The Office of the Auditor General presented its latest report to the Legislative Assembly today, 
Progress Audit: Credit Union Supervision in British Columbia. The report focuses on the Financial Institutions Commission's (FICOM) progress in our addressing the recommendations from our 2014 report, Credit Union Supervision in British Columbia.
Despite making progress in many areas, FICOM's efforts to address its staffing shortage are not working. Government pay scales limit FICOM's ability to offer competitive salaries. Without more staff, FICOM can't meet its goal of reviewing all B.C. credit unions every two to three years.
FICOM receives enough money from the credit unions, and the other organizations it monitors, to offer competitive salaries without new funding from government. It just needs the green light from government to offer market appropriate salaries.
There is a continuing risk to B.C.'s 42 credit unions, their 1.9 million members, and more than $58 billion in deposits if FICOM isn't able to fulfil its goal of monitoring the credit unions. Unless identified early, problems in even a few small credit unions can spread feelings of uncertainty and a loss of confidence in the overall system.
It's like having a smoke detector in your house, but not buying the batteries. No batteries, no early warning system.
FICOM has made progress on many of the original 11 recommendations. It has completed four and it is well on its way with 4 more. Hardly any work has been done on the remaining 3 recommendations – due to staff shortages - and 2 of those first require completion of FICOM's operational plan for deposit insurance.
Click here for an audio/visual summary of the report
