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Minister's Message

As minister responsible for the Canada School of Public Service (the School), I am pleased to present the School's 2010-2011 Departmental Performance Report. The full document is available at www.myschool-monecole.gc.ca.

The School plays a key role in supporting the public service by offering relevant, affordable and quality learning and development programs across the country that support government priorities. In his most recent report to the Prime Minister, the Clerk of the Privy Council noted that we are entering a new stage in the evolution of the public service as a result of several factors, including changing demographics and an increasingly challenging operating environment. In this regard, the School plays a key role in supporting the renewal of the public service and ensuring that public servants have access to learning that will provide them with the skills and competencies to serve Canadians.

Over the past year, the School has made important progress in the implementation of its management agenda to strengthen its position as the learning organization of choice for public servants. The agenda included establishing a business model to gain efficiencies, ensuring that the School's curriculum reflects its core business, and aligning human resource capacity accordingly. These changes have resulted in lower costs, increased registration and greater client satisfaction. In short, the School is responding to client needs and providing value for money.

The School's professional and dedicated employees will continue to build on the initial progress that is highlighted in this report. I am confident that the School's capacity to deliver well managed and efficient programming will continue to serve the needs of the public service.

 

 

 

Section I: Organizational Overview

Raison d'être

Responsibilities

Established on April 1, 2004, under the Public Service Modernization Act operating under the authority of the Canada School of Public Service Act (CSPS Act), the School's primary responsibility is to provide a wide range of learning opportunities and develop a learning culture within the Public Service. The School has a direct effect on service to Canadians by contributing to the skills development of public service employees and the effectiveness of public service organizations.

As a departmental corporation, the School is mandated under the CSPS Act to:

• encourage pride and excellence in the Public Service;
• foster a common sense of purpose, values and traditions in the Public Service;
• support deputy heads in meeting the learning needs of their organizations; and
• pursue excellence in public management and administration.

The School's program priorities are geared to delivering results in accordance with the Treasury Board's Policy on Learning, Training and Development (the Policy), which came into effect on January 1, 2006. The Policy highlights the value of learning, with particular emphasis on required training, and the importance of creating a learning culture within the Public Service.

The School supports deputy head accountabilities with respect to leadership and professional development across the Public Service by identifying organizational needs and designing and delivering high-quality and practical programs that address the key development needs of public service employees.

As a common service organization under the Treasury Board's Common Services Policy, the School's curriculum is designed to support public service accountabilities and to respond to leadership competencies and government priorities. As an optional service provider, the School continuously responds to the needs of the public service in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

The School is integral to Public Service Renewal, offering a broad suite of courses to incrementally advance the renewal agenda. It also supports the priorities of the Public Service Renewal's Excellence Agenda by supporting the renewal of the workforce and workplace.

Strategic Outcome and Program Activity Architecture (PAA)

The School has a single strategic outcome: "Public servants have the common knowledge and the leadership and management competencies they require to fulfill their responsibilities in serving Canadians." Four program activities support this strategic outcome:

• Foundational Learning
• Organizational Leadership Development
• Public Sector Management Innovation
• Internal Services

The chart below illustrates the Canada School of Public Service's complete framework of program activities, sub-activities and sub-sub-activities, which roll up and contribute to progress in achieving the strategic outcome.

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Organizational Priorities

Priority	Type [1]	Strategic Outcome(s) and/or Program Activity(ies)
Support to functional communities	Ongoing	Foundational Learning
Status [2]: Met All
Priorities were met in the delivery of training for functional communities and also through the engagement of priority functional communities (e.g. Finance, Procurement, Materiel Management and Real Property, Federal Regulators and Internal Audit, Communications, Human Resources and Information Management) in the development of formal training and informal learning interventions that meet their needs. In 2010-2011, the School completed learning strategies and learning needs assessments for learning communities to strengthen the School's curriculum and respond to emerging learning needs.

Priority	Type	Strategic Outcome(s) and/or Program Activity(ies)
Implementation of the Leadership Development Framework (LDF)	New	Organizational Leadership Development
Status: Mostly Met
A broad range of leadership development opportunities were offered to public servants contributing to enhanced job performance and leadership capacity building across the Public Service of Canada. Leadership development programs, courses and events were delivered to 3,136 learners representing 16,600 learning days. In 2010-11, organizational leadership learning services which include leadership assessment services, coaching and change management advisory services were offered to 850 organizational clients. In response to strategic review decisions, the School phased out its Career Assignment Program (CAP), Management Trainee Program (MTP) and Accelerated Executive Development Program (AEXDP), while simultaneously ensuring that the learner content of these programs was consolidated under the LDF for use by new leadership programs. This transition leads to increased efficiencies and greater focus of the School's leadership development programs and activities. While resources continue to be limited, the School is reviewing its options to ensure that a full suite of leadership courses is offered in a cost efficient manner.

Priority	Type	Strategic Outcome(s) and/or Program Activity(ies)
Continued internal efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness in operations	Ongoing	All Program Activities
Status: Exceeded
Compared to 2009-10, in 2010-11, the School reduced its actual spending from $138.2M to $128.6M, while increasing its revenues from supplied services from $70M to $71.7M and its registrations from 74,814 to 79,337.

Priority	Type	Strategic Outcome(s) and/or Program Activity(ies)
Continue to improve business processes	Ongoing	All Program Activities
Status: Exceeded
The School's 2010-11 Management Agenda was developed to ensure that the organization is delivering relevant, high quality learning products and services in a cost-effective manner, while demonstrating strong management practices. The launch of the 2010-11 Management Agenda was followed by a major reorganization of the School's operations, management and governance structures, for example, reducing the number of direct reports to the Deputy Minister from eight to four. The School also merged its program delivery activities under one branch. This reorganization allowed the School to begin securing efficiency gains while placing greater focus on the strengthening of the School's learning products and services.

Priority	Type	Strategic Outcome(s) and/or Program Activity(ies)
Implementation of Integrated Learning Management System (ILMS)	New	All Program Activities
Status: Met All
The School replaced four legacy systems with the implementation of the ILMS. The system is designed to increase the School's ability to operate efficiently and in a more cost-effective manner by integrating the registration, management and administration of learning into one platform. The ILMS also allows users to self-register for learning and training activities while providing access to the School's online learning courses and communities of practice forums.

Risk Analysis

The School's 2010-11 Management Agenda was developed to ensure that the School is delivering high quality, relevant learning products and services in a cost-effective manner, while demonstrating strong management practices. As a result, a number of strategic decisions were made, most notably, a new organizational structure that reduces the top executive layers of management allowing for future savings. The new structure consolidates the School's program delivery activities under one branch and allows for streamlined decision-making across the department.

In an effort to ensure that its products and services are meeting the needs of the public service, the School regularly reviews its curriculum. In 2010-11, the School undertook a comprehensive review of its curriculum which led to the retirement of courses that were performing below expectations. The review of the School's curriculum also fostered the development of new products and services that are more aligned to the needs of the public service.

In response to the Government of Canada's ongoing focus on reducing the current federal budgetary deficit and the continued absorption of funding reductions from the Horizontal Strategic Review Exercise, the School identified ways to be more efficient and effective while better aligning its programs with department and agency learning needs. The School further worked to mitigate the associated risks by focusing efforts on strengthening its curriculum and by using its human resources and technologies to deliver the highest quality learning and training products available. The School also made efforts to build effective partnerships with its key clients and stakeholders to ensure that it is properly positioned to address the learning needs of the Public Service.

The management of the School's information technology (IT) resources in support of its business applications continues to evolve. The concept of shared services is being embraced through clustering service agreements with other federal organizations (e.g. SAP through Health Canada, IT infrastructure through Public Works and Government Services Canada, PeopleSoft through the Treasury Board Secretariat, etc.). There are additional opportunities for the School to promote a collaborative learning environment, one that increasingly relies on emerging technology and is core to the long term growth of the organization. In an effort to mitigate the associated risks, the School has implemented an IT rationalization initiative that seeks efficiencies and prioritizes key investments in IT support services, such as, virtualization of the server environment and optimizing technologies used in classrooms. As well, during 2010-11, the School finalized the implementation of the ILMS which allowed for the integration of the registration, management and administration of learning and promotion of a collaborative learning environment.

The School addressed its human resources/workforce management challenges by focusing on talent management, both by encouraging the development of competencies and skills among existing employees and recruiting public service employees with the skills and competencies they require to deliver high quality services to Canadians. Factors which add complexity include the limited number of subject matter experts and candidates with course design and teaching expertise in addition to the intense competition among departments and agencies to attract functional experts in certain professional fields. To mitigate this risk, the School worked to promote the development of in-house expertise, reducing reliance on external contracted resources for program delivery. By securing in-house expertise on a permanent basis, the School was able to reduce its reliance on consultants while gaining efficiencies and building corporate expertise.

Summary of Performance

2010-11 Financial Resources ($ thousands) ^[3]

Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
112,691	153,357	128,634

2010-11 Human Resources (full-time equivalents (FTEs)

Planned	Actual	Difference
940	934	-6

Strategic Outcome: Public servants having the common knowledge and the leadership and management competencies they require to fulfil their responsibilities in serving Canadians.

Performance Indicators	Targets	2010-11 Performance
Change in the level of participants' common knowledge due to training (Orientation, Authority Delegation Training) received at the School.	The School will continue benchmarking in 2010-11 and will implement recommendations of the Formative Evaluation of Authority Delegation Training. Orientation to the Public Service will be evaluated in 2011-12.	Respondents reported an increase in their perceived level of knowledge for both Orientation and Authority Delegation courses (4.09 post-course versus 3.10 pre-course based on a 5 point scale). The School continued to work on implementing recommendations resulting from the Formative Evaluation on Authority Delegation Training, including: defining priority knowledge elements and improving the quality of knowledge assessments and related participation rates.
Percentage of participants who report their learning objectives were met through the School's leadership and management training received.	80% of respondents report learning objectives met.	In 2010-11, 89% of respondents reported that their learning objectives were met through the training provided by the School.
Degree of satisfaction of participants with the School's training received.	Learning activities receive an average rating of 4 on a 5 point scale on overall satisfaction.	On average, participants reported a 4.21 level of satisfaction with assessed learning activities (classroom courses and events).

Program Activity	2009-10 Actual Spending ($ thousands)	2010-11 [4] ($ thousands)				Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
		Main Estimates	Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
Foundational Learning	52,159	69,358	69,358	101,650	72,488	Well managed and efficient government operations
Organizational Leadership Development	14,179	13,724	13,724	19,133	17,993
Public Sector Management Innovation	8,253	11,647	11,647	11,124	10,468
Total	74,591	94,729	94,729	131,907	100,949

Program Activity	2009-10 Actual Spending ($ thousands)	2010-11 ($ thousands)
		Main Estimates	Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
Internal Services	63,679	17,962	17,962	21,450	27,685

The differences between actual spending and planned spending reflect the increase in the amount of revenue generated above the planned spending amount by the School.

Expenditure Profile ($ thousands)

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Revenue Earned ($ thousands)

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Estimates by Vote

For information on our organizational votes and/or statutory expenditures, please see the 2010-11 Public Accounts of Canada (Volume II) publication. An electronic version of the Public Accounts is available on the Public Works and Government Services Canada website.

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