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Annual Report on the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act 2010-11


Archived information

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Reported Disclosure Activity

There are 154 active organizations in the federal public sector that are currently subject to the Act.[3] These organizations inform OCHRO of senior officer appointments under the Act. Pursuant to subsection 10(4) of the Act, 36 organizations have declared that they would not establish internal disclosure procedures or appoint a senior officer because the size of the organization made it impractical to do so.

Subsection 38.1(1) of the Act requires each chief executive to prepare and submit to OCHRO, within 60 days after the end of every fiscal year, a report on the activities related to disclosures made in his or her organization. The following is a summary of these reports. Statistics from previous years are included for comparison.

Disclosure Activity 2007–11
Disclosure Activity 2010–11 2009–10 2008–09 2007–08
Number of active organizations 154 155 153 153
Number of general inquiries relating to the Act 277 281 186 259
Number of organizations that reported inquiries 33 29 28 35
Number of disclosures received under the Act 291 213 181 234
Number of organizations that reported disclosures 33 32 27 30
Number of referrals resulting from a disclosure made in another public sector organization 3 4 2 1
Number of cases carried over based on disclosures made in previous year 75 31 25 N/A
Total number of disclosures handled
(new disclosures plus cases carried over and referrals)
369 248 208 N/A
Number of disclosures received that were acted upon 350 218 162 179
Number of disclosures received that were not acted upon 19 30 45 50
Number of investigations commenced as a result of disclosures received 111 75 60 87
Number of disclosures received that led to a finding of wrongdoing 9 7 6 7
Number of organizations that reported findings of wrongdoing 7 4 3 6
Number of disclosures received that led to corrective measures 31 36 38 26
Number of organizations that reported corrective measures 16 14 13 14
Number of organizations that reported finding systemic problems that gave rise to wrongdoing 2 4 1 2
Number of organizations that reported not disclosing information about findings of wrongdoing within 60 days 7 N/A N/A N/A

In accordance with paragraph 11(1)(c) of the Act, it is the responsibility of each organization to provide public access to information describing findings of wrongdoing and any follow-up action taken. This information is not collected or repeated in this report.

Statistics on organizational reports of activities related to disclosures made under the Act are available in the Appendix. These statistics provide a useful snapshot of activity under the PSDPA. The following points might be noted in relation to this information:

  • It is difficult to compare statistics across organizations because the cultures vary; issues may be dealt with through different mechanisms in different organizations.
  • Sometimes a disclosure will contain several allegations, each taken as a separate disclosure.
  • Cases that are identified through disclosure may be followed up through another process, such as a grievance procedure, as appropriate.
  • Disclosures can be made to a supervisor, a senior officer for disclosure, an individual named by the empowering legislation (such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police complaints officer) or the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The choice of channel for disclosure cannot be construed to reflect a lack of trust in one channel or the other.


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