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Office of the Correctional
Investigator
2003-2004
Estimates
A Report on Plans and Priorities
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I am mandated as an Ombudsman for Federal Corrections. I firmly believe that the
responsible oversight of correctional operations is a service that Canadians value
greatly. The strategic outcome that they expect is that their correctional system
will be fair, equitable, humane, reasonable and effective. To ensure that this happens
is the focus in all that we strive to accomplish for and on behalf of Canadians.
It is our "raison d'être".
Over the past few years, my Office has vigorously pursued an agenda of operational
improvement in order to optimize its efficiency in carrying out its primary mandate.
We have achieved significant progress in implementing our first Corporate Strategic
Plan and have begun to explore new strategic directions. In so doing, the OCI adheres
to the new management framework "Results for Canadians". Accordingly, the Office
of the Correctional Investigator re-affirms its commitment to excellence in four
areas critical to a well performing public sector agency.
Firstly, the OCI will refine and enhance its focus on its mandate in designing,
delivering, evaluating and reporting on its activities.
Secondly, the OCI will continue to govern itself and what we do by a clear set of
values, which respect and reinforce Canadian institutions of democracy; and we will
be guided by the highest professional and ethical values.
The third principle recognizes that the OCI has as its mandate the achievement of
results and on reporting them in simple and understandable ways to elected officials
and to Canadians.
Fourth, given the limited nature of public funds, the OCI is committed to ensuring
responsible spending.
Responsive and well managed federal organizations, oriented to the needs of citizens
and working in collaboration with other levels of government and with the private
and not-for-profit sector are critical to the attainment of national goals within
our Canadian justice system.
R.L. Stewart
Correctional Investigator
B. Management Representation Statement
Management Representation Statement
I submit, for tabling in Parliament, the 2003-2004 Report on Plans and Priorities
Office of the Correctional Investigator
This document has been prepared based on the reporting principles and disclosure
requirements contained in the Guide to the preparation of the 2003-2004 Report on
Plans and Priorities.
It accurately portrays the organisation's plans and priorities.
The planned spending information in this document is consistent with the directions
provided in the Minister of Finance's Budget and by
TBS.
Is comprehensive and accurate.
Is based on sound underlying departmental information and management systems.
The reporting structure on which this document is based has been approved by Treasury
Board Ministers and is the basis for accountability for the results achieved with
the resources and authorities provided.
Name: ______________________________
Date: ______________________________
Section II: Raison D'être
The Office of the Correctional Investigator provides Canadians with timely, thorough
and objective monitoring of their federal correctional system, to ensure that it
remains fair, equitable, humane, reasonable and effective.
Section III: Planning Overview
The OCI is largely funded through operating expenditures and we have the authority
to spend revenue received during the year.
Managerial attention will remain on the implementation and consolidation of the
multi-year Corporate Strategic Plan formally adopted in January 2002. In Year 1,
efforts were devoted to creating the necessary infrastructure, in terms of human
resources information management and reporting systems.
However, its main challenge in Year 2 of its strategic planning exercise will be
in the application at the field (operations) level of the Integrated Planning Framework.
Concepts, methods, roles and responsibilities, expected outcomes, performance measurement
and evaluation strategies were all agreed upon at the November 2002 Strategic Planning
Retreat. Progress will be incremental and linked directly to the growth in the OCI
investigative staff's ability to gather, analyze and strategically use the information
vis-à-vis the individual and systemic issues brought to their attention by or on
behalf of federal offenders. Success will be demonstrated by a number of indicators,
not the least of which will be the timely deployment of the right resources (including
human, material and information) at the right place and vis-à-vis the right issues.
Accordingly, our priorities will be on the appropriate frequency of our institutional
visits, the issues of Federally Sentenced Women and Aboriginal Offenders, the review
of S.19 investigations and Use of Force videotapes. Emerging systemic issues such
as Elderly and Young Offenders will, notwithstanding the potential challenge they
represent in terms of resource allocation, also be a concern.
Finally, the OCI remains acutely aware that its ability to provide results for Canadians
is linked to the level and quality of its participation as a partner in the criminal
justice system. Accordingly, it will pursue its efforts to maintain a positive and
productive working relationship with the Correctional Service. The OCI will also,
in keeping with the new approach to external communications it adopted as part of
its corporate strategic plan, significantly increase its contacts and cooperative
endeavours with its other partners and stakeholders in the field of corrections.
Section IV: Plans and Priorities by Strategic Outcome
A - Summary
Strategic Outcome
Responsible, humane, fair and effective corrections.
Priorities
Increase frequency of institutional visits.
Offer specialized services to Federally Sentenced Women (FSW) and Aboriginal Offenders.
Increase the ability to review and follow-up on S.19 investigations and Use of Force videotapes.
B - Details
The primary strategic outcome of the OCI remains the provision to Canadians of an
independent review agency to investigate the problems of federal offenders related
to decisions, recommendations, acts or omissions of the Correctional Service of
Canada (CSC). Section 19 of its enabling legislation, the Corrections and Conditional
Release Act (CCRA) also requires that it reviews of all CSC Investigations
convened following the death of or serious bodily injury to an inmate. The OCI is
also engaged in similar monitoring of all interventions by Institutional Emergency
Response Teams (IERT'S), in keeping with the recommendations of the Arbour Commission.
The maintaining of an independent and objective review process within a correctional
environment where the office has virtually no control over either the number of
complaints or the extent of investigations required presents a number of unique
challenges. First, the resolution of disputes in an environment traditionally closed
to public scrutiny with an understandably high level of mistrust between correctional
officials and inmates, requires that the Office not only be, but be seen to be independent
of both the Correctional Service and the Ministry. Second, given that the authority
of the Office rests with its power of persuasion and public reporting rather than
enforceable recommendations, it is imperative that appropriate administrative and
political mechanisms be available to ensure that reasonable, fair, timely, equitable
and humane action is taken on the findings made by the OCI.
In recent years, changes to the regulatory and legislative environment have forced
the OCI to dramatically expand its services. The Arbour Commission of Inquiry (1996)
noted that the statutory mandate of the OCI should continue to be supported and
facilitated because only the OCI is in the "unique position both to assist in the
resolution of individual problems, and to comment publicly on the systemic shortcomings
of the Services."
In 1997, the Auditor General noted that one of the factors creating difficulty at
that time, was the overall size of the workload. Indeed since that time the OCI
has implemented the recommendations of the Auditor General to address those workload
issues, including working with the Correctional Service to improve the inmate grievance
procedure and to provide an improved policy and procedure manual to investigators.
The Auditor General noted as well, however, that the demand for services remains
elevated, incessant and that both the overall volume and complexity of issues continues
to increase.
In 2000, the Sub-committee on the Corrections and Conditional Release Act
of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, recommended that the budget
of the OCI be "increased in order to expand the number of investigators and [to]
cover directly related expenses such as office equipment, communications and travel
required to conduct investigations".
The OCI does not foresee any diminution or decline in either the overall demand
for services or in the complexity of the issues the OCI is called upon to address.
The environment in which the OCI is called upon to provide "Results for Canadians"
continues to be extremely challenging and one in which innovative and dedicated
service provision is essential to moving ahead.
To respond to these pressures, the OCI identified the following three priority activities
that it will implement during the first three years of the strategic plan. These
are:
Increase the capacity for institutional visits to a level that is acceptable to
the detained population and the Canadian people.
Create specialist positions to address issues of Federally Sentenced Women and Aboriginal
Offenders.
Increase the ability to review and follow-up on both investigations as per Section
19 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and Use of Force Videotapes,
as per the recommendations of the Arbour Commission.
Currently at the exploratory stage and dependent on the availability of additional
resources are two other priority activities:
Offer specialized services to Young Offenders housed in federal penitentiaries.
Offer specialized services to Older Offenders (presently + or - 16% of the federal
inmate population and growing).
The Logic Model presented below sets out just how the OCI views how it delivers
the services necessary to support its mandate and deliver on its commitment to the
strategic outcome of responsible, humane, fair and effective corrections.
The logic model identifies the linkages between the activities of the OCI program
and the achievement of its outcomes. It clarifies the activities that make up its
program and the sequence of outcomes expected to result from these activities. It
serves as a tool with multiple uses:
to clarify for OCI
managers and staff the linkages between activities, outputs and the expected outcomes
of the program. In so doing, it will serve to clarify and distinguish the expected
immediate, intermediate and ultimate outcomes;
to communicate externally about program rationale, activities and expected results;
to allow all program elements to make informed trade-off decisions for the allocation
of resources and the application of effort;
to test whether the program "makes sense" from a logical perspective;, and
to provide the fundamental backdrop on which the performance measurement and evaluation
strategies are based (i.e. determining what would constitute success).
Exhibit 4.1 - OCI Logic Model
Of legitimate interest to elected officials and Canadians is how the OCI has previously
allocated resources and how it plans to do so to respond to the foreseeable demands
in upcoming fiscal years. Set out below are spending profiles, consistent with the
major activities identified in the OCI logic Model (exhibit 4.1 above).
The core business of the OCI is responding to inmate complaints arising from incarceration
and anticipating and addressing more systemic issues that arise periodically (e.g.
Aboriginal, Federally Sentenced Women, Section 19 and Use of Force). These two activities
comprise the core services provided by the OCI and this is recognized in the spending
profile below.
Over the next several years, arising out of the Arbour Report, the recommendations
of the Auditor General and the recommendations from the subcommittee studying the
Corrections and Conditional Release Act, additional resources were identified to
be targeted in response to the systemic issues identified above and to relieve against
a steadily increasing overall demand for inmate complaint resolution services. This
is also reflected in the spending profile below.
Exhibit 4.2
Spending Profile by Activity including Program Integrity Resources
for fiscal years 2000-2001 to 2004-2005*
In keeping with its reviewed commitment to focus on its mandate in evaluating and
reporting on its activities, the Office of the Correctional Investigator has included
evaluation and reporting strategies in its recently adopted Corporate Strategic
Plan.
The evaluation strategy for the OCI provides a periodic opportunity to take an in-depth
look at how its program is doing. The primary focus is on being able to bring about
improvements to facilitate the achievement of results or to determine the degree
to which the OCI program led to the achievement of desired outcomes (i.e. attribution).
Thus, for every policy, program or initiative, the OCI gives consideration to a
core set of key evaluation issues (i.e. relevance, success and cost-effectiveness).
Relevance issues might include whether the OCI program is the most appropriate response
to the identified need. Issues related to success measure the results achieved throughout
the sequence of outcomes as presented in the logic model. Cost-effectiveness is
tied to relating resources expended by the OCI to its performance in terms of outputs
and results.
As well, issues related to the implementation or delivery of the OCI program are
considered as evaluation issues. Here, the OCI addresses how its program is actually
being implemented compared to how it was intended to be implemented. Aspects of
program delivery by the OCI are measured including assessments of the outputs and
the reach (for example, the degree to which inmates of the federal corrections system
are being reached). The adequacy of the performance measurement strategy itself
is also an evaluation question.
In addition, the OCI's evaluation strategy questions the degree to which unintended
positive or negative outcomes have resulted from the OCI program.
In prioritizing evaluation issues of import to it, the OCI takes into account its
risk management considerations in order to determine which areas are most important
to it; therefore establishing which areas require greater attention. This process
ensures that the final set of evaluation metrics address the key information requirements
of OCI managers as well as being practical to implement in terms of timing and resourcing.
The OCI documents all evaluation issues considered so that a record exists of those
issues contemplated but determined to be of lower priority for an evaluation of
its program.
The OCI will report annually to Parliament on the results of its ongoing performance
measurement and evaluation. It will report annually to the Treasury Board Secretariat
on whether or not its reporting commitments are being met. The Correctional Investigator
will report the performance information and the evaluation results as per the following
schedule:
Exhibit 4.3 - Reporting Table
Results Measurement Activity
Product
Date of Reports
Reporting Commitment Measurement
Annual Report
Six months after the project begins and every 12 months after that (i.e. 2nd
report is mid-year between Year 1 and Year 2)
Ongoing Performance Measurement
Annual Performance Report
End of Year 1
End of Year 2
End of Year 3
End of Year 4
Formative/Midterm Evaluation
Formative/Midterm Evaluation Report
Year 3
Summative Evaluation
Summative Evaluation Report
Year 5
The performance measurement strategy will be put into operation and monitored by
the Correctional Investigator to ensure not only that it is proceeding as intended,
but also that it is producing useful information. Adjustments will be made where
required to adapt the performance measurement activities such that the utility of
the information is maximized.
Section V: Organization
A - Organization Chart
Exhibit 5.1 - OCI Organization
B. Agency Planned Spending
Exhibit 5.2 Agency Planned Spending
The net cost of the OCI program is, at the present time, expected to remain stable
over the next three fiscal years. A potential source of increase resides in the
OCI's ongoing quest for the additional resources required to offer specialized services
to elderly offenders and to young offenders housed in penitentiaries.
($ thousands)
Forecast Spending
2002-2003
Planned Spending
2003-2004
Planned Spending
2004-2005
Planned Spending
2005-2006
Budgetary Main Estimates (gross)
2,881
2,922
2,922
2,922
Non-Budgetary Main Estimates (gross)
2,881
2,922
2,922
2,922
Less Re-spendable revenue
-
-
-
-
Total Main Estimates
2,881
2,922
2,922
2,922
Adjustments**
87
-
-
-
Net Planned Spending
2,968
2,922
2,922
2,922
Less: Non-Respendable revenue
-
-
-
-
Plus: Cost of services received without charge
233
256
258
258
Net cost of Program
3,201
3,178
3,180
3,180
Full Time Equivalents
27
27
27
27
* Reflects the best forecast of total net planned spending to the end of the
fiscal year.
** Adjustments are to accommodate approvals obtained since the Main Estimates
and are to include Budget initiatives Supplementary Estimates etc.
Section VI: Annexes
A. Financial Information
Exhibit 6.1 Net Cost of Program for the Estimates Year
($thousands)
Office of the
Correctional
Investigator
Total
2,922
2,922
Plus: Services Received without Charge Accommodation Provided by Public Works and
Government Services Canada (PWGSC)
256
256
Contributions covering employer's share of employee's Insurance premiums and expenditures
paid by TBS
-
-
Worker's compensation coverage provided by Human Resources Canada
-
-
Salary and associated expenditures of legal services Provided by Justice Canada
-
-
Less: Non-respendable Revenue
-
-
2003-2004 Net Program Cost (Total Planned Spending)
