Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada’s 2023-24 Departmental Results Report at a glance

A departmental results report provides an account of actual accomplishments against plans, priorities and expected results set out in the associated Departmental Plan.

Vision, mission, raison d’être and operating context

Key priorities

The ATSSC’s top priorities for 2023-24 were as follows:

Delivering business excellence through innovation at work

• Improve existing digital solutions and implement new solutions that are secure, easy to use, and easy to navigate for those accessing tribunal justice

• Explore data-driven approaches and user-centred designs to reduce barriers preventing unrepresented and underrepresented parties from participating fully and effectively in tribunal processes

• Introduce operational data collection and reporting software to support informed resource allocation, planning, and measuring organizational progress and trends

Collaboration with tribunal leadership and one another

• Make meaningful process improvements to continue bringing further efficiencies to meet the demanding and dynamic workloads of the tribunals

• Adopt a digital-first approach to meet evolving needs and the shifting digital landscape

• Support tribunals as they adapt to legislative changes that impact their mandates and operations and support the integration of potential new tribunals

Supporting our people

• Embrace the changing realities that shape the post-pandemic workplace and provide employees with flexible work arrangements and renewed workspaces that reflect new ways of working and that promote collaboration

• Invest in our workforce by offering opportunities to build skills and knowledge through new work experiences

• Continue to take meaningful and concrete action to create an equitable, diverse, inclusive, accessible, and bilingual work environment where people feel valued and respected

Refocusing on Government Spending

Following receipt of savings targets established by the Treasury Board Secretariat for the ATSSC, the organization identified and took action to realign its operating expenses related to translation, travel, and management consulting services. The following measures were initiated in 2023-24:

• Translation services: The ATSSC relies on external professional translators to translate tribunal decisions to comply with the Official Languages Act. To reduce expenses and maintain service delivery, the organization is exploring novel solutions, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). A pilot project to test machine learning translation tools is underway. The ATSSC will assess cost efficiencies at the conclusion of the project to determine if the AI solution can be implemented successfully.

• Travel services: The ATSSC developed new guidelines to reduce discretionary travel spending and encouraged tribunals to limit non-discretionary travel spending as much as possible without impacting access to justice.

• Management consulting services: To make sound decisions on priorities, the ATSSC scaled down investments in modernization projects involving external professionals.

Highlights

In 2023-24, total actual spending (including internal services) for the ATSSC was $88,692,561 and total full-time equivalent staff (including internal services) was 743. For complete information on the ATSSC’s total spending and human resources, read the Spending and human resources section.

The following provides a summary of the department’s achievements in 2023-24 according to its approved Departmental Results Framework. A Departmental Results Framework consists of a department’s core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.

Support services and facilities to federal administrative tribunal and their members

Actual spending: $62,893,574

Actual human resources: 586

Departmental results achieved

In 2023-24, the ATSSC’s accomplishments for this core responsibility revolved around its 3 strategic pillars:

• Delivering business excellence through innovation at work: The ATSSC continued to implement its strategy to modernize administrative tribunals facilities and equip them with state-of-the art audio-visual technology. This strategy will better enable virtual and hybrid case management conferences, mediations, and hearings and ensure the needs of tribunal members, parties, employees, and the Canadian public are met. This project will continue into 2024-25. The organization developed new operational data collection and reporting software (PowerBI) to support statistics collection for tribunal case management and reporting requirements and to inform optimal resource-allocation decisions across ATSSC units. It continued to implement new technological solutions such as e-filing portals for use by parties, and an access to information and privacy platform to better ensure access to records. It conducted plain language reviews of web pages, templates, and tools to improve accessibility. The ATSSC also onboarded an eleventh tribunal (the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board) to the ATSSC network. In addition, the ATSSC completed the implementation of its Case Management System (CMS) Strategy by adopting a new CMS for the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board—the last tribunal still needing a new or upgraded CMS. The ATSSC enhanced the functionality of some other tribunals’ CMS. All tribunals and registries now have a modern CMS, which helps them to efficiently manage case files. The ATSSC moved its email server to the cloud and upgraded bandwidth in offices. It also modernized the websites of the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), and ensured they are compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA standards. In 2023-24, the ATSSC began piloting AI solutions to translate tribunal decisions and other documents more quickly and inexpensively.

• Collaboration with tribunal leadership and one another: The ATSSC supported administrative tribunals to manage their increasing and complex caseloads by allocating resources towards projects designed to offer parties innovative alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. The ATSSC also worked with tribunal leadership to implement budget reductions without impacting service to Canadians. The ATSSC supported 25% more files than in previous years. We opened 11,070 and 11,742 new files in 2023-24 and 2022-23 for tribunals compared to 9,680 files in 2021-22. We supported 6,120 tribunal hearings, up from 4,009 in 2021–22 and 4,771 in 2022-23. We helped tribunals resolve 12,738 case files compared to 8,420 in2021–22 and 10,125 in 2022-23.

• Supporting our people: The ATSSC continued to support its workforce as it returned to the office along with the core federal public service. Workspaces were refitted to align with the new common hybrid work model. The organization began modernizing boardrooms and hearing rooms to equip them with technology enabling efficient hybrid meetings and hearings. The ATSSC ensured a positive and supportive work environment for employees and tribunals through this transition by offering flexible work arrangements. It made significant progress towards implementing its Accessibility Plan and launched important work to reach the objectives set out in its Corporate Services Strategic Plan. As part of its Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity Strategy, the ATSSC offered a large suite of training to all staff on various topics including 2SLGBTQI+ and Indigenous reconciliation. According to the Public Service Employee Survey results, ATSSC employees rated the ATSSC among the top Public Service employers.

More information about Support services and facilities to federal administrative tribunals and their members can be found in the “Results—what we achieved” section of the full departmental results report.