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II: Analysis of Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

A. The Office of the Registrar’s Strategic Outcome and Program Activity

The Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada has a single strategic outcome:

• To provide the best decision-making environment for the Supreme Court.

The performance indicators for the strategic outcome relate mainly to the quality and timeliness of the service provided.

• Level of satisfaction among judges regarding quality of service. The judges are the primary clients of the Office of the Registrar, and thus it is critical to measure their satisfaction with performance. Satisfaction is monitored informally on an ongoing basis throughout the year by the Registrar's regular communication with the judges. However, satisfaction will be more formally monitored on an annual basis by conducting interviews with the judges. The interview will include among other things the timeliness of processing and the quality of support provided.

• Level of satisfaction among lawyers regarding quality of service. Lawyers represent the Office of the Registrar' s second major group of stakeholders. The Office of the Registrar will continue to receive ad hoc feedback from counsel who appear before the Court as well as more formalized feedback from bench and bar committees such as the Court Ottawa Agents Practice and Procedures Committee and the SCC/CBA Liaison Committee. Feedback from counsel and self-represented litigants will also be collected via a “comment card” at the Registry counter.

This strategic outcome is supported by the Office of the Registrar’s sole Program Activity - “Process hearings and decisions”. The Office of the Registrar exists to provide the services the Court must have to render its decisions as the court of last resort. The principal responsibilities of the Office of the Registrar are to provide a full range of administrative and support services to the Judges and to manage cases coming to the Court.

Process Hearings and Decisions

($ millions)	Forecast Spending 2007-2008	Planned Spending 2008-2009	Planned Spending 2009-2010	Planned Spending 2010-2011
Main Estimates	31.8	29.1	28.6	28.7
Total departmental spending	41.1	37.5	37.1	37.2
Full Time Equivalents	192.0	193.0	193.0	193.0

The Program Activity has three sub-activities as follows:

1. Management of Court Cases. In order to render decisions, the Court requires the support of the Office of the Registrar in the management of cases from receipt of an application for leave to appeal to the release of the bilingual judgment on appeal and its publication. The expected results for this sub-activity are “access to Court services and information” and “courtroom systems reliability”. Both of these are key elements of the hearing process and must be in place if the Supreme Court is to render judgments.

2. Library Services. The Supreme Court Act requires the Registrar to, under the direction of the Chisf Justice, manage and control the library of the Court. Accordingly the Office of the Registrar provides legal library services with an extensive civil law and common law collection suited to the broad jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Canada. The expected result for this sub-activity is “access to reference information”, which is a necessary part of the Supreme Court’s decision-making process.

3. Process Payments to the Supreme Court Judges Pursuant to the Judges Act. The Judges Act specifies the salaries of the Supreme Court judges, and prescribes other payments to be made to judges, namely allowances, removal, meeting, conference and seminars, and annuities, all of which are processed by the Office of the Registrar. The expected result for this sub-activity is “timely and accurate processing of payments”. This is necessary to meet its statutory obligations.

B. Process hearings and decisions—Expected Results and Performance Indicators

Program Activity	Expected Result	Performance Indicators
Process hearings and decisions	Cases processed without delay	Number of months between filing of application for leave and and decision on application for leave Number of months between hearing and judgment

• Number of months between filing of application for leave and decision on application for leave. The receipt of an application for leave is the beginning of the process for most appeals. Before hearing an appeal from the highest court in a province or the Federal Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court must give permission (or leave to appeal) to the appellant. The Office of the Registrar receives the application for leave, offers assistance to the parties, reviews the application, and provides legal and case management support to the panel of three judges of the Court who decide whether to grant or dismiss the application for leave. There is continuing pressure on the Office of the Registrar to minimize the processing time for applications for leave. The target for decision on an application for leave is 14 weeks, and statistics are maintained, allowing for regular monitoring.

• Number of months between hearing and judgment. Once leave to appeal is granted, a hearing date is set. Following the hearing of the appeal, the decision is rendered by the judges. Decisions can be delivered immediately, but most often there is a delay to allow the judges to issue reasons for the decision. Judges are supported in the decision writing process by their law clerks and staff of the Registry and the Law Branch. The bulk of the employee work is in translating, editing and summarizing the decisions of the Court and publishing decisions in the Supreme Court Reports, in accordance with the Supreme Court Act. The target for release of judgments is six months from the hearing date. Statistics are maintained, and elapsed time is monitored regularly. Statistics can be found on the Supreme Court’s website: (http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca).

The following section provides additional detail on the three sub-activities which comprise the Process hearings and decisions program activity.

Sub-Activity	Expected Result	Performance Indicators
Management of Court Cases	Access to court services and information Courtroom systems reliability	% of lawyers and unrepresented litigants that were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with Registry services Number of hearing disruptions for technical reasons per year

• Percentage of lawyers and unrepresented litigants that were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with Registry services. The Registry branch is the interface between the Office of the Registrar and its “clients” or lawyers, self-represented litigants and the public. These groups contact the Registry for information regarding cases and the process of filing an application for leave to appeal, and for the actual filing of documents. In 2006-07, a comprehensive survey was undertaken to assess the satisfaction of lawyers and self-represented litigants with Registry services. Results were very positive. It is planned to conduct similar surveys every two to three years to regularly assess performance. The target is to have 95% of those surveyed respond that they are satisfied or very satisfied with service. The Registry will also monitor client satisfaction by means of a “comment card”, which any client attending at the Registry counter will be encouraged to fill out. The target for a "satisfied" or above rating will also be set at 95%.

• Number of hearing disruptions for technical reasons per year. The Office of the Registrar will be completing the Courtroom element of the Court Modernization priority in 2008-09, but with the work completed to date, the audio-visual equipment in place is far more stable and supported by an emergency back-up system that will allow seamless proceedings in the event of a technical failure. Disruption reports are maintained which describe any equipment problems or failures, and the resolution, including whether the hearing had to be delayed or in the worse case, rescheduled. The intention is that acting quickly on any problems and failures combined with a rigorous testing and maintenance program will ensure disruptions are minimized. The target is to have no disruptions caused by technical failures in a year.

Sub-Activity	Expected Result	Performance Indicators
Library Services	Access to reference information	% of factual/bibliographic requests for reference assistance responded to within service standard of 1 working day % of complex/substantive requests for reference assistance responded to by date required by client % of users that were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with library services

• Percentage of requests for reference assistance responded to within service standards or by date required by client. Requests for reference assistance may be factual or bibliographic, which can generally be responded to by reference to an authoritative source, or may be complex or substantive in nature, which means the request may require unique approaches, consultation with various sources, and ultimately the exercise of judgment. Therefore, two separate indicators have been developed to assess these very different types of requests. A standard of one working day has been established for factual bibliographic requests. In the case of complex or substantive requests, the date the client requires the information will be the basis for performance measurement. In both cases, the target has been established at 95%. The Library Branch will maintain statistics on requests and will measure performance on a sample basis at various times throughout the year.

• Percentage of users that were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with library services. The Library provides legal information and research services, including the acquisition of a comprehensive legal collection in print and electronic formats, customized legal awareness tools and services such as an inter-library loan service, and access to electronic resources. Library staff receive feedback on a regular basis from users on a range of subjects including ability to find relevant material, ease of searching, availability of useful material, etc. In order to more formally capture the satisfaction of users, the Library will conduct a survey approximately every four years. The target is to obtain satisfied or very satisfied ratings from 95% of respondents.

Sub-Activity	Expected Result	Performance Indicators
Process payments to the Supreme court pursuant to the Judges Act	Timely and accurate processing of payments	% of payments processed within service standards % of errors on payments

• Percentage of payments processed within service standards. The Financial Management Branch will commence tracking processing times for payments to judges in 2008-09. The standard is to process a payment within five working days. The target is to have 95% of payments processed within the five day standard.

• Percentage of errors on payments. Financial Management staff may receive feedback from judges when errors have been made in payments, however, this is not a reliable method of assessing the accuracy of the payments. Accordingly, an independent file review will be conducted every two to three years in order to formally assess the accuracy of these payments. The target is to have no more than a two percent error rate.

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