TORONTO, April 30, 2018 – The Honourable J. David Wake, Ontario’s Temporary Financial Accountability Officer, has just released a report that reviews how the Province measures the effectiveness of its business support programs.
The Province has over 100 business support programs that provide support to businesses through tax credits, grants, loans and equity investments. From 2012-13 to 2016-17, the Province provided a cumulative total of approximately $22.9 billion, or about $4.6 billion each year, in support to businesses.
The FAO’s report reviews 12 different business support programs and examines how the Province measures each program’s objectives, performance measures, benchmarks and targets, and the direct effect of each program. The FAO found that only three of the programs collected performance measures that were aligned with the stated objectives of the program and only five of the programs had established any benchmarks or targets by which to measure program performance. The FAO also examined if the Province measured the direct effect of its programs, either through control groups of businesses that did not receive support or through other means. However, for all 12 programs the Province had not undertaken this type of program evaluation.
To learn more about the FAO’s report on the Province’s business support programs, click here.
About the FAO
Established by the Financial Accountability Officer Act, 2013, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) provides independent analysis on the state of the Province’s finances, trends in the provincial economy and related matters important to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Visit our website at http://www.fao-on.org/en/ and follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/InfoFAO.
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For further information or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Kismet Baun l (416) 254-9232 l kbaun@fao-on.org l fao-on.org
