Evaluation of Exchange of Service Agreements

Evaluation Team

Nicole Allegri
A/Senior Manager, Evaluation

Bertha May
A/Senior Evaluator

Rhea Adhopia
Evaluation Officer

Lysiane Paquin-Marseille
A/ Evaluation Officer

Kossi Aziaba
Junior Evaluator

Signatures

……………………………………………
Don Head
Commissioner
Correctional Service Canada

……………………………………………
Date

……………………………………………
Bernard Marquis
A/Executive Director, Evaluation Division
Policy Sector

2012-03-02
……………………………………………
Date

Executive Summary

The evaluation of the Exchange of Service Agreements (ESAs) began in March 2011 as part of Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSC) 2009-2014 Evaluation Plan (CSC, 2009). This report examined the 13 ESAs between CSC and the provinces’ and territories’ ministries of corrections. The evaluation strategy examined relevance and performance (including effectiveness, efficiency and economy) of the ESAs from a national perspective as per Treasury Board’s Policy on Evaluation (TBS, 2009). ESAs, constituted 1.40% of CSC’s direct program spending for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

The responsibility for housing offenders sentenced to a term of incarceration is shared between the federal and the provincial and territorial governments.

The evaluation found that ESAs were relevant in that there was a continued need for the agreements. ESAs were consistent with CSC priorities and objectives, but also consistent with the mandates of the provinces and territories. As well, ESAs goals align with the federal government’s roles and responsibilities.

The evaluation found that ESAs play an important role in Canadian offender management. ESAs were found to create and maintain collaboration between CSC and the provincial and territorial governments. Although collaboration has resulted from ESAs, information sharing between CSC and the provincial and territorial governments was highlighted as an area for possible improvement.

Regarding performance, the evaluation found that ESAs are effective, efficient and economical. In terms of effectiveness, ESAs were found to be effective in that they provide a seamless correctional system within Canada that supports other correctional and reintegration activities. Efficiency was found through the supervision of offenders closer to home communities, either in the community or in custody. Provincial and territorial offenders were able to participate in correctional programs while incarcerated in CSC, and federal offenders were able to participate in correctional programs in Newfoundland and Labrador. In terms of economy, ESAs were found to be cost-efficient and fair in that the costs invoiced by both parties (CSC and the provinces and territories) are a rate based on the actual costs incurred to accommodate offenders. These rates are established in the ESA and typically increase each year by a pre-determined amount agreed upon when the ESAs are signed.

List of Findings

• FINDING 1: There is a continued need for Exchange of Service Agreements between CSC and the provinces and territories to ensure Canada's offender population is seamlessly accommodated.
• FINDING 2: Exchange of Service Agreements are consistent with CSC priorities and objectives and the mandates of the provinces and territories.
• FINDING 3: Exchange of Service Agreements goals and objectives align with the federal governments roles and responsibilities.
• FINDING 4: Although CSC staff and provincial and territorial partners were familiar with ESA activities, protocols and procedures, issues regarding implementation and timing were identified.
• FINDING 5: There is support for supervision of CSC offenders in their home communities through ESAs.
• FINDING 6: Although rare, provincial and territorial offenders who are being transferred to CSC institutions participate in programming, with the majority of ESA offenders successfully completing their programs.
• FINDING 7: ESAs have positively impacted information sharing between CSC and the provincial and territorial governments, however, opportunities for improvement have been identified.
• FINDING 8: The majority of CSC, provincial and territorial respondents indicated that ESAs have created and maintained collaboration.
• FINDING 9: With respect to ESAs, CSC’s internal collaboration between the Regions and National Headquarters can be improved.
• FINDING 10: ESAs are effective in providing a seamless correctional system within Canada that supports other correctional and reintegration activities.
• FINDING 11: ESAs are cost-efficient and fair in that the costs invoiced by both parties (CSC and the provinces and territories) are at a rate based on the actual costs incurred by each party.

List of Recommendations

• RECOMMENDATION 1: To ensure Exchange of Service Agreements offender data is collected in a uniform and efficient manner, national guidelines should be developed for data management and entry to be followed by all CSC staff responsible for data entry related to ESAs in the Offender Management System (OMS).
• RECOMMENDATION 2: CSC should examine offender information sharing practices with the provinces and territories to identify ways to enhance these procedures. If possible, national practices or policies should be established between CSC and the provinces and territories to provide a standardized approach.
• RECOMMENDATION 3: CSC should ensure national and regional governance is clearly articulated to provide clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of key positions.

List of Acronyms

CCC

Community Correctional Centre

CCRA

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

CCRR

Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations

CD

Commissioner’s Directive

COP

Correctional Operations and Programs

CPO

Correctional Programs Officer

CRF

Community Residential Facility

CSC

Correctional Service Canada

ESAs

Exchange of Service Agreements

EXCOM

Executive Committee

FPS

Finger Print System

ICPM

Integrated Correctional Programs Model

IFMMS

Integrated Financial and Material Management System

MC

Memorandum to Cabinet

MAP

Management Action Plan

NCAOP

National Capital Accommodation and Operations Plan

NHQ

National Headquarters

OID

Offender Identification

OMS

Offender Management System

OPI

Office of Primary Interest

PAA

Program Activity Architecture

PS

Public Safety Canada

RADAR

Reports of Automated Data Applied to Reintegration

RMAF

Results-based Management Accountability Framework

SAS

Statistical Analysis Software

SD

Standard deviation

SPAC

Strategic Plan for Aboriginal Corrections

TB

Treasury Board

TBS

Treasury Board Secretariat

TOR

Terms of Reference

Introduction

Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSC) 2009-2014 Evaluation Plan identified the Exchange of Service Agreements (ESAs) evaluation as a priority for 2010-11 thus preliminary planning on the project began in August 2010. The evaluation’s process directly followed Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s (TBS, 2009) Policy on Evaluation, by examining the continued relevance of the ESAs and their alignment with CSC and federal government priorities, roles and responsibilities, and the Agreements’ performance (including effectiveness, efficiency, and economy). The results, provided below, will assist senior management with strategic policy and investment decisions regarding ESAs between CSC and the provinces and territories. This evaluation specifically addresses the ESAs between CSC and the provinces’ and territories’ ministries of corrections.

Background

ESAs are agreements between the federal (CSC) and provincial and territorial governments regarding the temporary detention, transfer and community supervision of offenders. These agreements detail the roles and responsibilities of each jurisdiction and include specific protocols regarding per diem rates, offender information sharing and invoicing to “ensure that the administration of justice is carried out in such a manner as to be cost-effective, the least disruptive to the offenders’ lives, respectful of the offenders’ legal rights, conducive to their reintegration as law-abiding citizens and supportive of their case management” (CCRA, 1992). ESAs are also sanctioned under Section 15, 16, and 29 of the CCRA and Sections 11 to 16 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations. Each province and territory has incorporated interjurisdictional exchanged services into their correctional legislation. Table 1 specifies the reference to ESAs within each province and territory.

Specifically, ESAs consist of three types of agreements:

• A Transfer Agreement: authorizes the placement of federal offenders in provincial or territorial facilities and/or provincial and territorial offenders in CSC institutions. Specifically, transfer agreements are intended to accommodate offenders closer to their home community; meet their cultural needs; provide protection and services for offenders who cannot be in the general correctional population; provide offenders access to specific programs and services; and, permit offenders to exercise their legal rights.
  
• A Temporary Detention Agreement: allows for the temporary custody of a federal offender in a provincial and territorial facility for specific reasons such as a warrant of suspension or a delayed reception at a CSC institution following sentencing.
  
• A Community Correctional Services Agreement: provides for the delivery to offenders of some or all community correctional services, both residential and non-residential, in that province or territory. (CSC, 2001a)

Each province and territory has an ESA with CSC although they are at differing stages. Of the thirteen ESAs, eight are signed, functioning agreements (Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia), the Québec agreement does not have an end date although per diem rates are renewed annually, and four (Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) are currently being renegotiated.

CSC’s Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines specifically describe how ESAs are negotiated, terminated, renegotiated or amended, defines the content of all ESAs, and provides the processes regarding approval and implementation of all ESAs. Negotiating ESAs begins approximately one year before the expiration date. At the provincial and territorial level, the primary negotiator is frequently the Director of Correctional Services and, in some situations, the Director of Finance. As per the Guideline, CSC can creates a steering committee and a working group to facilitate the negotiation of ESAs with provincial and territorial representatives.

ESA Activity Profile

A thorough analysis of CSC’s Offender Management System (OMS) revealed that ESA activities are used for a variety of purposes. The following section provides a brief overview of ESA activities over the last five year period. A more detailed description of activities can be found in APPENDIX C.

The evaluation encompassed ESA activities in OMS occurring from fiscal years 2006-07 to 2010-11. It was found that Pacific and Ontario regions did not enter ESA data in OMS. However, as a result of a request made by the Evaluation team, the Pacific and Ontario regions provided retrospective data. Once the data was sorted and cleaned, because of various data quality issues encountered, as described in the limitations section, these numbers were reduced. Specifically, 31,407 ESA activities remained: 10% in Atlantic; 31% in Québec; 38% in Prairies; and 24%^{Footnote 2}  in Pacific. In the case of the Ontario region, the extent of the data quality issues prevented performing any analyses on the data provided, thus they were not included in this report. These ESA activities were conducted in over 98 federal, provincial and territorial facilities.

The vast majority (98%) of ESA activities were associated with federal offenders being supervised by provincial and territorial correctional authorities, whereas ESA activities pertaining to provincial and territorial offenders under federal supervision represented 2%.

The ESA activities were found to be conducted for various purposes. A high proportion of ESA activities occurred for detention/transfers/transportation of newly sentenced offenders on waiver status^{Footnote 3}  and for temporary detention (i.e., the ESA jurisdiction is temporarily responsible for the supervision of the offender). Approximately 6% of ESA activities were used for permanent detention (i.e., where an offender’s sentence is entirely carried out in the ESA jurisdiction) of offenders in either provincial and territorial or federal institutions. Other less prominent reasons for ESA activities included offenders on remand, offenders undergoing psychological assessments, supervision of offenders in the community on day parole, full parole and statutory release, offenders in the community returning to custody, and Lieutenant Governor Warrants. An extensive list of ESA activity purposes is provided in Appendix D.

ESAs activities are typically short-term. Over 90% of ESA activities were 30 days or less, with the average activity length lasting approximately 16 days. The number of ESA activities per offender varied. On average, offenders participated in between one and two ESA activities.

In conclusion, ESAs are used for a variety of reasons, most of which are administrative. The majority of activities are for short-term detention.

Overview of Offender and Sentence Profiles

The majority of offenders participating in ESAs were men (over 90%). Approximately two-thirds of offenders were Caucasian and approximately one-fifth of offenders were Aboriginal. The vast majority (over 90%) of sentences during which an ESA activity occurred were determinate and over half of sentences involved a Schedule 1^{Footnote 4}  offence.

The vast majority of ESA activities (over 95%; n = 17,805) were associated with offenders presenting medium to high levels of need, as well as medium to high levels of risk (over 88%; n = 16,558). The data on offender ratings for overall need, risk, motivation and reintegration levels were unavailable for 45% (n = 10,716) of ESA activities for OMS and 26% (n = 1,938) for Pacific. Again, for OMS data, the majority (95%, n = 10,117) of offenders did not yet have a classification level because they were in the first 30 days of their sentence. A complete profile of risk, need, motivation, and reintegration potential levels among offenders having participated in ESA activities is provided in Appendices E and F.

Governance Structure

CSC’s Intergovernmental Relations Division within the Executive Secretariat provides the functional support and guidance for ESAs. At the regional level, ESAs are typically coordinated by the Regional Administrators, Planning and Policy (RAPP) who provide advice and guidance regarding the implementation of the ESAs and the regional comptroller, who is responsible for the administration of the billing protocols and processes. Overall responsibility at the regional level lies with the Regional Deputy Commissioners.

When searching for a complete list of the RAPP’s roles and responsibilities regarding ESAs, it was found that each RAPP had a different position description with differing responsibilities regarding ESAs. CSC is currently undergoing a review of all position descriptions which may clarify the RAPP’s roles and responsibilities regarding ESAs and provide consistency between the regions.

At the provincial and territorial level, ESAs are negotiated and managed by the Director, Correctional Services (this title may vary depending on the jurisdiction) and the Director of Finance within the correctional portfolio.

CSC’s Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements: Guidelines 541 (CSC, 2001b) characterizes the negotiation process and upon mutual agreement by CSC and the provincial and territorial negotiation teams, the final document is signed by the Minister of Public Safety and forwarded to the provincial and territorial Minister responsible for corrections for approval and signature.

Evaluation Strategy

The evaluation strategy explored the issues of relevance and performance (including effectiveness, efficiency and economy) of the ESAs in accordance with TB’s Policy on Evaluation. The evaluation questions, performance indicators, and data sources are listed in Appendix A.

The objectives and outcomes of CSC’s ESAs with the provinces and territories were examined to provide guidance for future strategic policy and resource decisions regarding partnerships with the provinces and territories. Lessons learned and the identification of best practices sought through the evaluation process could be utilized to develop and improve future interjurisdictional agreements (Marquis, Ly, & May, 2011). A list of the best practices identified through the key informant interviews are contained in Appendix H.

Methodology

The evaluation used multiple lines of evidence including qualitative and quantitative data to address the evaluation questions. Lines of evidence included the following:

Document and Literature Review

The documents collected and analyzed for this evaluation included: Agreements, the CCRA, the CCRR and Commissioner’s Directives and guidelines; CSC’s Report on Plans and Priorities, Program Activity Architecture, Internal Audit reports, random samples of provincial and territorial invoices to CSC, CSC and other federal government documents, and previous ESA evaluation reports. These documents were used to support the findings and recommendations in this report.

Key Informant Interviews

Interviews with key informants were conducted in June, July and September 2011 providing a qualitative view of the impact and success of the ESAs. A total of 28 interviews were conducted with CSC staff (68%, n = 19) and with provincial and territorial representatives (32%, n = 9). CSC staff included Regional Deputy Commissioners, Director Generals, Regional Finance Com3trollers, Directors, Regional Chiefs Budget and Financial Analysis, and RAPPs. Provincial and territorial representatives consisted of Assistant Deputy Ministers, Directors and Managers.

Database Analysis

Financial information from CSC’s Corporate Services Integrated Financial and Material Management System (IFMMS) database provided the ESAs’ financial details and actual expenditures between 2006-2007 and 2010-2011. Data reports regarding bed usage by the National Capital Accommodation and Operations Plan (NCAOP) and the Reports of Automated Data Applied to Reintegration (RADAR) databases were collected. Finally, offender-specific data were extracted and analyzed from CSC’s Offender Management System (OMS).

OMS data was used for this study and included all recorded ESA activities that occurred from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2011. The data for ESA activities in the Atlantic, Québec and Prairies regions were extracted from the 2010-2011 OMS yearly snapshot. Pacific and Ontario regions did not enter their data into OMS. Ontario had data quality issues that will be elaborated on in the limitations that precluded their use for the evaluation.

The final sample included 23,916 ESA activities for the three regions in OMS and 7,491 ESA activities for the Pacific region. It is important to note that one offender may have contributed to more than one ESA activity in the sample period and may also have accounted for more than one sentence. Due to the greater limitations found in the Pacific data and in an attempt to maintain the remaining reliability of the Atlantic, Québec, and Prairies regional OMS data, this region was kept in a separate data set and reported individually. The data was used to perform a descriptive analysis of ESA activities.

Limitations

Two significant limitations were encountered during the analysis of ESAs: an outdated logic model and the condition of the OMS data.

Logic Model

Logic models were developed individually and as needed for each agreement and included unrealistic outcomes for ESAs as a whole. For the purpose of this evaluation, a new logic model was developed that more clearly captured the expected ESA activities and outcomes at a collective level. Although there are several activities within the ESAs that could directly be linked to long-term correctional outcomes, the majority of ESA activities are of a logistical or administrative purpose, and, as such, cannot be expected to contribute to decreased recidivism. The revised logic model is provided in Appendix B.

OMS Data Relating to ESA Administration

Significant roadblocks were encountered with the OMS data pertaining to ESA activities. While performing the data extraction from OMS, it was made apparent that two of the five CSC regions did not enter their ESA data into OMS, namely, the Ontario and Pacific regions. To ensure that these regions were captured in this evaluation, they were asked to complete a spreadsheet listing all ESA activities that occurred in their region from fiscal year 2006-07 to 2010-11. In the Pacific, the document was created with a pre-existing offender tracking system specific to that region. This data was entered by CSC staff into OMS once the offender was accommodated into the CSC institution where they were to serve their sentence. For the Ontario region, there was no tracking mechanism used to collect data on ESA activities and the spreadsheet was completed by manually entering data directly from the offender records. Therefore, the data used for the Ontario and Pacific regions was of a secondary nature.

Additional data quality and reliability issues surfaced. Specifically, the data obtained through OMS and from the Pacific region contained errors pertaining to ESA facilities that were inactive at the time of the ESA activity, ESA activities for federal offenders occurring in federal institutions and ESA activities for provincial offenders occurring in provincial facilities. A few occurrences also presented problems in terms of incorrect or missing end dates for the ESA activities. These occurrences were identified and excluded from the sample, which had repercussions on the representativeness of the data. As a result of the data entry errors described, roughly 10% of the cases were deleted. These challenges should be taken into consideration when examining the data contained in this report.

The data provided by the Ontario region was excluded from the evaluation as a result of the data quality issues already noted. For example, a number of ESA activities could not be associated to an offender such as missing FPS number.

Following the identification of the challenges related to the OMS data, a review of CSC’s policies was undertaken. It was found that there are no national policies or procedures that regulate the entering of data into OMS regarding ESA activities. It should be noted, however, that staff in the Ontario Region had a training package describing the procedures required to enter ESA activities for offenders into OMS. Consequently, the lack of national guidelines is an issue, due to potential disparity, not only between, but also within regions, in understanding ESA activities and data.

Regarding the OMS data, other issues were made apparent in regards to the data categories within this ESA field. For instance, the ESA status list provided in OMS (e.g., serving offender, transfer, return to province or territory, psychological assessment, temporary detention, UAL, remand, waiver status) did not provide any explanation of the meaning of each type of status, nor did these status categories appear to be mutually exclusive.

RECOMMENDATION 1: To ensure Exchange of Service Agreements offender data is collected in a uniform and efficient manner, national guidelines should be developed for data management and entry to be followed by all CSC staff responsible for data entry related to ESAs in the Offender Management System (OMS).

Key Findings

Evaluation Objective: Continued Relevance

Federal Offenders Taking Correctional Programs in a Provincial/Territorial Institution

The 124 federal offenders taking correctional programs while under ESA status resulted in 157 program assignments. The federal offenders receiving a correctional program in a provincial location under an ESA occurred exclusively in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Substance abuse programs had the most program assignments (64%, n = 100), followed by community programs (24%, n = 37), violence prevention programs (5%, n = 8), and living skills programs (3%, n = 4). Similar to provincial and territorial offenders, all program assignments resulted in a program start and the majority were successfully completed across all program categories. CSC does not have penitentiaries in Newfoundland and Labrador and as such, the ESA provides offenders an opportunity to have a custodial supervision closer to home. Table 3 provides further details on program status for each PAA program category.

FINDING 7: ESAs have positively impacted information sharing between CSC and the provincial and territorial governments, however, opportunities for improvement have been identified.

CSC and provincial and territorial representatives were asked to rate the extent to which information is shared between CSC and provincial and territories. Overall, all CSC respondents noted that a ‘moderate’ to an ‘extensive’ amount of information was shared with the provinces and territories (100%; n = 13). Similarly, the majority of provincial and territorial respondents (77%; n = 7) indicated that there was information shared although 22% (n = 2) noted that ‘no’ information was shared.

Information sharing activities between one particular province and CSC has been identified as deteriorating. For example, under the Canada-New Brunswick Initiative (CNBI), New Brunswick used a joint website hosted by CSC, had regular quarterly joint Management Committee Meetings,^{Footnote 9} and an electronic interface between the province’s Client Information System and CSC’s OMS. The New Brunswick Department of Public Safety (NBDPS) and CSC also jointly hosted numerous community focus groups, arranged by NBDPS. Presently, none of these information exchange mechanisms exist.

In particular, New Brunswick identified their former joint electronic interface shared with CSC as an example of best practices^{Footnote 10} for information sharing. The system permitted two-way information sharing of relevant demographic, criminal history and case management information. Unfortunately, the joint interface was dismantled when upgrades were made to CSC’s OMS which required New Brunswick to upgrade their computer systems to continue the interface. New Brunswick declined to upgrade their system and the joint interface was dismantled. Three CSC representatives also identified an interface between CSC and the provinces and territories as a best practice. Some of the other best practices noted by CSC staff members included collaborating between CSC and the provinces and territories through training opportunities and developing contact between provinces and territories and the lowest level possible at CSC.

Further, provincial and territorial respondents also shared some best practices for information sharing, including the sharing of offender information electronically rather than by hard copies, having a liaison intelligence officer, prioritizing information sharing on parole and probation, and having monthly meetings between parole supervisors and CSC to share information.

RECOMMENDATION 2: CSC should examine offender information sharing practices with the provinces and territories to identify ways to enhance these procedures. If possible, national practices or policies should be established between CSC and the provinces and territories to provide a standardized approach.

Collaboration

FINDING 8: The majority of CSC, provincial and territorial respondents indicated that ESAs have created and maintained collaboration.

The relationship between CSC and the provinces and territories is fundamental to achieving the ESAs’ primary objective “to develop an integrated, seamless correctional process in conjunction with the provinces and territories that contributes to public safety” (Marquis, Ly, May, 2011, p.7). Through collaboration, CSC and the provinces and territories address the challenges of providing institutional and community correctional services to offenders. Previous evaluations have reported an increase in coordination between the two organizations and have also rated the “cooperation between the two governments as good to excellent” (CSC, 2008 p. 26). While the evaluation of the Agreement between CSC and New Brunswick indicated that positive collaboration existed (CSC, 2008), the practice of transferring sex offenders to CSC no longer exists resulting in less collaboration^{Footnote 11} now between the province of New Brunswick and CSC when compared to 2008.

Key informants from CSC and the provinces and territories were asked to comment on the extent to which ESAs created and maintained collaboration between CSC and the provinces and territories. The response was the same for both CSC and provincial and territorial respondents: 88% indicated that ESAs have created and maintained collaboration (n = 14 and n = 7 respectively). However, 12% of respondents indicated that ‘no collaboration’ was created and maintained through ESA processes (n = 2 CSC respondents and n = 1 provincial/territorial respondent).

Key informants were also asked to share best practices regarding collaboration. Respondents suggested enhancing communication and having more face-to-face meetings between peer groups would benefit ESAs. The provision of training to provincial and territorial staff was another stated best practice by both CSC and provincial and territorial representatives.

At the senior executive level, collaboration has been fostered through the development of the Heads of Corrections Forum (HOC). This Forum consists of provincial and territorial representatives, typically the Assistant Deputy Ministers and Directors responsible for corrections, as well as CSC’s Commissioner and members of CSC’s Executive Committee. The HOC meetings are co-chaired by CSC’s Commissioner and the lead for the Provincial and Territorial Heads of Corrections and are held twice per year (Intergovernmental Relations Division, 2011). The HOC has a number of sub-committees or working groups which consist of representatives at the operational level.

National Direction

FINDING 9: With respect to ESAs, CSC’s internal collaboration between the Regions and National Headquarters can be improved.

The current process for negotiating ESAs acticulates that the Intergovernmental Relations Directorate provides leadership for the ESA process (Marquis, Ly, May, 2011). CSC has established guidelines (CSC, 2001b) which focus on the negotiation, internal and external approval, implementation and management processes. However, the guidelines do not operationalize these procedures resulting in regional inconsistency regarding the interpretations of the guidelines and an increase in the length of time required to complete these processes. This was particularly evident regarding the negotiation process.

The Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines state that CSC’s Director of Intergovernmental Relations chairs the CSC ESA negotiation working group. According to interview data, CSC senior management is not typically present during ESA negotiations and the provinces and territories have expressed frustration with the lack of decision-making power at the hands of the CSC representatives who negotiate with them.

The Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines also defines the roles and responsibilities of both the federal and the provincial and territorial levels of government. However, the roles and responsibilities of the participants involved in the negotiating working group and steering committees, as stated in the Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines, are not well defined. Most respondents indicated that their roles were clear (89%, n = 17 of CSC staff and 100%, n = 9 of provincial and territorial staff). The Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines describe monitoring and reporting responsibilities as well as operational considerations regarding the ESAs’ specific objectives but does not clearly distinguish the roles and responsibilities of National and Regional Headquarters’ representatives.

RECOMMENDATION 3: CSC should ensure national and regional governance is clearly articulated to provide clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of key positions.

Evaluation Objective: Effectiveness

FINDING 10: ESAs are effective in providing a seamless correctional system within Canada that supports other correctional and reintegration activities.

The evaluation team tried to compare incidents occurring during an ESA activity to the incidents of the overall federal population to provide results on the security of offenders on ESA status. However, these incident comparisons could not be made^{Footnote 12} .

When looking specifically at escapes from custody, it was reported in the DPRs for the fiscal years 2008-09 and 2009-10, that there were approximately 2 escapes from an institution per 1000 Offender-Person-Years (OPY). Although this rate is not statistically comparable to the raw incident data that is available for ESA activities, it is interesting to note that for all 23, 916 ESA activities that occurred from 2006-07 to 2010-11 in the three regions of Atlantic, Québec and Prairies, there was one reported incident of escape from an institution. No definitive conclusions can be drawn from this comparison because there are many aspects of safety and security, and escapes are only one aspect.

ESAs, as previously discussed, provide an administrative function to allow the transport and detention of offenders between jurisdictions. The vast majority (over 95%) of ESA activities are for 30 days or less and involve transporting offenders between locations, while allowing other reintegration activities to occur in both jurisdictions. As such, ESAs are effective at providing a seamless correctional system in Canada that supports other correctional and reintegration activities.

Evaluation Objective: Economy

According to the TB policy on Evaluation, economy is the assessment of resource utilization in relation to the production of outputs and progress toward expected outcomes.

As an administrative process, ESAs provide the vehicle for payments to be made when offenders are transferred from one jurisdiction to another. The total annual resource allocation value of these agreements in 2009-2010 amounted to $26,554,966. The ESAs, therefore, constituted 1.40% ^{Footnote 13} of CSC’s direct program spending for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Due to the operational nature of ESAs, the focus of the economy analysis is primarily cost-efficiency. The principle function of ESAs is to transfer offenders between the different correctional jurisdictions of Canada, and as such, do not have the long-term effectiveness outcome measures to support a cost-effectiveness analysis.

Per Diem Rates

FINDING 11: ESAs are cost-efficient and fair in that the costs invoiced by both parties (CSC and the provinces and territories) are a rate based on the actual costs incurred by each party.

CSC invoices the provinces and territories for offenders involved in ESA activities in CSC institutions based on the annual cost of maintaining an offender (COMO). The COMO is determined by calculating the costs associated with the operation of institutions by security level. Operational costs include all expenditures incurred at the institutional level (excluding capital) as well as a portion of expenditures at the National and Regional Headquarters which are directly attributable to the maintenance of and offender. The COMO is adjusted annually. CSC experiences neither funding gains nor losses as the result of ESA activities.

CSC also averages all ESA provincial and territorial per diem rates and includes the ESA COMO as part of their overall financial reporting structure. CSC’s COMO for male and female offenders and the ESA COMO rate between 2006-07 and 2009-10 are listed in Table 4.

Source: Correctional Service of Canada, 2009-10

The provinces and territories invoice CSC for federal offenders participating in ESA activities based on an annually determined per diem rate. The Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements Guidelines allows for provinces and territories, as part of the ESA negotiations, to select an appropriate structure for payment when federal offenders are in their care.

The per diem rates are derived from the actual costs incurred by the provinces and territories from the previous fiscal year in accordance with their ESAs’ schedule of costs. In the first quarter of each fiscal year, per diem rates are approved at the regional level and submitted, through the Regional Deputy Commissioner approved Regional Capital, Accommodation and Operations Plan, to NHQ Corporate Services for inclusion in CSC’s National Capital, Accommodation and Operations Plan.

Dependent on the province, the per diems rates can increase annually commensurate with the Consumer Price Index for costs included in the ESAs’ Chart of Accounts and the specific arrangements are determined in each agreement.

Table 5 and Table 6 represent the per diem rates for each province and territory accommodating federal offenders between fiscal years 2008/2009 and 2010/2011. The cost of accommodating a female offender is higher due to the smaller number of female offenders and the related higher cost to provide equitable programs and services (CSC, 2011c).

Conclusions

ESAs perform a necessary function within Canada because the correctional system is separated between two jurisdictions, wherein the provinces and territories are responsible for offenders serving sentences of less than two years, and CSC is responsible for sentence of two years or more. This interjurisdictional separation requires administrative agreements to allow offenders to be transferred to and from jurisdictions for various reasons.

ESAs were found to be effective in providing provincial and territorial offenders access to correctional programs and allowing offenders to be supervised closer to home.

ESAs provided information sharing opportunities, however improvements were suggested by key informants. As well, collaboration was created and maintained between CSC and the provinces and territories. A summary of best practices suggested by key informants can be found in Appendix J.

The current and the anticipated future population pressures on federal, provincial and territorial corrections will require all parties to focus continued efforts to find innovative approaches to work together to manage offenders in Canadian custody.

References

Correctional Service Canada (1990), Creating Choices: The Report of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women, Section B, Chapter 6. Ottawa, ON: Author

Corrections and Conditional Release Act, R.S.C. 1992, C. 20

Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations, SOR/92-620

Correctional Service Canada (2001a), Commissioner’s Directive 541: Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements, Ottawa, ON: Author.

Correctional Service Canada (2001b), Guidelines 541: Interjurisdictional Exchange of Service Agreements, Ottawa, ON: Author.

Correctional Service Canada (2001c, May 9), Policy Bulletin, Ottawa, ON: Author.

Correctional Service Canada (2003), Performance Report for the period ending March 31, 2003, Ottawa, ON: Author.

Correctional Service Canada (2003a). Report on the Final Evaluation of the Canada-New Brunswick Initiative (394-2-34). Ottawa, ON: Author.

Correctional Service Canada Review Panel (2007), A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety (Cat. No. PS84-14/2007E), Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, Ottawa, ON.

Correctional Service Canada (2008), Correctional Service Co-ordination Agreement Evaluation Report, Evaluation Branch, Ottawa, ON: Author.

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Appendices

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B: Logic Model

APPENDIX C : ESA Activity Profile

A thorough analysis of CSC’s Offender Management System (OMS) revealed that ESA activities are used for a variety of purposes and involve offenders presenting diverse demographic and sentence characteristics. The following section provides a brief overview of the use of ESA activities over the last five year period, as well as a profile of the participants.

Throughout fiscal years 2006-07 to 2010-11, a total of 26,631 ESA offender activities were recorded in OMS for the regions of Atlantic, Québec, and Prairies. Pacific and Ontario regions did not enter ESA data in OMS. However, as a result of a request made by the Evaluation team, the Pacific and Ontario regions provided retrospective data indicating that there had been respectively 8,134 and 10,628 ESA activities in those regions. Unfortunately, due to the various data quality issues encountered, as described in the limitations section, these numbers were reduced once the data was sorted and cleaned. Specifically, 23,916 ESA activities remained for the Atlantic, Québec, and Prairies OMS data, namely 3,123 (13%) in Atlantic, 9,701 (41%) in Québec, and 11,092 (46%) in Prairies. Furthermore, the Pacific region counted 7,491 ESA activities. In the case of the Ontario region, the extent of the data quality issues prevented performing any analyses on the data provided, thus they were not included in this report.

These ESA activities were conducted in over 98 federal, provincial and territorial facilities, 74 of which were for the three regions captured by the OMS data and 24 from the Pacific region.

The majority of ESA activities were associated with federal offenders being supervised by provincial and territorial correctional authorities (98%, n = 23,391 for OMS regions [Atlantic, Québec and Prairies] and 100% for Pacific), whereas ESA activities pertaining to provincial and territorial offenders under federal supervision represented 2% (n = 483) of occurrences for OMS regions and none for the Pacific region.

The ESA activities were found to be conducted for various purposes. A high proportion of ESA activities recorded in the Atlantic, Québec and Prairies regions occurred for temporary detention (51%, n = 12,114) or for detention of newly sentenced offenders on waiver status^{Footnote 14}  (43%, n = 10,237). Only 6% (n = 1,345) of ESA activities were used for permanent detention of offenders in either provincial and territorial or federal institutions. This specific ESA activity, however, represented 96% (n = 464) of the ESA activities involving provincial offenders. Other less prominent reasons for ESA activities included offenders on remand, offenders undergoing psychological assessments, supervision of offenders in the community on day parole, full parole and statutory release, offenders in the community returning to custody, and Lieutenant Governor Warrants. The ESA activities recorded in the Pacific region also listed multiple purposes; the most common being offender transfers/transportation (46%, n = 3,508), temporary detention of offenders on waiver status (27%, n = 2,007) and pre-trial detention (14%, n = 1,057). An extensive list of ESA activity purposes is provided in Appendix D.

Overall, the number of days allotted for each ESA activity in OMS ranged from 1 to 993, but over 90% (n = 21,361) of ESA activities had a duration of 30 days or less. ESA activities for the Pacific region varied from 1 to 568 days in length, but again, the majority (96%, n = 7,208) were 30 days or less. On average, each ESA activity lasted for 16 days for the Atlantic, Québec, and Prairies OMS data and 10 days for the Pacific data.^{Footnote 15}

APPENDIX D