Corporate Services

Corporate Services provides strategic direction and executive oversight for the Agency’s programs and services in order to establish and maintain systems and practices that support effective governance and sound management. We support the Agency’s operations by providing services in seven key program activities: human resources, finance and administration, information technology, public affairs, agency management, corporate audit and evaluation, and policy and planning.

Strategies and Key Initiatives

Corporate Services will support the priorities of the Agency through the following key strategies and initiatives:

• Developing the CRA workforce to meet future business challenges;
• Enhancing financial management throughout the Agency, with an emphasis on re-allocation;
• Maintaining high standards in the protection of our information, facilities, and systems;
• Enhancing Information Management/Information Technology services to enable CRA programs to maximize performance and operations;
• Effectively leveraging Agency knowledge to meet core compliance and service business needs;
• Enhancing public affairs activities; and,
• Maintaining sound governance.

Developing the CRA workforce to meet future business challenges

CRA has a highly diverse workforce of just over 33,000 permanent employees and a term population which fluctuates to approximately 10,000 during peak periods ¹ . Our permanent workforce has an average age of 45 years. In 2005, 6.1% of our permanent employees will be eligible to retire. These factors and others make it necessary for the business leaders in the Agency and the HR professionals to identify and implement key human resources strategies that support the renewed strategic direction of the Agency.

As the Agency moves forward, it will firmly establish the workforce foundation upon which the programs and services of the Agency will be built. To do this, a comprehensive Workforce Strategy will target key priorities that support capacity acquisition, development, and retention activities. Amongst other things, this will include a focus on our highly technically knowledgeable workforce, knowledge transfer, and strategies for managing the talents of our employees.

As we continue to advance our internal resourcing pre-qualification strategy, we will manage our workforce using these streamlined processes based on job and employee competencies. We will focus on the integration of the Competency-based Human Resources Management approach to all elements of the HR system, but in particular the processes of recruitment, development, and performance management.

We will focus on increasing the control the business has over the timeliness and accessibility of key HR processes that are critical to business success. This will include the increased accessibility of HR services fully utilizing Web-based service delivery, including the SAP/CAS Portal Technology for managers and employees. For compensation services, this means delivering transactional services from only two sites, the use of the call-centre system, and the completion of Employee and Manager Self-Service (ESS/MSS).

Our commitment to the spirit and principles of Employment Equity and diversity will guide our strategies. The Agency will develop a 3-year Employment Equity strategic direction to address the changing demographics of persons in the Canadian labour market, such as the higher percentage of members of visible minorities and Aboriginal persons and the increase in women graduates in accounting/audit fields.

The CRA Staffing Program sets the overall direction for staff decisions in the Agency and is guided by eight principles:

Enhancing financial management throughout the Agency, with an emphasis on re-allocation

In a tighter fiscal environment, resource review and reallocation has become a permanent resource management strategy used by the Agency. We will strengthen financial controls and improve costing information to facilitate the identification of areas where greater efficiencies can be achieved. As well, we will continue to pursue the development of initiatives related to improving financial comptrollership and stewardship for administered revenues.

Our Modern Comptrollership initiative will continue to be promoted across the Agency to assist managers in responding effectively in today’s operating environment with sound resource management and decision-making. The Agency will continue enhancement work on our Resource Management systems to position the Agency to report spending according to the new Program Activity Architecture (PAA). This will support the better integration of financial and non-financial reporting information for the Management Resources and Results Structure (MRRS) process.

The CRA works closely with the Office of the Auditor General to ensure effective and timely resolution of issues arising from their reviews. The Auditor General and the Finance Committee of the Board of Management are informed regularly on the measures taken to improve accounting, control, and reporting of assets, expenditures, and tax revenues. In addition, our internal audit function plays an important role in assessing the integrity of systems and providing assurances related to financial systems and financial reporting.

Maintaining high standards in the protection of our information, facilities, and systems

Ensuring the confidentiality of taxpayer information is of the utmost importance to the Agency. We strive to maintain the public’s trust in the integrity of our facilities, systems, and information. Last year, the Agency completed a comprehensive Security Review, and we will build on these results by conducting Compliance and Monitoring Reviews to ensure that an adequate policy framework is maintained and communicated and to identify and implement mitigation strategies to protect client and personal information. In the next year, we will finalize the development of a comprehensive Security Training and Awareness Program and commence its implementation.

Our continued standard of excellence in compliance with our obligations under both the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act supports client trust in the Agency. We will continue to provide employee training on key areas of public law, including Access to Information and Privacy, as well as new courses in ethics, conflict of interest, and the confidentiality of tax information.

Enhancing Information Management/Information Technology services to enable CRA programs to maximize performance and operations

The CRA IT strategy is focused on serving Canadians and ensuring that the IT initiatives are driven by and aligned with the CRA’s business agenda. Specifically, this will be accomplished by establishing a business architecture and integrating it into a formal agency-wide enterprise architecture program; investing in our Service Availability Improvement program; evolving our Data Centre Recoverability and Continuity programs; establishing an IT security modernization program; and developing an information management/knowledge management strategy.

We will meet existing commitments better, cheaper, and faster through advances in our IT service management processes; implementing a more robust quality program; leveraging Internet capability and expanding our component reuse program; identifying opportunities to improve IT services through our managed distributed environment initiative; and continuing to ensure that our environment is evergreen through our existing Asset Management Plan.

We are well positioned to increase our involvement in the Government’s shared services agenda. Key activities include providing IT infrastructure services and Corporate Administrative Systems for CBSA; participating in Government of Canada pathfinder initiatives such as My Government Account and My Business Account; supporting the collaboration between CRA and HRSDC/SDC in business transformation; and, working with TBS and PWGSC on providing common IT services across the Government of Canada.

We will also develop plans to ensure that we have the capacity and capability to respond quickly to the business needs of the Agency. Knowledge transfer and management and succession planning are a priority as the demographics indicate a requirement to prepare a new generation of leaders and experts.

Effectively leveraging agency knowledge to meet core compliance and service business needs

Information is critical to our business. We are increasingly compelled to organize, integrate, and manage information to realize benefits and new opportunities. Data stewardship will replace existing information systems with an integrated Agency-wide ‘data warehouse’ to improve program delivery. The implementation of the Consolidated Risk Assessment will create a “one-stop-shop” Web-enabled assessment and reporting tool for clients in addressing agency requirements in program and system design.

Our multi-year Business Intelligence and Decision Support (BIDS) project will enable business users to go into a single source to find consistent, reliable information and to obtain data to produce required reports using a standard set of automated tools. This will help identify trends, evaluate risks, and analyse policy effectiveness, which will improve program delivery. The BIDS Program will eventually replace the myriad of systems used to produce reports.

Enhancing public affairs activities

Over the past year, the CRA has made significant strides to ensure that the integrity of the Agency is maintained through effective issues management. Maintaining and building on our capacity to identify and address emerging issues will remain a priority for the Agency.

CRA is currently a government leader in the delivery of its program and services online. Over the past years, the Intranet and Internet have evolved rapidly and will continue to evolve to support CRA e-service delivery and better respond to business and user needs. To ensure that CRA maintains its reputation and to position the Agency for the next generation of e-service, the Agency will establish the strategic direction for the CRA Web site as the organization’s service delivery channel of choice, and create a more structured approach to governance and better management practices.

Maintaining sound governance

The Agency is recognized as an innovative leader in many areas in public sector management – electronic service delivery to Canadians, results oriented accountability and reporting to Canadians, effective management and administrative activities, growing and innovative federal-provincial/territorial arrangements, and innovations in human resource management. Improved results management and reporting using our Performance Measurement Program System (PMPS) and further integration of risk information into our planning, decision-making, and reporting mechanisms will support more effective decision-making.

We will continue to excel in our efforts for transparency, accountability, and reporting by publishing detailed and timely information about our commitments, service standards, and performance in our Summary of the Corporate Business Plan 2005-2006 to 2007-2008 and Annual Report, the latter of which is reviewed annually by the Auditor General of Canada.

¹ CRA population fluctuates based on program activity throughout the year.

Date modified:

2005-03-24