Departmental Plan 2020-21

Table of Contents

• From the Chief Administrator
• Plans at a glance
• Core responsibility: planned results and resources, and key risks
  • Support services and facilities to federal administrative tribunals and its members
• Internal Services: planned results
• Spending and human resources
  • Planned spending
  • Planned human resources
  • Estimates by vote
  • Condensed future-oriented statement of operations
• Corporate information
  • Organizational profile
  • Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do
  • Operating context
  • Reporting framework
• Supporting information on the Program Inventory
• Supplementary information tables
• Federal tax expenditures
• Organizational contact information
• Appendix: definitions
• Endnotes

I am pleased to present the 2020-21 Departmental Plan for the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC).

This year’s plan provides detailed information about the ATSSC’s intended results and resources for its core responsibilities. It also contains information on key risks related to achieving those results.

The key focus for the ATSSC during the upcoming year continues to be providing efficient and effective support to the 11 federal administrative tribunals it serves through revitalized registry, legal, mandate and member services, and internal services.

Specifically, the ATSSC will concentrate its efforts on improving access to justice by exploring organization-wide case management system solutions; promoting language accessibility through the use of plain language in communications, decisions and websites; increasing hearing room accessibility; and improving digital and non-digital services. The organization will also enhance its service to tribunals by advancing critical information management and information technology improvements, encouraging collaboration between tribunals and their portfolio departments, and supporting tribunals as they adapt to legislative changes that affect their mandates and operations.

Recognizing that its employees are its greatest resource, in the year to come, the ATSSC will concentrate its efforts on maintaining a supportive, healthy and diverse workplace environment, emphasize career development and mentorship, and work to strengthen current service areas.

As you will discover when reading this document, in its sixth year of operation the ATSSC has evolved into a mature organization that is ready to set new standards of excellence and collaboration in delivering on our mission and mandate. I look forward to leading the organization as it continues on its road to becoming an innovative leader in providing exceptional service to Canada’s tribunal sector.

Orlando Da Silva

Plans at a glance

Core responsibility: planned results and resources, and key risks

Internal Services: planned results

Description

Internal Services are those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of Programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal Services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct services that support Program delivery in the organization, regardless of the Internal Services delivery model in a department. These services are:

• Management and Oversight Services
• Communications Services
• Legal Services
• Human Resources Management Services
• Financial Management Services
• Information Management Services
• Information Technology Services
• Real Property Management Services
• Materiel Management Services
• Acquisition Management Services

Planning highlights

To respond to the diverse and evolving needs of the tribunals it serves, the ATSSC will continue its work to ensure effective and responsive internal services by enhancing its IM/IT capabilities, maintaining and investing in developing its staff capacity and knowledge, and ensuring strategic and efficient use of its resources.

To meet the mandates of tribunals and the evolving needs of all program and internal service areas, the ATSSC will focus on network and technology updates by bridging existing tribunals into the ATSSC network and improving digital capacities to help move the organization towards a robust and streamlined service.

The ATSSC will explore new opportunities to enhance service delivery in light of the expanded role of digital government. In 2020-21, the Government of Canada’s Policy on Service and Digital will take effect, requiring changes to the ATSSC’s digital delivery and service management. As such, the ATSSC will continue to assess its digital and non-digital services and their associated service standards, and will maintain a department-wide service inventory.

Given the range of specialized services provided to the tribunals, the ATSSC’s success is dependent on a strong and knowledgeable workforce. To ensure it has the employees in place with the right skills to respond to the needs of the tribunals, the ATSSC will continue to develop its human resource planning function to allow the organization to better identify current and anticipate future staffing needs. Through the finalization of its talent management strategy in 2020-21, the ATSSC will be in a position to identify high-potential employees and invest in succession planning and talent management to staff areas and positions that are critical to its ongoing operations and long-term goals. This identification process will help the ATSSC foster a culture that promotes continuous learning and professional development, and will ultimately support the overall growth of the organization and the delivery of its mandate.

To promote a supportive work environment, the ATSSC remains committed to fully implementing Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) so that differential impacts on diverse groups of people can be considered when policies, programs and legislation are developed and executed. Since the ATSSC is primarily an internal service organization, the main application of GBA+ will be internally focused on foundational human resource services.

To further support the organization’s service delivery capacity, the ATSSC will also continue to enhance and adapt its financial management function as the organization evolves. To ensure long- term sustainability, the ATSSC will continue to focus on future-oriented planning by applying a multi-year perspective to organizational planning initiatives. Central to this work will be effectively aligning financial resources to ensure that the organization is in a position to anticipate and plan for the costs associated to implementing service delivery solutions.

Spending and human resources

This section provides an overview of the department’s planned spending and human resources for the next three consecutive fiscal years, and compares planned spending for the upcoming year with the current and previous years’ actual spending.

Planned spending

Departmental spending 2017–18 to 2022–23

The following graph presents planned (voted and statutory) spending over time.

Spending is projected to decrease by $1.1 million from 2018-19 to 2019-20 due to sunsetting funding for Space Optimization and Modernization projects. The increase of $4.4 million in planned spending between 2019-20 and 2020-21 is mainly due to new funding associated with the transfer of certain adjudicative functions from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) to Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) under the Canada Labour Code and the Wage Earner Protection Program Act. The increase is also related to implementing and administering adjudicative functions set out in the Pay Equity Act and the Accessible Canada Act.

The following table shows actual, forecast and planned spending for each of ATSSC’s core responsibilities and to Internal Services for the years relevant to the current planning year.

* Departmental Results Framework Program-specific expenditures for 2017-18 are not available as the previous Program Alignment Architecture structure was in effect at that time.

The planned increase in spending from 2019-20 to 2020-21 ($4.4 million) can mainly be attributed to the transfer of certain adjudicative functions from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) under the Canada Labour Code and the Wage Earner Protection Program Act, starting April 1, 2020. The increase can also be attributed to the assignment of new adjudicative functions to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) as set out in the Pay Equity Act and Accessible Canada Act.

The following table reconciles gross planned spending with net planned spending for 2020–21.

The planned revenues result from the authority to make recoverable expenditures on behalf of the Canada Pension Plan and the Employment Insurance Operating Account.

Planned human resources

The following table shows actual, forecast and planned full-time equivalents (FTEs) for each core responsibility in ATSSC’s departmental results framework and to Internal Services for the years relevant to the current planning year.

* Departmental Results Framework Program-specific FTEs for 2017-18 are not available as the previous Program Alignment Architecture structure was in effect at that time.

The increase of FTEs between 2018-19 and 2019-20 is attributed to increasing capacity and the creation of new positions as a result of additional adjudicative functions, notably at the Social Security Tribunal (SST) and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT).

Estimates by vote

Information on the ATSSC’s organizational appropriations is available in the 2020–21 Main Estimates.

Condensed future-oriented statement of operations

The condensed future oriented statement of operations provides an overview of the ATSSC’s operations for 2019–20 to 2020–21.

The amounts for forecast and planned results in this statement of operations were prepared on an accrual basis. The amounts for forecast and planned spending presented in other sections of the Departmental Plan were prepared on an expenditure basis. Amounts may therefore differ.

A more detailed future oriented statement of operations and associated notes, including a reconciliation of the net cost of operations to the requested authorities, are available on the ATSSC’s website.

The 2020-21 planned results include costs related to the transfer of certain adjudicative functions from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) under the Canada Labour Code and the Wage Earner Protection Program Act, starting April 1, 2020. Costs are also expected to increase in 2020-21 due to the allocation of new funding to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) for the implementation and administration of adjudicative functions under in the Pay Equity Act and Accessible Canada Act. This also includes new funding for the Social Security Tribunal’s (SST) Employment Insurance and Income Security recourse processes, as per Budget 2019. The revenues result from the authority to make recoverable expenditures on behalf of the Canada Pension Plan and the Employment Insurance Operating Account. The increase in revenues is directly related to the increase in costs related to the SST.

Organizational profile

Appropriate minister:

The Honourable David Lametti, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Institutional head:

Orlando Da Silva, Chief Administrator

Ministerial portfolio:

Department of Justice

Enabling instrument:

Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act

Year of incorporation / Commencement:

2014

Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do

“Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do” is available on the ATSSC’s website.

Operating context

Information on the operating context is available on the ATSSC’s website.

Reporting framework

The ATSSC’s approved Departmental Results Framework and Program Inventory for 2020–21 are as follows.

Supporting information on planned expenditures, human resources, and results related to the ATSSC’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

The following supplementary information tables are available on the ATSSC’s website:

• Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy
• Gender-based analysis plus

ATSSC’s Departmental Plan does not include information on tax expenditures that relate to its planned results for 2020–21.

Tax expenditures are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, and the Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for government¬ wide tax expenditures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures. This report provides detailed information on tax expenditures, including objectives, historical background and references to related federal spending programs, as well as evaluations, research papers and gender-based analysis. The tax measures presented in this report are solely the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

Organizational contact information

Mailing address

Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada
344 Slater Street, Suite 100
Ottawa, Ontario K1R 5Y7
Canada

Telephone: 613-954-6350
Fax: 613-957-3170
Webite: www.canada.ca/en/administrative-tribunals-support-service.html

appropriation (crédit)
Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)
Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.

core responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)
An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a core responsibility are reflected in one or more related departmental results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.

Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)
A report on the plans and expected performance of a department over a 3 year period. Departmental Plans are tabled in Parliament each spring.

departmental priority (priorité ministérielle)
A plan or project that a department has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Departmental priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired departmental results.

departmental result (résultat ministériel)
A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.

departmental result indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)
A factor or variable that provides a valid and reliable means to measure or describe progress on a departmental result.

departmental results framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)
A framework that consists of the department’s core responsibilities, departmental results and departmental result indicators.

Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)
A report on a department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.

experimentation (expérimentation)
The conducting of activities that seek to first explore, then test and compare, the effects and impacts of policies and interventions in order to inform evidence-based decision-making, and improve outcomes for Canadians, by learning what works and what doesn’t. Experimentation is related to, but distinct form innovation (the trying of new things), because it involves a rigorous comparison of results. For example, using a new website to communicate with Canadians can be an innovation; systematically testing the new website against existing outreach tools or an old website to see which one leads to more engagement, is experimentation.

full time equivalent (équivalent temps plein)
A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person year charge against a departmental budget. Full time equivalents are calculated as a ratio of assigned hours of work to scheduled hours of work. Scheduled hours of work are set out in collective agreements.

gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) (analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS+])
An analytical process used to assess how diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people experience policies, programs and services based on multiple factors including race, ethnicity, religion, age, and mental or physical disability.

government-wide priorities (priorités pangouvernementales)
For the purpose of the 2020–21 Departmental Plan, government-wide priorities refers to those high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the 2015 Speech from the Throne, namely: Growth for the Middle Class; Open and Transparent Government; A Clean Environment and a Strong Economy; Diversity is Canada's Strength; and Security and Opportunity.

horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)
An initiative in which two or more federal organizations are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.

non budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)
Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.

performance (rendement)
What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.

performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)
A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.

performance reporting (production de rapports sur le rendement)
The process of communicating evidence based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision-making, accountability and transparency.

plan (plan)
The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead up to the expected result.

planned spending (dépenses prévues)
For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in the Main Estimates. A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.

program (programme)
Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.

program inventory (répertoire des programmes)
Identifies all of the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.

result (résultat)
An external consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.

statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)
Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.

strategic outcome (résultat stratégique)
A long-term and enduring benefit to Canadians that is linked to the organization’s mandate, vision and core functions.

target (cible)
A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.

voted expenditures (dépenses votées)
Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an Appropriation Act. The vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.

Endnotes

Return to footnote 1 referrer  The tribunals are: Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal; Canada Industrial Relations Board; Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board; Canadian Human Rights Tribunal; Canadian International Trade Tribunal; Competition Tribunal; Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board; Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal; Specific Claims Tribunal; Social Security Tribunal; and Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada.