Conflicts of Interest

This webpage provides details on Creative Saskatchewan’s Conflict of Interest controls.

Creative Saskatchewan has robust conflict of interest policies, financial controls, and segregation of duties in place to ensure that both actual and perceived conflicts are managed appropriately.

The below measures are sourced from Creative Saskatchewan’s Finance Policy Manual, Governance Policy Manual, and Staff Policy Manual. These policies contain detailed information about internal controls and processes. Making this level of operational detail publicly available could pose a significant security risk. For this reason, we do not publish the full policies, but rather we have summarized the Conflict of Interest measures below.

Any amendments made after the fact will be posted here:

• No amendments to date.

Decision Making, Awarding Grants, and Approving Payments

•  Creative Saskatchewan has specific provisions related to conflicts of interest involving staff, the CEO, Board members, and immediate family members. These include:
  •  Removal of conflicted individuals from decision-making processes;
  • Multi-level approval requirements;
  • Automated conflict triggers in our invoice approval system;
  • Board oversight;
  • Clear documentation and audit trails; and
  • No individual can be a part of any decision-making or approve their own expenses or those of their immediate family. There are at least two other management-level and two other board-level signing authorities within the agency that must authorize the payment in these instances.
    • These controls are reviewed annually by The Office of the Provincial Auditor, and all funding commitments are published in our annual report.
• All approvals are documented in our accounting software, creating an audit trail that is reviewed by the Office of the Provincial Auditor each year for compliance.
•  All applicants and applications are subject to funding caps within the relevant program guidelines.
• Grants are awarded based on established eligibility criteria and program guidelines through external Assessment Panels, rather than discretionary staff decisions.
• There is a review and reversal mechanism available in the unlikely event that a decision needed to be overturned.

We welcome questions regarding our Conflict of Interest measures at anytime, please feel free to send your inquiries to office@creativesask.ca.

To our valued clients, we want to assure you that raising concerns or seeking clarification on this topic has no impact on your current or future applications with us. As a public funder, our role is to ensure fair, consistent, and accountable decision-making.