ARCHIVED - Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada - Report

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page

This page has been archived.

Section II: Analysis of Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

Strategic Outcome

All of the Office’s program activity efforts aim to achieve its single strategic outcome, which is to ensure that individuals’ rights under the Access to Information Act are safeguarded.

As the ombudsperson responsible for investigating access complaints against federal institutions, the Information Commissioner represents an independent source of expert knowledge with a unique perspective on freedom of information and the importance to democracy of transparency and openness in government. In order to maximize the Commissioner’s and the Office’s influence and promote requesters’ rights, the Office must complement its investigative work by sharing its expertise with stakeholders and being as transparent as possible about its decisions and ways of doing business.

The following section describes the Office’s achievements against its expected results, performance indicators and targets, along with the relevant financial and human resources information.

Program Activity by Strategic Outcome

Program Activity: Compliance with Access to Information Obligations

2009-2010 Financial Resources ($ thousands)			2009-2010 Human Resources (FTEs)
Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending	Planned	Actual	Difference
6,230	7,966	7,894	59	54	5

Expected Results	Performance Indicators	Targets	Performance Status	Performance Summary
1. Requesters benefit from a fair and effective complaints resolution process	Quality and timeliness of the investigation process (including investigation, legal review, approval and report of findings)	90% of investigations adhere to quality assurance standards at first round of review	Mostly met	See Performance Analysis below.
2. Stakeholders understand the role and perspective of the OIC in ensuring compliance with the Access to Information Act.	Reach to, and feedback from, stakeholders (i.e., the public, requesters, ATIP coordinators community, other) through public events, speaking engagements, access to proper web-based and other tools and information	Stakeholders reached through having ready access to the Office’s publications, tools and information namely via a Web site that is redesigned to be comprehensive, up-to-date and user-friendly; and stakeholders feedback generally positive	Met all
3. Federal Institutions meet their obligations under the Access to Information Act.	Proportion of OIC recommendations that are adopted following investigations of complaints /report cards	95% of complaints investigation recommendations are adopted and 80% of report card recommendations are adopted	Mostly met
4. The Courts receive useful representations and relevant evidence about access issues, the proper interpretation of the provisions of the Access to Information Act, related statutes, regulations and jurisprudence.	Proportion of court cases where judgments support OIC representation (either to sustain or clarify interpretation of related statutes) and/or where OIC evidence was considered as part of court deliberations	90% of court judgments either support OIC representation and/or consider OIC evidence	Mostly met
5. Parliament receives clear, relevant information and timely, objective advice about the access to information implications of legislation, jurisprudence, regulations and policies.	Value of OIC information and advice provided to Parliamentarians and Parliamentary Committees	80% of relevant Parliamentary Committee reports refer to OIC advice; positive feedback from Parliamentarians, Committee Chairs and members	Met all

Starting with the 2009-2010 Estimates cycle, resources for internal services must be displayed separately from the OIC’s core program activity. Consequently, the Office will conduct a benchmarking exercise to establish relevant expected results, reliable performance indicators and realistic targets for internal services.

Program Activity: Internal Services

2009-2010 Financial Resources ($ thousands)			2009-2010 Human Resources (FTEs)
Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending	Planned	Actual	Difference
2,275	3,679	3,569	23	24	(1)

Benefits for Canadians

Under the Access to Information Act, anyone who makes a request for information to a federal institution and is dissatisfied with the response or the way it was handled has the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. The Office is committed to investigating these complaints in a fair, efficient and confidential manner. This investigative function is crucial to safeguarding the rights of individual Canadians to access public sector information.

To maximize compliance across federal institutions and reduce the number of complaints it receives, the Office takes a proactive approach to widespread or recurring non-compliance issues by investigating their root causes and recommending appropriate solutions. The Office also uses a variety of tools of general and specific applications to extend the impact of its investigations and systemic actions. This in turn maximizes service to Canadians.

In the same spirit, the Office’s performance assessments, parliamentary relations and all related communications activities and collaborations focus on ensuring that Canadians know that they have the right to complain about the way their information requests are handled and that institutions have a responsibility to respond to those requests as quickly and completely as possible within the legal deadlines.

Performance Analysis

1.   Requesters benefit from a fair and effective complaints resolution process.

In 2009-2010, the Office closed 2,125 complaints, representing a 20 percent increase in completed cases from 2008–2009. With the exception of 1989–1990 (when we closed 3,011 files and three quarters of which involved one institution), this is the highest number of cases we have closed in our 27-year history. We also reduced by nearly one third the average time it took us to conclude investigations into our more recent complaints.

The number of open cases decreased nearly every month, continuing the downward trend that began in the summer of 2008. Over the reporting period, our caseload decreased by 17 percent (436 files). This drop in caseload includes a steady decrease in the number of longstanding complaints (dating from before April 1, 2008). We started the year with 1,105 of these files; by year-end, that number had shrunk to 387, a decrease of 65 percent.

These achievements resulted directly from a concerted effort to improve our investigative function, based on a detailed assessment of our caseload and building on the initial success of the new business model introduced in 2008-2009.

Guided by an enhanced tracking and reporting system, we took decisive actions to maximize our efficiency gains. Our first priority was to hire and train new staff to bring our workforce up to full strength. We also honed our approach to managing cases and made crucial adjustments to our processes.

The Information Commissioner made full use of all the powers and tools at her disposal to maximize adherence to legislative requirements, as set out in our compliance continuum.We collaborated with all stakeholders during investigations in the search for the best solutions to complaints. The Commissioner took a firm hand when required, subpoenaing records, conducting examinations under oath, sending heads of institutions final recommendations under the Act to resolve complaints, and even referring a matter to the Attorney General of Canada for review and possible prosecution.

2.   Stakeholders understand the role and perspective of OIC in ensuring compliance with the Access to Information Act.

Collaboration with our stakeholders and partners in the access to information regime — institutions, citizens, domestic and international counterparts and interest groups — is key to enhancing our effectiveness and achieving our strategic outcome. Partnerships are crucial to our efforts to advance access to information and transparency issues.

We regularly meet with our provincial and territorial counterparts in person or by teleconference. In 2009-2010, this collaboration contributed to making the Right to Know Week a national event. Right to Know Week is an annual event that celebrates the fundamental principles of freedom of information while bringing together prominent experts in the field.

In March 2010, we launched a new and improved website that immediately received positive feedback from users. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, the new website provides a much more comprehensive view of the work we do. In the Reading Room section, users can find information through a full range of reports. We also post the access to information requests we receive. Interested readers may ask informally for the documents that we released in response to each request.

3.   Federal institutions meet their obligations under the Access to Information Act.

The report card process undertaken in 2009-2010 reviewed how 24 federal institutions performed in processing access requests during the previous year. These institutions accounted for 88 percent of all access requests, the largest sample we had ever looked at in a year. We found that 11 institutions performed reasonably well, while 13 performed below average or worse.

The report cards highlighted issues that have a detrimental impact on the access to information regime. In addition to chronic delays, systemic issues include a high volume of lengthy inter-institutional consultations and flawed or ill-enforced delegation for access to information decisions within institutions. These two issues are being examined more closely as part of a systemic investigation initiated in May 2010.

One noteworthy development in 2009 was the launch of a three-year plan to bolster our report card process to get to the root causes of delay in the system. The plan includes an integrated approach to compliance assessment, combining institutional performance reviews and systemic investigations.

4.   The courts receive useful representations and relevant evidence about access issues, the proper interpretation of the provisions of the Access to Information Act, related statutes, regulations and jurisprudence.

A fundamental principle of the Access to Information Act is that decisions on disclosure should be reviewed independently of government. The first level of review is by the Office through our investigation process. The second level of review is by the Federal Court, once our investigation concludes that a refusal complaint is substantiated and the institution refuses to follow our recommendation to disclose the information.

In 2009–2010, our work in the courts led to progress on several ongoing and new cases that have an important impact on the access to information regime. For example, we continued to seek access to records held within ministers’ offices and the Privy Council Office. As a result, the Information Commissioner was granted leave to appeal Federal Court of Appeal decisions to the Supreme Court, with a hearing tentatively scheduled for October 2010. We have also become party to a court case against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to protect the reach of our investigative powers under section 68.1 of the Act.

5.   Parliament receives clear, relevant information and timely, objective advice about the access to information implications of legislation, jurisprudence, regulations and policies.

In 2009-2010, the Information Commissioner appeared five times before the ETHI Committee. Discussions focused on systemic issues affecting access to information in Canada, our 2008-2009 annual report, funding issues at the OIC, as well as possible reforms to the Access to Information Act. In June 2009, the ETHI Committee tabled a report on the renewal of the Access to Information Act, in which it adopted all but one of the 12 recommendations for immediate action made by the Information Commissioner.

Lessons Learned

In response to considerable challenges in delivering on our mandate, the Office initiated major structural and operational changes in 2008-2009.  The goal was to improve our core investigative function and ensure diligent stewardship of our operations to deliver high quality services to Canadians.  

In 2009-2010, we completed a comprehensive review of our complaints handling process. This exercise as well as the intelligence and expertise gained during the reporting period have allowed us to become more strategic and proactive in the way we conduct our investigations. The in-depth knowledge of our complaints inventory — of its composition and evolution — is guiding us in further refining strategies to resolve complaints more quickly and efficiently. However, the increasing number of complex refusal complaints, including our oldest remaining files, calls for greater analytical capacity. We must also reinforce our legal function to ensure the legal support our investigators need and to mitigate the risk of greater litigation associated with more complex cases.

We will capitalize on our strengths and on the success of our new business processes to date to tackle the work and the challenges that remain ahead of us. As momentum is building nationwide to redefine the requisites for government openness, the ombudsman responsible for access to information must demonstrate efficiency and timeliness in resolving issues and complaints, while promoting by example the most up-to-date principles and practices in proactive transparency.

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page