CCRA Annual Report to Parliament 2002-2003

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Innovation

Over the past three years, the CCRA has made significant progress in its ambitious five-year innovation agenda to take full advantage of our agency status and become a leading-edge service organization. Our agenda has been led by four change objectives:

  • Business transformation
  • Human resources reform and renewal
  • Administrative reform and renewal
  • Transparent management for results

Our top objective, business transformation, is all about providing the best possible service to Canadians. The last three objectives are designed to strengthen our internal capacities for delivering on this service commitment.

Business Transformation

Our two main initiatives to transform our core business are the Customs Action Plan (CAP) and Future Directions. To better address the extraordinary challenges to border security witnessed in recent years, we have accelerated our implementation of the CAP with major investments in state-of-the art tools and technology to interdict weapons and contraband. We have also expanded our partnerships with Canadian, American, and other international departments and agencies. For instance, we have implemented key elements of the Canada/U.S. Smart Border Declaration to better secure our joint borders with the U.S., and we have worked with Health Canada to develop screening measures to fight the travel-related spread of SARS. At the same time, we have been working to expedite the free flow of low-risk goods and travellers through a variety of new permit and pre-approval programs such as CANPASS, NEXUS, and Free and Secure Trade (FAST).

Since launching our Future Directions initiative in April 2001, we have been working with each of our key client groups to identify and implement the elements essential to achieving our goal of becoming a leading-edge service organization. A key element of our strategy has been to invest heavily in new technologies to support a wide variety of electronic services. Through this process, we have delivered e-government services to Canadians and are at the forefront of the Government On-Line initiative. Our investments in automated systems and tools are already beginning to pay dividends. For instance, the growing popularity of electronic tax filing is resulting in faster service, improved accuracy, and greater efficiency. Although we have not yet achieved our goal for the majority of all returns to be filed electronically, the trend is positive. More Canadians every year are taking advantage of our expanding range of self-service Internet options for obtaining the information they need and maintaining their accounts without having to call for assistance.

Strengthening and enhancing our relationships with provinces and territories through an accountable, client-focused approach has been at the forefront of our priorities. Our aim is to reduce overlap by pursuing opportunities to offer more services on behalf of our partners. Doing so would lower the overall cost to taxpayers of dealing with government, ease compliance burdens, and deliver higher levels of service. Over the past several years, we have delivered a number of new one-time and ongoing provincial and territorial benefit programs, expanded our data transfer and exchange arrangements, participated in new business number partnerships, and enhanced our accountability through service management frameworks. The current federal/provincial/territorial climate is affected by many contentious issues outside of our control. As a result, our progress this past year was slower than planned. Nonetheless, we are positioning ourselves to offer more services to our partners in future years, such as expanding our Workers' Compensation Board partnerships and administering other major tax programs.

Overall, our service strategy appears to be working. For instance, the 2002 Citizens First Survey 1 indicates that our service quality rating in the area of income tax has increased 4 points, from 55 in 2000, to 59 in 2002. The results of the Citizens First Survey relating to CCRA's service to Canadians, have generally been consistent with prior years. As well, the CCRA's Annual Surveys1 show that more Canadians feel that the CCRA is doing a good or very good job overall (64% in 2002 and 68% in 2001), up from 61% in 2000. Further, the results from the Annual Survey relating to the percentage of Canadians rating the CCRA as doing a good or very good job overall, have been broadly consistent against prior years. We will continue to monitor trends over the coming years to confirm that clients continue to be satisfied with our improvements in service.

Human Resources Reform and Renewal

As in any service organization, people are our most important resource. Most of our human resources innovation initiatives are either completed or on schedule. We are on track with the process aimed at customizing our classification, staffing, competencies, and compensation processes to fit our core business needs. We are making progress in streamlining staffing procedures, placing greater decision-making authority in the hands of managers, providing personalized training plans for the majority of our employees, and achieving key milestones in the development of a Compensation Service Delivery Model. On balance, we are on schedule with our human resources reform and renewal strategy.

Administrative Reform and Renewal

We have been working to streamline our administrative processes, policies, and systems to increase our productivity, generate savings, and reduce inefficiencies. Overall, we have made good progress and completed about 70% of all administrative reform and renewal initiatives. Through these initiatives, we estimated savings of $8.4 million this year, and total cumulative savings will be about $53 million over the next four years.

Transparent Management for Results

Our innovation agenda is founded on principles of modern comptrollership, including strategic planning, sound risk management, transparency, and accountability. In 2002-2003, we developed a more structured quarterly budgeting and expenditure reporting system, which will contribute to improved risk-management and control. In accordance with the 2002-2003 Federal Budget, we implemented the accrual accounting of tax revenues. We successfully piloted activity-based costing as a means to improve strategic cost management. Although our progress in integrating financial and non-financial reporting has not been as rapid as we envisioned, the first release of the automated Balanced Scorecard (BSC) system was provided to selected corporate planners and analysts in February 2003. As we move closer to 2005, the BSC will play an increasingly pivotal role in helping us improve our understanding of good performance drivers. We will then be able to support more effective strategic decisions and investments. We have also made significant progress in planning and accountability through our improved Corporate Business Plan that more clearly defines deliverables, and our Annual Report that presents our performance in an innovative, outcome-oriented manner.

Exhibit 6 outlines our performance highlights in support of our strategic outcome of Innovation.

Exhibit 6: Strategic Outcome Statement – Innovation

Strategic Outcome:

The CCRA is a leading-edge service organization.

Performance rating

Data
quality

Actual Results
for 2002-2003:

We have met our expectations for year three and are on track for our five-year plan for meeting the potential of our agency status to provide client-centred service delivery.
2002-2003
Met
Reasonable

Page
Ref.

2001-2002
Met
Reasonable

As Demonstrated by:
  • Business Transformation

  • Client Satisfaction – The Citizens First Survey shows a four point increase in our client service quality rating in the area of income tax since 2000 from 55 to 59 out of 100. As well, our 2002 Annual Survey1 indicates that the majority of Canadians (64%) feel that the CCRA is doing a good or very good job overall, up from 61% in 2000. An even higher percentage of respondents (68%) expressed this opinion last year, possibly reflecting an especially supportive view of government in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

  • Service Standards – We met or mostly met the majority of our most important service standards, but recognize the need to improve how we monitor and report them, particularly in Customs. In addition, we established six new service standards.

  • Service Innovation – Our e-commerce and Government On-Line initiatives included piloting new electronic filing options and expanding self-service options for managing information and accounts that reduce the need for clients to call. For the majority of provinces/territories, the T1 electronic filing participation rate was close to our 50% target.
  • Customs Action Plan – We invested heavily in state-of-the-art tools and technology to interdict weapons and contraband. We also strengthened our partnership with the U.S. under the Smart Border Declaration to better secure our joint border. At the same time, we have been working to expedite the free flow of low-risk goods and travellers through a variety of new and enhanced permit and pre-approval programs such as CANPASS, NEXUS, and Free and Secure Trade (FAST).
  • Partnerships – We are making progress in advancing new partnership arrangements with the provinces and territories, characterized by several new Business Number and service management framework agreements, and an agreement to deliver a new provincial taxpayer refund program.
  • Human Resources Reform and Renewal – Most of our Human Resources (HR) innovation initiatives are either completed or on schedule. We are on track toward streamlining staffing procedures, placing greater decision-making authority in the hands of managers, developing personalized training plans for the majority of our employees, and achieving key milestones in developing a Compensation Service Delivery Model.
  • Administrative Reform and Renewal – We have made good progress by completing about 70% of our initiatives aimed at streamlining our administrative processes, policies, and systems to increase productivity, generate savings, and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies. Through these initiatives, we estimated savings of $8.4 million this year and total cumulative savings will be about $53 million over the next four years.
  • Transparent Management for Results – We developed a more structured quarterly budgeting and expenditure reporting system, which will contribute to improved risk management and control. We have successfully piloted activity-based costing as a means to improve strategic cost management. Although the integration of financial and non-financial reporting is behind schedule, the first release of the automated Balanced Scorecard (BSC) system was provided to selected corporate planners and analysts in February 2003.
1 The survey “How Canadians view the CCRA, 2002” was conducted by a marketing research company using the same methods as a typical opinion poll. As with many opinion poll surveys, the response rate was extremely low (13%). While this method may provide findings of interest, the reader should be aware that the potential for bias in either direction is significant. The response rate for this survey is similar to the government-wide Citizen's First Survey (14%), although prior CCRA surveys had higher response rates.



Date modified:
2003-10-29