Benefit Programs and Other Services

Expected Outcome

Performance Summary – We have met this Anticipated Result, as demonstrated by the following performance against expectations:

• increased the number of services and effective exchanges of data we provide under agreements with our partners through our Business Number and income verification programs
• continued successful delivery of the programs administered on behalf of provinces, territories, and other federal departments, and added a new program— the Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund—in a manner that reduces duplication of effort and contributes to a lower overall cost of program delivery
• strengthened relationships with provinces and territories by negotiating additional Service Management Framework agreements and by enhancing accountability for our program administration through the Commissioner's Annual Reports to Provinces and Territories
• continued our attempts to deliver on the commitments outlined in the CCRA's Corporate Business Plan by positioning ourselves to administer more programs in the future

We have had partnership and other arrangements with numerous provincial ministries for some years to release taxpayer information, with client consent, to allow income to be verified for provincial income-tested benefit programs. Under the Government On-Line initiative, we implemented the first phase of a File Transfer Protocol project to provide information on-line using a secure two-way electronic data exchange. This simplifies administration of provincial programs and reduces the need for CCRA offices to release information over the counter. The first province to use the new process was Alberta, for its Seniors' Benefit Program. During 2003-2004, additional provincial ministries will begin using the new service. We also completed a data transfer in April 2003 to facilitate provincial administration of the Newfoundland and Labrador Home Heating Fuel Rebate.

We completed our administration of the three one-time payment programs delivered on behalf of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, successfully “sunsetting” the programs during 2002-2003 in accordance with provincial legislation. In March 2003, we agreed to administer our fourth one-time payment program—the Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund—for delivery in June 2003.

We continued to administer a total of 17 on-going child benefit and credit programs for provinces and territories using the federal benefit delivery infrastructure, and successfully implemented new program parameters for the three which were reconfigured in July 2002. 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. Many of these programs were launched under the joint federal, provincial, territorial National Child Benefit (NCB) initiative. The NCB Progress Report 2002 indicated that the CCRA responded well to the delivery needs of diverse provincial and territorial programs, which contributed to meeting the NCB objective of reducing overlap and duplication across levels of government.

4-1 Partnerships with the Provinces and Territories – Benefit Programs and Other Services

As for other services, we processed $131 million of refund set-offs against internal debts (e.g., CCTB) and external debts owed to participating federal departments, crown corporations, and seven provinces and territories, up from $105 million in 2001-2002.

The Refund Set-off program was one of four programs selected as a “proof of concept” pilot for our agency-wide activity-based costing initiative. The development of the cost model within this program will allow the costs associated with program clients and changes in program volumes to be more accurately determined.

We have successfully developed partnerships with New Brunswick, Manitoba and the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia to assign the CCRA's Business Number (BN) to provincial business program clients. This allows businesses to use a common identifier when dealing with both levels of government. The Memoranda of Understanding to finalize this process are nearing completion. Including Ontario and Nova Scotia, this brings the total BN registration partnerships to five. We also implemented a new First Nations sales tax, bringing the total we administer to nine, along with First Nations income taxes we administer for eight self-governing Yukon First Nations.

We demonstrate accountability to the provinces and territories by issuing Commissioner's annual reports each year that document the range and scope of the activities we undertake on their behalf. In addition, by adding Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, and New Brunswick, we now have ten Service Management Framework Agreements in place and are talking with Manitoba about re-signing the agreement that lapsed in 2002. By continuing to meet evolving provincial and territorial priorities, we are making progress in expanding our partnerships and are generally meeting expectations in the third year of our innovation agenda. We are positioning ourselves to administer more programs, such as Workers' Compensation Board partnerships and other major tax programs, in the coming years.

Date modified:

2003-10-29