Service Canada 2007-2008 Annual Report Highlights

The following information is out of date.

Service Canada is pleased to present to Canadians a summary of its annual report for fiscal year 2007–2008. This summary highlights the progress we made between April 2007 and March 2008. It describes how we are working to become the place where Canadians go—whether online, by phone, in person, or by mail—to access the programs, services, and benefits they need from the Government of Canada and its many partners. The complete annual report is available at www.servicecanada.gc.ca.

Who we are

At Service Canada, we are the Government of Canada's single-window service delivery network for Canadians. Working with other federal departments and agencies, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, and community organizations across Canada, we provide Canadians with easy access to some of the most in-demand government programs and services.

Canadians have told us that they want just one place to go for the information they need and for the programs and benefits to which they are entitled. They want to be able to access government information, programs, and services in ways that make sense to them. This is what Service Canada is delivering.

Service Canada is just a click, call, or visit away. We have online services at www.servicecanada.gc.ca, a national telephone information service at 1 800 O-Canada, and 620 locations across Canada where Canadians can visit us in person. In fact, by March 2008, we had 329 full-service Service Canada Centres, 227 scheduled outreach locations, and 64 Service Canada community offices. Ninety-five percent of Canadians now live within 50 kilometres of a Service Canada location.

During 2007–2008, Service Canada and its 18,000 employees:

• served millions of Canadians from all walks of life, including youth, working adults, seniors, Aboriginal people, Canadians with disabilities, and newcomers to Canada;
• delivered more than $74 billion in Government of Canada benefits to Canadians;
• welcomed 9.2 million people at our 620 Service Canada locations;
• received more than 51 million calls about Government of Canada programs and services;
• answered 88% of the 1.8 million calls to our 1 800 O-Canada call centre within 18 seconds;
• hosted 26.6 million visits to our Web site;
• processed more than 5 million applications for government benefits;
• carried out more than 13.7 million authentication transactions to validate the identity of applicants for government benefits;
• issued more than 60,000 Common Experience Payments to former students of Indian residential schools;
• issued more than $72 million in rebates under the ecoAUTO Rebate Program to help Canadians buy or lease fuel-efficient vehicles;
• received and helped prepare more than 267,000 passport applications;
• handled more than 128,000 requests for pleasure craft licences;
• ensured that 93% of eligible Canadians received their Apprenticeship Incentive Grant payments within 28 days; and
• processed more than 1.4 million requests for Social Insurance Numbers.

We are improving our services

In 2007–2008, we continued to improve the way we deliver service to Canadians by:

• launching several new services, including the Common Experience Payment for former students of Indian residential schools, the ecoAUTO Rebate Program, and the Ice Compensation Program;
• continuing to enhance and streamline the way we deliver services on the Internet and on the phone;
• opening 33 new locations across Canada, including in northern and remote communities, where Canadians can access service in person;
• expanding the number of locations receiving passport applications from 35 to 101;
• tailoring our offerings to meet the needs of Canadians with special needs (for example, we added 4,000 adjustable furnishings in 85 Service Canada Centres to help accommodate people with disabilities); and
• boosting efforts to provide multi-language services by posting online fact sheets on government services in 8 Aboriginal and 12 foreign languages.

We also took steps to raise our profile and make our services known to more people. Through advertising and participation in public events, we increased awareness of Service Canada by 51% in the past year.

We are building trust

At Service Canada, our goal is to deliver benefits to the right people, accurately and on time, and to manage our services in ways that prevent fraud and deliver results efficiently. In 2007–2008, to help build trust in our programs, we:

• continued to emphasize the use of riskmanagement strategies in implementing new services;
• enhanced or implemented various controls to protect confidential client information;
• evaluated the integrity of the Social Insurance Register—and found that Social Insurance Numbers are issued to the right person 99.9% of the time; and
• worked to improve our automated services to reduce the risk of errors and fraud, as well as to cut costs.

In addition, we conducted 772,357 identity, fraud, and benefit payment investigations related to major Government of Canada programs. These investigations resulted in savings of almost $343 million to taxpayers.

We are working with many partners

Our partnerships with other federal departments and levels of government play a key role in helping us serve Canadians better. In 2007–2008, we provided more than 70 services on behalf of 13 federal organizations, and we continued to improve the tracking of personal identity information with a number of provinces.

Examples of our partnering activities included:

• launching the Integrated Newborn Birth Registration Service with British Columbia;
• working with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada to improve delivery of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program;
• working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to deliver the Ice Compensation Program to East Coast fishers;
• working with Citizenship and Immigration Canada to validate the data needed to generate Social Insurance Numbers; and
• working with the Voluntary Sector Advisory Committee to bundle the services offered to client groups with common needs.

We are also working with our partners to reduce the number of times Canadians have to supply personal information when applying for various Government of Canada programs. Through the My Service Canada Account feature on the Service Canada Web site, Canadians can now securely access and update Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance key personal information.

We are accountable

We took steps throughout 2007–2008 to further improve accountability and transparency in government. We continued to report on our progress, and to strengthen the way we track our performance. For example, we are using monthly and quarterly corporate performance scorecards to accurately track how we are doing.

We are listening to Canadians

At Service Canada, we are always looking for ways to improve our services. One of the key ways we do this is through our Office for Client Satisfaction, which received more than 6,000 items of feedback in 2007–2008. Despite the high volume, the Office succeeded in acknowledging 99.9% of the feedback within 24 hours and replying to all inquiries within seven working days.

We value our people

Listening to Canadians is an important part of making sure we can deliver excellent service. But it is also important for us to recognize that good service starts with our people. We are committed to investing in their training and career development, and to building a work force that is known for its professionalism and competence. We recognize and reward a service excellence culture within Service Canada and across government.

In 2007–2008, some of the ways we expanded our commitment to service excellence included:

• developing a number of service excellence courses at the Service Canada College for citizen service agents;
• registering citizen service agents in the Service Excellence Certification Program;
• producing an employee development plan and a learning policy–over 90% of staff have now completed a personal learning plan;
• delivering training for new staff and new managers, and on new client services; and
• implementing the new Service Leadership and Management Excellence Development Program.

Moving forward

We are making progress in providing personalized service to Canadians. Whether Canadians choose to click, call, or visit, they will find the information they need about Government of Canada benefits and services, and they will get a timely response to their questions and concerns. But we have more work to do. We plan to improve services that are in demand and to broaden the scope of our successful pilot projects and new approaches. We are also working with our growing network of partners to improve the services we offer. And we are providing training to our employees and supporting their professional development, because we think Canadians deserve the best service possible.

In 2008–2009, we look forward to reporting once again on our challenges and achievements.