Anticipated Result: Clients receive timely, accessible, reliable and fair service that is responsive to their needs

We maintained awareness of program requirements and take-up by using a variety of communications tools to reach potential benefit and credit recipients, as well as to inform both new and existing clients about their entitlements and how to access benefits. Our study of the take-up rate for the CCTB program 1 indicates that 94.3% of clients who would be entitled to the benefit (as defined by legislation), actually received the benefit for the 2002-2003 benefit year. In July 2003, over 80% of families with children under 18 received the CCTB.

As for the GST/HST credit, 97.8% of filers who were entitled to receive the credit in the 2002-2003 benefit year actually did so, compared to 98.5% in 2001-2002.

Maintaining high program enrolment rates is in part attributable to the outreach efforts we undertook during the year.

• We continued to work with Citizenship and Immigration Canada to ensure that newcomers are aware of potential benefits by placing over 135,000 pamphlets and applications in their Welcome to Canada kits.
• We placed over 400,000 CCTB bookmarks in kits distributed to new mothers through an on-going partnership with the Growing Family Corporation and in Welcome to Parenting boxes distributed by Invest in Kids, and continued to publicize our programs in Government of Canada Services for Children and Services for Seniors guides.
• We placed CCTB information inserts in our July 2003 notices to existing child benefit clients, accompanied in five jurisdictions with 778,000 provincial inserts promoting the National Child Benefit initiative.

Our Annual Survey 2 shows that client awareness of the requirement to inform us of changes to marital status remains relatively high: 81% for CCTB clients, and 77% for GST/HST credit clients.

We sustained our high standard by issuing over 99% of all CCTB, GST/HST credit, and provincial and territorial payments for the programs we administer on time. We delivered 68 million payments totalling almost $11.9 billion to 10.6 million low- and moderate-income recipients. The GST/HST credit and the CCTB were adjusted in July 2003 to reflect indexation-related increases in payments amounts and thresholds, as well as to reflect additional federal funding of the National Child Benefit Supplement component of the CCTB.

We processed over 630,000 CCTB applications in 2003-2004. Based on the results of a study 3 , we met our service standard by processing 99.1% by the end of the second month after they were received, up from 98% in 2002-2003. We also processed over 670,000 account maintenance adjustments in 2003-2004 that required a notice to be issued. A study 4 of this workload shows that we met our service standard by processing 98% by the end of the second month after we received the client's enquiry, up from 97% in 2002-2003. This account maintenance service standard was formalized in the summer 2004 edition of the CCTB and GST/HST credit pamphlets.

Based on the information contained in our benefit records at processing time, we also met our internal performance targets by accurately issuing over 99% of benefit payments and notices when processing applications 5 and 98% when processing account maintenance adjustments 6 . These results maintain the consistently high processing accuracy rates of previous years.

Caller accessibility measures the percentage of unique callers who reach our telephone service. We met our internal performance target for CCTB, with 88%, but did not meet our target for GST/HST credit calls (Figure 13).

Figure 13 Caller Accessibility

In the summer of 2004, a toll-free network was implemented which we believe will significantly improve national caller accessibility rates for GST/HST credit calls by better routing calls to agents. We also intend to develop a service standard for CCTB calls, although work on this has been delayed to 2005-2006, with implementation scheduled for 2006-2007.

We also significantly improved our timeliness in answering calls (Figure 14), answering 7 74% of benefits calls within two minutes of clients entering the queue. However, we did not meet our internal performance target of 80%.

Figure 14 Service Level – Percentage of Telephone Calls Responded to Within Two Minutes

Although our clients rely heavily on telephone communication with us, our service delivery strategy is to reduce our clients' need to call by offering alternative service channels. We launched and updated our My Account service, which allows Benefits clients to view their personal account details on-line, 21 hours per day, 7 days per week. Client use of our Child and Family Benefits Web site to get general information, or to use our benefits simulators, increased over 40% to 1.6 million visits in 2003-2004. As the number of benefits calls we handled through our enquiries lines fell from 9.3 million to 8.7 million in 2003-2004, we continue to believe that our efforts to reduce our clients' need to call are working.

We have continued to increase electronic filing of monthly care changes by agencies to whom we pay Children's Special Allowances for children in their care, with 23% of agencies (covering 59% of children) using electronic rather than paper-based processes, up from 19% and 57% respectively in the previous year.

In support of fairness, we were able to process 1,475,000 GST/HST credit account adjustments during the July 2003-June 2004 benefit year. Under the GST/HST Credit Responsiveness initiative, the quarterly credit amount we pay takes into account in-year changes to family circumstances in a manner that is aligned with the CCTB. This year's total is more than double the number of adjustments before this initiative was implemented.

According to our Annual Survey 8 , most indicators of client satisfaction with our performance in delivering benefits remained reasonably high. Client satisfaction levels increased to 75% of CCTB clients and 77% of GST/HST credit clients who believe the CCRA is doing a good/very good job administering these programs, up from 70% and 76% respectively.

First-time CCTB applicants were also surveyed to determine their satisfaction with aspects of the application process. While we are cautious in attributing too much significance to the results due to a low response rate (8%), the survey 9 showed high levels of satisfaction with the process, slightly lower overall than those found in previous years (Figure 15).

Figure 15 Canada Child Tax Benefit First-Time Applicants Survey – Satisfaction Rates

Our clients are not only the individuals who receive the GST/HST credit or the families who receive the CCTB, our clients are also the provincial and territorial governments and other federal government departments on whose behalf the CCRA administers benefit programs or provides benefits-related services. By further leveraging our benefit delivery infrastructure to grow the programs and services we administer for partners, we aim to improve service and eliminate duplication for their clients, and reduce overall cost to taxpayers. In 2003-2004, we increased our offerings in three ways: we delivered the Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund, we launched the Government of Canada's Child Disability Benefit, and we implemented five new Income Verification data exchanges using File Transfer Protocol.

We successfully delivered the Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund (NSTR) program as scheduled, issuing on-time over $63 million 10 in payments in June 2003 to over 410,000 eligible Nova Scotians. This is the fourth one-time payment program we have delivered for a provincial partner in the past four years.

We administer 17 on-going child benefit and credit programs for provinces and territories, many of which were launched under the joint federal, provincial, and territorial National Child Benefit (NCB) initiative.

We adjusted payment amounts and/or thresholds for four of our on-going programs in 2003-2004. In total, we deliver income-tested child benefit programs for nine of the eleven jurisdictions that have put programs in place since 1996, and we provide data to facilitate provincial administration for the remaining two.

In March 2004, we successfully launched the Child Disability Benefit, a new on-going component of the CCTB and CSA announced in the 2003 Federal Budget that provides a benefit of up to $1600 per year to qualified families with disabled children. The initial payment to over 20,000 families covered by the program included a lump-sum amount retroactive to July 2003.

We added five partners to the Income Verification data exchange service using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) methodology. FTP allows CCRA to release limited taxpayer information, with client consent, using a secure, two-way, on-line electronic data exchange. This simplifies the administration of provincial income-tested benefit programs and reduces the need for CCRA offices to release information over the counter. The five new partners are:

• Newfoundland and Labrador Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board
• Saskatchewan Health (for their Drug Plan)
• British Columbia Ministry of Health Services (for their Pharmacare program)
• Alberta Health and Wellness
• Alberta Learning

This brings the total number of users of the new service to six. We are in negotiations with seven provinces to enrol another 16 programs in the FTP process.

We demonstrate accountability to the provinces and territories by issuing Commissioner's Annual Reports that document the range and scope of the activities we undertake each year.

We also collaborated with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and Social Development Canada (SDC) to use our systems capabilities to improve access to other Government of Canada entitlements. For example, we mailed notification of potential entitlement to the Allowance for the Survivor benefit to close to 20,000 seniors between 60 and 64, and we organized a mail-out to approximately 150,000 clients with expiring 900-series Social Insurance Numbers to encourage those in need to continue to receive the benefits to which they are entitled. We also completed nearly 69,000 requests for CPP or EI rulings in 2003-2004. We surpassed the service level of 85% as specified in our MOU by completing on time 93% of the requests from HRSDC relating specifically to cases where there was an application for EI benefits. Overall, including requests for CPP or EI rulings from the public, the PIER (Pensionable and Insurable Earnings Review) process and other CCRA programs, we exceeded our target rate to complete 85% of all requests within timeframes by achieving a rate of 86%. Along with HRSDC and SDC, we are examining options that hold the potential to further improve service delivery to Canadians in the coming years, within a lower cost framework.

1 CCTB Take-up Rate Study 2001.

2 See footnote on page 1-53 for further information regarding the CCRA's Annual Survey.

3 Quality Assurance Study, Monitoring CCTB Application Processing Timeframes, February 10-April 4, 2003.

4 Quality Assurance Study, Timely Processing of Account Maintenance Adjustments, April 22-28, 2003.

5 Quality Assurance Study, Accurate Processing of Payments and Notices for CCTB Applications, February 16-27, 2004.

6 Quality Assurance Study, Accurate Processing of Account Maintenance Adjustments, September 22-30, 2003.

7 Answered calls are ones handled by an agent, as well as those from clients who abandon their call within two minutes of entering the queue, on the assumption that they have received the information they need through pre-recorded messages they hear during this time. Abandoned calls, including those abandoned after two minutes, make up 5% of all CCTB calls and 8% of all GST/HST credit calls.

8 See footnote on page 1-53 for further information regarding the CCRA's Annual Survey.

9 CCTB First-Time Applicants Survey – February 1-22, 2004.

10 This amount does not include over $9 million in NSTR entitlements offset against income tax, CCTB, and other debts.

Date modified:

2004-10-28