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Overview of the Canada-Saskatchewan Labour Market Development Agreement

The Government of Canada and Saskatchewan signed the Canada-Saskatchewan Labour Market Development Agreement (CS-LMDA) in February 1998. This Agreement gave responsibility to the Saskatchewan government for designing and delivering employment programs and services through the Employment Insurance Account. Within the province, the Department of Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training (PSEST) has assumed this additional responsibility.

Under the CS-LMDA, the following provincial programs and services (PPSs) will be delivered:

Provincial programs

• Work Placement, Community Works, Work-based Training: Work Placement programs subsidize private employers to provide work experience. Community Works operates similarly, but places clients with community-based organizations (CBOs), municipal and/or local government, Indian Bands, Tribal Councils, and Métis Nation. Work-based Training programs are delivered as part of the Job Start/Future Skills program, which provides unemployed people with work experience placements that include skill development leading to permanent employment, as well as recognition that the trainee has attained specific skills.
• Self-employment Programs: Clients receive assistance to become self-employed. The program includes business plan development and mentoring by people experienced in local business development.
• Unsubsidized work placements are alternatives within the scope of the Employment Programs provided by the province.
• Income support programs: The Skills Training Benefit (STB), implemented on January 1, 1999, supports Employment Insurance (EI) clients in training. It is used in conjunction with Saskatchewan and Canada Student Loans programs, and to a lesser extent, the Provincial Training Allowance (PTA).

Provincial services

• Bridging to Employment: A range of career and employment programs, services, and supports are available from alternate delivery partners/providers, to assist individuals to become "job ready."
• Career and Employment Services Development: Canada-Saskatchewan Career and Employment Services (CSCES) provides access to career and employment services at 20 locations across the province. As well, staff contact employers and agencies to identify job opportunities for clients and work with training institutions, community-based organisations, municipalities, and the private sector to prepare clients for employment. Alternate partners/providers may be used for career and employment services development.
• Sector Partnerships: As a component of the Job Start/Future Skills program, Sector Partnerships support industry sectors to work with training institutions, employers, and communities to design and implement regional needs assessments and human resource strategies.
• Regional Planning Partnerships (RPP): The RPP program is designed to support communities, employers, employees, and other groups to expand their local employment base and develop initiatives to respond to the employment needs of their community.
• Research and Innovation: The province may provide funding for research and innovation projects and activities, which identify better ways of helping persons prepare for or keep employment and be productive participants in the labour force.

Formative evaluation

The formative evaluation provides information on the operational effectiveness of the program, including an assessment of client satisfaction. The formative evaluation will assist both Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) and Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training (PSEST) to create cost effective, longer-term policies.

The evaluation was intended to address the following issues:

• Rationale - Are provincial programs and services consistent with federal-provincial priorities, and do they meet a need?
• Design and delivery/planning and implementation - Is the program delivered in a manner that is appropriate to achieving the goals under the CS-LMDA?
• Success/impacts/effects - Do provincial programs and services meet the objectives of the CS-LMDA? Due to delays in obtaining a non-participant sample, this work will not proceed as part of the formative evaluation. The formative evaluation presents information on client satisfaction and measures of outcome based on self-report information provided by participants. The non-participant survey and the comparison group analysis will be undertaken as part of the summative evaluation scheduled for 2002.

All methodological components of the formative evaluation have been undertaken except for a non-participant survey and the comparison group analysis. This work will proceed in the course of a later summative evaluation that will measure the longer-term impacts of programs on the clients.

Main findings

Rationale

Prior to the initiation of the CS-LMDA, the province created the Saskatchewan Training Strategy (STS). It laid the foundation for the CS-LMDA and allowed for the integration of federal-provincial programs into the comprehensive labour market development initiative. As such, this agreement is similar to other LMDAs that feature significant devolution of federal labour market programming.

A basic theme of the STS is that labour market training should be undertaken by the current secondary and post-secondary educational system. The STS discouraged the streaming of unemployed persons into programs tailored for EI clients, Social Assistance recipients, and others. The idea is that many clients need common training, and that it makes little sense to tailor training based on client attributes.

To manage the new programs and funds, Saskatchewan has embarked on a comprehensive information strategy designed to record all client activity. Known as the One Client Service Module (OCSM), this system is intended to offer an integrated information solution to record all activity by department staff as well as public and community-based organizations that use or deliver programs and services funded by PSEST.

The final element of the STS was to ground the training design and delivery in a regional and sectoral framework, where business/industry, government, educational institutions, and community organizations could jointly plan courses and increase the efficiency of the labour market. To that end, a network of regional service centres and Internet services was created.

The essential implication of the STS for EI clients is that, in principle, they would access the same portfolio of courses and supports open to any unemployed person in Saskatchewan. However, as the CS-LMDA evolved, EI clients presented special needs, and the province has responded with special programming. Most notable is the Skills Training Benefit, which offers educational financial support (and in some cases income support) for EI clients.

The first year-and-a-half of the CS-LMDA has seen the two orders of government each endeavouring to fulfill the objectives of the EI Act and the Saskatchewan Sector Strategic Plan, which succeeded the STS. Most important has been a protracted negotiation period for the CS-LMDA. Even the evaluation framework (issues and questions) required an extended period of discussion. The process of negotiation and discussion is a process of searching for the common ground to allow the federal government to meet the requirements of the EI Act, and the province to integrate EI clients into its array of program and services.

Provincial programs and services align well with the EI Act, and meet the requirements of the CS-LMDA.

Design, delivery, planning and implementation

The following are the main findings related to the implementation of the Agreement.

• Based on interviews with senior management from the provincial and federal governments, an important goal of the CS-LMDA was to ensure that the programs and services in Saskatchewan matched the employment benefits and support measures (EBSM) offered in the pre-LMDA era. The STB is an example of a program not included in the Saskatchewan array of programs and services that the province added to meet the special needs of EI clients.
• For the most part, overlap and duplication of PPSs are minimal. Three areas exist where federal and provincial programming purposely overlap: programming for youth, persons with disabilities, and Aboriginal persons. Federal and provincial representatives stated that this apparent overlap increases service.
• Several federal and provincial officials reported that partnerships with industry have been strengthened under the CS-LMDA. Some provincial managers reported this may also reflect the sectoral planning process that the province has supported for almost a decade.
• It is not possible to establish whether services in French are adequate, because the total demand for service in French is very low. Most of those who requested services in French reported being satisfied (nine out of eleven).
• Federal officials reported that the province was slow to identify the contribution of the federal government. Both federal and provincial representatives reported that the situation has improved.
• The provincial information system needs further development to support program monitoring and performance measurement. Development appears to be behind schedule, and information from various program sources is not fully integrated. Reconciling existing databases and adopting standards across programs (e.g., type of program, outcome codes, dates for program start and end) are urgently needed to improve the system.
• Information sharing protocols between federal and provincial partners need improvement. Both federal and provincial representatives criticized the inability to share information properly. Key informants from both federal and provincial governments report that the process that allows Canada-Saskatchewan Career and Employment Services staff to identify EI eligible clients is inefficient, and compromises effective program delivery. The inability to obtain the non-participant sample shows that the information sharing process requires further development.

Client satisfaction and preliminary outcomes

Some impacts can be discerned based on the client and employer surveys:

• Clients are satisfied with services provided at CSCES offices. Most who have used them have found them helpful — particularly career counselling, multimedia products for resume writing, and computer services for searching the Internet.
• Employers find it difficult to distinguish between the former federal and current provincial training programs. Many employers who participate in a wage subsidy program or use the job order process to find employees are unaware that they have hired a former EI client, and as such, they are unable to evaluate the current provincial training programs with respect to serving EI clients.
• Service providers are aware of the changes brought on by the LMDA in terms of the use of community-based organizations. Some service providers report that they now receive some core funding, enabling long-term planning. A difficulty was noted in training SA, EI, and non-income support students in a mixed class.
• An intended outcome of the CS-LMDA is improved planning. An important change resulting from the LMDA has been the shift in authority for planning to the recently created Regional Services Branch (CSCES), which now controls the budget and has the decision-making authority.

Program impacts/effects are preliminary

Questions posed in the evaluation framework regarding success, impacts, and effects are addressed in a preliminary and tentative way through client surveys, focus groups, and dyads.

• Clients using provincial programs and services express high levels of satisfaction.
• Based on the client survey (n=1,250), about one-third of participants said they were required to prepare a case/action plan2¹ before beginning training. A similar proportion of clients completed case/action plans in each region. Based on the client and focus group responses, back-to-work plans (case/action plans) appear to be an effective and useful part of the training process.
• Employers are generally satisfied with programs targeted to EI clients. Programs have helped a majority of employers to fill job vacancies and skill shortages, and meet human resource needs.

Footnotes

1

Clients of Provincial Programs and Services (PPS) will meet with counselling staff, usually at a Canada-Saskatchewan Career and Employment Centre, and develop a program of training, job search, and or job placement, the goal of which is to secure sustainable employment within a specified time period.