Transparent
The way
forward
Ongoing enhancement, measuring results
The effort to improve government services goes back a long way. It started in 1998, when the Government of Canada launched an initiative to move some of its services online and set up the 1 800 O-Canada phone number as a point of contact.
In 2005, we created Service Canada, the first consolidated portal of government programs. Our first service delivery review was in 2010, and from that we made further improvements — including introducing Canada.ca in 2013 as the online “front door” to the Government of Canada. With no intention of stopping there, in 2014 we published the first Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat policy to guide government organizations in service design and delivery management.
Since 2015, services have become simpler and more convenient than ever before. For instance, clients can auto-fill tax returns, auto-enroll for the Old Age Security Pension and view their Employment Insurance application’s status online. These are just a few of the initiatives we’ve pursued in an effort to design and deliver services that put user needs first.
The next leap forward
Today, many services can be accessed online and are simpler, convenient and more user-centric than ever. But our work is just getting started. Going forward, we will continue to collaborate, innovate, strategize and streamline to realize the vision of anytime, anywhere, digitally enabled and seamless government services.
To fulfill this vision, we need to:
Modernize our IT infrastructure
Create a service culture that is responsive to client needs and expectations
Enhance departmental capacity to innovate
Improve information sharing while implementing appropriate privacy and security measures
Increase capacity to manage and leverage data
Ensure ongoing engagement with users to ensure service delivery meets client needs
We will continue to focus our efforts on delivering client-focused services. Effective service standards and our digital toolkit will drive short-term results. So will this Report on Service by highlighting service delivery strengths and areas that need improvement. Our long term commitments include, enabling a “tell us once” experience; fostering a client-centric service culture; strengthening service innovation; and, supporting identity management to become fully digital.
As the GC, to achieve total digital integration, we need to be…
Interconnected
Seamless
Technology-assisted
On the spot
How we’ll measure progress
Performance metrics and feedback from Canadians will be key indicators of how well we’re achieving our goals. We’ll evaluate service performance through the data on Canada.ca/results, the Departmental Plans, and the Management Accountability Framework. In fact, Canada.ca/analytics is available now in beta and provides Canadians with real-time updates on how Canada.ca is being used such as page views, visits and most popular information. We also have plans to introduce data-driven reporting similar to what’s available for border wait times. Together, all of these will let Canadians see how services are performing in real-time and give them an idea of what to expect as well as enable us to make changes based on how satisfied clients are with our service.