Annual Report: 2003-2004

The Corporate Services function provides administrative services (financial, human resources, information technology, general administrative and library services) to the Information Commissioner's office. Its objective is to support those who administer the program.

Since fiscal year 2002-2003, the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada has had to provide its corporate services independently, after the former Privacy Commissioner’s unilateral decision to terminate the shared service model based on service usage.

Therefore, during 2003-2004, the Corporate Services function had to acquire additional resources to compensate for the increased workload and reduced economies of scale resulting from the former Privacy Commissioner’s decision.

In spite of the many challenges faced by the Corporate Services Branch, it was able to address and improve several important aspects of its services.

Financial Services

Improvements in financial services initiated by the Senior Financial Officer (SFO) included preparing comprehensive policies and procedures governing the application and monitoring of financial delegation of funds to managers. These policies and procedures supported a new delegation document that updated limits on the authority of OIC managers to expend funds on such items as hospitality, office supplies and contracts. A formal briefing package based upon these policies and procedures and the new delegation document was also developed and provided to responsibility centre managers.

The SFO also initiated a review of the progress made towards implementing Modern Comptrollership across the organization, using the management framework as set out by Treasury Board Secretariat in its Managing for Results publication. The results of the review demonstrated that, except for a few aspects, Modern Comptrollership is fully implemented in the OIC. An Action Plan has been approved and, subject to available resources, will be undertaken in 2004-2005 to fully implement those aspects needing improvement.

In a letter dated July 11, 2003, the Public Service Commission indicated its satisfaction with the manner in which the OIC respects staffing values in the use of its delegated staffing authorities. The PSC recognized the good practices already in place and, in response to its recommendations, the Corporate Services Branch provided all OIC employees with a course on Staffing Values and training on Public Service Values and Ethics.

As well, during 2003-2004, the Corporate Services Branch developed, published, and implemented a process and guidelines for dealing with wrongdoing in the workplace and disseminated information advising all new employees of the code and their responsibilities toward it.

During the fiscal year, the branch began work on a functional plan for human resources management, along with a communications strategy, which will ensure that both the plan and important values such as competency, fairness, equity and transparency are understood. The branch also developed plans and allocated appropriate funds for training for each human resources specialist to ensure that they were equipped to provide ongoing advice on process and values to managers and employees.

Efficient technology is needed to adequately track, store and report upon the status of enquiries, complaints and their related events on a case-by-case basis. The Corporate Services Branch developed and implemented an effective and efficient case tracking system for investigations (the Integrated Investigations Application) and for legal cases (the Legal Tracking System). As well, in the same period, the branch installed an automated telephone inquiries system.

These systems, together with repatriation from external vendors of the technology support services, such as e-mail, intranet and internet web hosting, has further improved the levels and quality of these services, at an acceptable cost.

During 2003-2004, the OIC continued to provide a public reading room through its library services and updated all of its policies and procedures contained in a comprehensive and current Administrative Manual through its administrative services. As well, to comply with the government’s disaster recovery initiative, work commenced on a business continuity plan.

The Information Commissioner's operating budget for the 2003-2004 fiscal year was $4,639,670. Actual expenditures for 2003-2004 were $4,636,083 of which $60,238 is reimbursable to the department through Treasury Board Vote 5.

Personnel costs of $3,668,039 accounted for 79 percent of all expenditures; whereas, the remaining $968,044 covered all other expenditures, including other professional services, transportation and communication.

Expenditure details are reflected in Figure 2 (Resources by Activity) and Figure 3 (Details by Object of Expenditure).

The Resource Challenge

In the last decade, resources have not kept pace with workload. With respect to the investigator group, the office has been unable to replace retiring or departing investigators and has a current investigator complement of 23, which is well below the number of investigators required to complete the forecast annual workload of received complaints. On top of this deficit, there is a backlog of incomplete investigations, which is equivalent to a year’s workload for the office.

With respect to the non-investigator group, the office has seriously depleted its capacity in the past 10 years in order to transfer resources to the investigator group. The office has moved from two assistant commissioners to one deputy commissioner; from an Executive Director of Operations and two directors of investigations to a Director General of Investigations and Reviews and a Director of Operations; and from a Director of Legal Services and Director of Litigation Services to a combined Director of Legal Services.

As well, the office had to give up its public affairs, research, education and training capacity entirely in order to put resources towards an increasing workload of investigations.

Despite repeated efforts to convince the Treasury Board to properly fund the full range of the commissioner’s mandate--including several exhaustive reviews by independent consultants, jointly with the Treasury Board Secretariat--emergency and partial funding only has been forthcoming.

This resource crisis was a matter of discussion by the Parliamentary Committee on Government Operations and Estimates during the Information Commissioner’s appearance this year to defend the 2004-05 budget estimates. Some members asked whether the inadequacy of resources may be the government’s way of weakening the commissioner’s ability to investigate and expose cases of improper government secrecy; is the government using its authority to grant and withhold resources to undermine the commissioner’s effectiveness and independence.

The commissioner did not find it necessary to impute bad faith to make the point that there is a real problem of inadequate funding and the result is a weakened ability to do the job Parliament has asked the Information Commissioner to do.

The commissioner will make another try this year to convince a new government to do what the Chrétien government would not--properly fund the Office of the Information Commissioner. The commissioner will also work with Parliament and the other Officers of Parliament to find a new funding mechanism which will be more independent of government. The approach taken by Parliament to the funding of the Ethics Commissioner provides an interesting alternative. In that approach, the Ethics Commissioner will propose a budget to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Once the Speaker is satisfied (likely after review by the Board of Internal Economy), the budget will be forwarded to Treasury Board which will, without change or reduction, be included in the government’s spending estimates and the funding made available to the Ethics Commissioner.