Question and Answer Regarding Additional Full-Time Equivalents in 2018–19 and Additional Funding

Question: In the 2018–19 fiscal year, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada received additional funding and said some of it would be used to increase full-time equivalent (FTE) usage by 38. In 2018–19, you planned on using 550 FTEs and finished with 552 FTEs; so, what happened to those additional 38 FTEs?

Answer: In each year since the Office of the Auditor General of Canada received the 2018–19 funding mid-year, the number of our FTEs has been increasing. In fact, the expected FTE usage for this fiscal year is 641* FTEs, as we are managing risk in anticipation of receiving additional funding (552 to 567 to 641—an increase of 89 FTEs over 3 years).

These results have been possible because of the extensive hiring that has been going on since we first requested additional funding. Our number of hires was around 40 people in 2017–18. In 2018–19, we hired 90, the next year 100, and this year, we are on track to hire 180 people.

* Upper limit of what could be possible on the basis of the best-case scenario.