Meet target for level of tax debt.

We met the cash collection commitment to the Government of Canada but the level of tax debt, including accounts older than 5 years of age, continued to rise. We also narrowed the gap between intake of new debt and production. As a strategy to manage the tax debt, the roll-out of the T1 National Pool resulted in the resolution of 103,000 accounts and the collection of over $547 million. The CCRA intends to invest additional resources in 2004-2005 to resolve older accounts receivable.

Implement telephone service standards and improve monitoring of results against service standards.

We implemented a charities telephone service standard but did not introduce telephone service standards for our general and business telephone enquiries this past year as planned; we expect to put these in place next year. We improved monitoring in a number of areas, including the Problem Resolution Program.

Enhance programs for enforcing tax compliance using measures of compliance based on results from the Core Audit Program.

Due to higher than anticipated data validation and processing requirements, the analysis of the results from the Core Audit Program was delayed; reporting on this program will now commence in 2004-2005. While we reviewed more files than originally planned this past year, overall we fell short of our commitments to the Government of Canada for audit coverage rates, mainly due to increases in the taxpayer populations.

Improve caller accessibility for GST/HST credit enquiries.

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.

Improve monitoring of fairness requests.

For the first time in 2003-2004, results of the monitoring of fairness provisions were consolidated across all program areas. The monitoring has confirmed that in the majority of cases, the existing policy and procedures are being consistently applied across Canada.

Address timeliness of CPP/EI redress process.

A review of the current redress process is underway to identify and implement measures to improve performance results in 2004-2005.

Complete Modern Comptrollership (MC) initiative, including development of communication products and learning programs.

An MC Capacity Check has identified areas for improvement. An MC action plan is in progress to identify key activities that will act as the CCRA's principal response to the results of the Capacity Check. Continue to merge MC principles into management practices through communication products and enhance learning modules in the MG Leadership curriculum.

Enhance FIS and advance the activity-based costing system beyond the pilot stage to more closely link resources to activities and results.

The CCRA recognizes that it still has more work to do on its financial controls. To enhance financial and non-financial information, activity-based costing (ABC) began to develop expenditure cubes for costing information access.

Complete the automated Performance Measurement Program System (PMPS, formerly known as Balanced Scorecard).

The PMPS is established and capturing quarterly performance information against performance expectations. The performance measurement framework has been adapted to respond to the new Government-wide Program Activity Architecture system. Related performance measurement and reporting will further enable the CCRA to integrate financial and non-financial results.

Address the delays in implementing the competency-based human resources management/pre-qualification process for staffing.

While our HR reform is well underway, the Taking Stock initiative has identified required course changes.

Continue to improve performance against service standards.

Overall, we met or mostly met 72% of our service standards, including eight of our ten most important ones. We also established three new service standards. In our continuing effort toward streamlining and seeking efficiencies, we need to develop better internal service standards.