Results-Based Management: A Culture at the Canada Revenue Agency - Performance and Planning Exchange Learning Event

Results-Based Management:
A Culture at the Canada Revenue Agency
Performance and Planning Exchange Learning Event
                                    February 2, 2010

Agenda
§ Objective
§ Overview of the Canada Revenue Agency
§ Results-Based Culture
  • Performance Measurement Program System
  • Service Standards
  • Monitoring and Reporting
§ Results-Based Management
  • Influencing Management Decisions
  • Commissioner’s Annual Reports to the Provinces and
    Territories
  • Meeting Internal and External Pressures
  • Small Business Compliance Burden
§ Conclusion
                                                    2

Objective
§ To demonstrate how the culture of
  Results-Based Management supports and
  enables decision making at the Canada
  Revenue Agency

                                          3

Overview:
     The Canada Revenue Agency
§ 42,500 employees in over 50 offices nationally
§ 25 million public enquiries
§ More than 27 million individual returns filed
§ Almost 2 million corporate returns filed
§ $366 billion revenue collected
§ Over $16 billion in benefit payments to over
  11 million entitled Canadians
§ Almost 67,000 Appeals resolved
§ Almost 64,000 Taxpayer Relief cases resolved
§ 93 benefit programs and services administered
  on behalf of federal, provincial, and territorial
  governments
                                                      4

Results-Based Culture – WHAT??
§ What is a results-based culture?

  • Programs and Managers instinctively employing a
    results-based management strategies

  • Using common data sets to formulate multiple
    measurements to meet multiple reporting
    requirements

                                                      5

Performance Measurement Program
         System (PMPS)
§ PMPS is a flexible system that allows for the
  timely development of measures and data

§ Performance data is entered directly by the
  Branches, and is used to support: In-Year
  Reporting, the Annual Report and the Corporate
  Business Plan

§ System contains more than 1200 individual data
  elements that are used in measuring all CRA
  programs for reporting purposes

                                                  6

Service Standards
§ Key element in the redesign of the CRA's
  performance measurement framework

§ Feed directly into the "Quality of Service"
  dimension of the Agency Performance
  Measurement Framework

§ Publicly state the level of performance citizens
  can reasonably expect to encounter

                                                     7

Monitoring and Reporting
§ Some of the reports that use the current
  Results-Based Management Framework are:
  •   Annual Report to Parliament
  •   Service standards
  •   Departmental Performance Report
  •   Quarterly Performance Reports
  •   The Commissioner’s Annual Reports to the Provinces
      and Territories

§ As well, each branch monitors program
  performance related to the framework on a
  monthly or weekly basis
                                                      8

Results Based Management
§ The culture of Results-Based Management at
  CRA influences, supports and enables
  management decisions at many levels in the
  organization

                                               9

Commissioner’s Annual Reports to
   the Provinces and Territories
§ Provide statistical results to each of the
  13 provinces and territories

§ Analysis of trends for provincial tax and benefit
  programs that the CRA administers

                                                  10

Commissioner’s Annual Reports to
   the Provinces and Territories
§ The Agency’s goal is to deliver accurate,
  efficient, and effective processing of individual
  and business tax returns
§ CRA introduced two-dimensional (2-D) bar
  coding on returns prepared using certified tax
  software and printed for submission to CRA
§ Keying and processing errors were significantly
  reduced
§ Increased use of 2-D bar coding = decreased
  errors during keying and processing
§ Provides a provincial context to the measures we
  use federally
                                                11

Commissioner’s Annual Reports to
  the Provinces and Territories

45%
                                                          39%
40%                                      37%
35%                     30%
30%
25%
20%
15%
      9%
10%
5%
0%
      2005              2006             2007             2008

             Percentage of Paper Returns with a 2D Bar Code
                                                                 12

Meeting Internal and External
   Pressures – Telephone Services
§ Telephone accessibility has always been a
  priority for the Agency
§ Target had been established at 80%
§ External pressure from taxpayers regarding
  improving telephone accessibility
§ Ministerial priority to increase accessibility
§ 2008 internal reallocation of funds to increase
  telephone accessibility targets to 90%

                                                    13

Meeting Internal and External
         Pressures – Telephone Service

     100%
         95%
         90%
         85%
Target
         80%
         75%
         70%
               2004-2005     2005-2006      2006-2007     2007-2008      2008-2009

                           General callers that reach our telephone service
                           Business callers that reach our telephone service

                                                                                     14

Small Business Compliance Burden
§ Commitment to measure compliance burden
  made in the Report of the CRA’s Action Task
  Force on Small Business Issues
§ Performance measurement framework for
  compliance burden reduction developed in 2008
§ The Benchmark Report, an introductory
  examination and measurement of the
  compliance burden, published in 2009
§ The Progress Report, re-examining and
  measuring against benchmarks, will be published
  in 2010

                                                15

Small Business Compliance Burden
CRA response rate for telephone enquiries
                                           06-07   07-08

Percent of business calls in the queue
were responded to within two minutes       81%     82%

Percentage of Web page visits by topic
                                           06-07   07-08

Percent of small businesses used the CRA
business Web site to look for forms and
publications                               83%     82%
                                                     16

Results-Based Culture – HOW??
§ How is this culture shift achieved?
  • EXPERTISE – develop a centre of expertise for
    results-based management and ensure senior
    management support
  • TOOLS – ensure you have the right data collection
    and analysis tools so results-based management
    does not excessively burden programs and managers
  • REPETITION – don’t give up….it often takes years to
    build a results-based culture
  • OPPORTUNITY – ensure you leverage your diverse
    reporting requirements and provide visibility and
    continuity
                                                     17

Conclusion
§ The critical success of the results-based management
  culture and its ability to support and enable decision
  making at CRA relies on:
   • Senior Executive support and engagement
   • A mature yet flexible system to ease the burden of
     data gathering and analysis
   • A defined set of indicators to measure the success of
     the organization for various reporting requirements
   • A clear understanding at multiple levels of
     management of the importance of results based
     management
   • Continual visibility of the successes and challenges
     throughout the organization
   • Watch out for “Perfection Paralysis”
                                                           18

Questions?
                     Contacts:
                  Normand Théberge
                      Director General
Corporate Planning, Governance and Measurement Directorate
              normand.théberge@cra-arc.gc.ca

                       Eric Miller
                          Director
     Corporate Performance and Measurement Division
                 eric.miller@cra.arc.gc.ca

                     David Beamer
                    Assistant Director
                Results-Based Management
                dave.beamer@cra-arc.gc.ca