hotels to house vulnerable youth, the province said the audit was a continuation of the redesign work announced years ago.

“Since 2020 we have also been working to redesign Ontario’s child welfare system, which is continuing with an audit of children’s aid societies with the focus on enhancing child safety,” a spokesperson said at the time.

“Our goal is to ensure the safety of all children, and we welcome the Ombudsman’s review and recommendations to support the ongoing work of the redesign.”

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Officials on Wednesday were vague on the redesign plan and whether it would formally conclude with reforms or recommendations, instead suggesting it was part of an ongoing effort to strive for excellence.

Parsa said it was “just the next step” in the process but didn’t explain where it fitted into the general redesign.

While the province pushes ahead with its new audit, critics have questioned the shift and claimed it is designed to move focus away from a series of controversies.

“We need investments, not distractions,” Ontario NDP critic Monique Taylor said in a statement.

“Ford’s ‘review’ does nothing about decades of government underfunding, it does nothing about the crisis brewing in the system, it is simply an abdication of responsibility from a government that is choosing to look away from the crisis. They have been reviewing for five years, but what do they have to show for it?”

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The government has been under sustained pressure on the child welfare file for some time.

Detailed media reporting on the life of a four-year-old girl found dead in a Toronto dumpster exposed a series of failings by children’s aid societies, while frontline workers have complained the severity of child welfare cases is increasing.

Data previously obtained by global News also showed that, over three years, an average of one child died every three days under Ontario’s child welfare network.

A joint statement earlier this week from the two unions representing frontline children’s aid workers in Ontario said the government had made “no progress” on its redesign since announcing it four years ago.

The unions suggested they felt children’s aid organizations were under increasing financial pressure.

“Workers are already worked to the bone, with CAS agencies stretching to fill service gaps exacerbated by this government’s gutting of social services as a whole,” said JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO.

“The solution has always been to adequately fund the system so that the most vulnerable youth in our communities can receive the supports they need. It’s a low bar, and still the Ford government cannot clear it.”