Section 4: Performance Summary

4.3 Implementing Our Management Strategy

Government On-Line and Service Improvement

Environment Canada continues to be committed to better serving Canadians. The better we can connect Environment Canada's science, policies, regulations, information and advice with Canadians, the more effective Canada will be in achieving its societal outcome of sustainable development. Environment Canada remains committed to delivering timely, accurate, and relevant environmental information and services to a diverse range of clients and partners through all delivery channels, including the Internet.

Highlights of the progress made in 2003-2004 include the following:

• Changing How We Work: We understand that only by transforming our business processes will we increase the relevance of our services to clients and citizens. Our focus for 2003-2004 involved conducting several surveys and studies to document and facilitate the move forward with respect to "Better Serving Canadians through the Internet Channel." This project, which will commence in the 2004-2005 fiscal year, will bring together Environment Canada's Internet into a coherent and consistent presence.
  
  
• Strategic Alliances and Partnerships: Environment Canada continues to seek out new alliances and partnerships, and strengthen and build on those already in place, as one of the key ways in which to provide Canadians with the services they seek from their government on a broad range of environmental issues. Our partnerships with other government departments and jurisdictions demonstrate our commitment to Canadians to provide integrated environment-related information services so that Canadians can use the information to make responsible decisions about their environment. Towards the end of the review period we secured funding for the RésEau - Building Canadian Water Connection Project through the Treasury Board Secretariat Government Online Investment Strategy Fund. Under the leadership of Environment Canada and in partnership with Health Canada and Natural Resources Canada, RésEau will demonstrate national access to multi-jurisdictional government-held water information providing Canadians and water managers with a more robust picture of the state of water in Canada as well as support the development of national indicators and decision support tools for water information.
  
  
• Canadians Involved With Their Environment: Through community-based monitoring programs as well as through other volunteer programs, Environment Canada provides Canadians with the opportunity to become more involved with their environment. During the review period we provided Canadians with one-window access to all Environment Canada volunteer programs through the creation of a Volunteers Gateway on our main Internet site at http://www.ec.gc.ca.
  
  

• Government On-Line: Environment Canada remains committed to meeting the 2005 Government of Canada deadline for the Government On-Line initiative. We are on time and on budget for meeting our 2005 targets established for the Government On-Line services we reported.
  
  

The Department continues to move forward on the federal Service Improvement Initiative, which seeks to achieve a 10% improvement in the quality of current key services by the year 2005. At present, three key services are part of this initiative:

• Precipitation elements in forecasts;
  
  
• Severe weather warnings; and
  
  
• Toxic import and export permits.
  
  

For these services, the Department is developing benchmarks (through the use of surveys), standards and service improvement plans to establish the basis for achieving improvement in the quality of services. The improvement plans were implemented in fall 2002. For example, initiatives included revising product standards, new scientific performance measurement technologies and new Internet based service delivery technologies for the public and media. Service delivery against established standards will be measured each year to assess the progress towards the attainment of the 10% improvement target. Future Departmental Performance Reports will demonstrate performance against established targets. In the fall of 2004, based on the results of this pilot project, Environment Canada will be assessing the feasibility of expanding the Service Improvement Initiative to other services.

The Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) has begun a supporting effort on service improvement. Initiatives to ensure that services are improved include: automated delivery and customization of information and products; the renewal of the weather web site; an increasing focus on public access to all data and information; and new service delivery agreements with key media and private sector partners. For more information, refer to Section 5.3.

Modern Management

For the past two years, Environment Canada has been implementing its Modern Management Action Plan (MMAP) which is centered on transforming the way the Department works by building management capacity necessary to deliver policy and program initiatives. The Plan was created to address opportunities for improvements identified in a departmental self-assessment of basic financial and management systems, procedures and operational capacity needed to ensure a solid foundation for modern management practices.

To date, Environment Canada's MMAP, modeled after Results for Canadians: A Management Framework for the Government of Canada, has provided the vehicle to ensure continual improvement in a variety of management areas. Presently, work is proceeding on the development of a second generation of the initial Plan that builds on the progress made so far, but that also incorporates a stronger focus on the expectations set out by the Treasury Board Secretariat's recently articulated Management Accountability Framework.

In 2003-2004, priority attention has been paid to revising the Department's planning and management framework and related decision-support systems to fully support results-based management. This effort has yielded a program activity architecture that will support both internal decision-making and external accountability reporting. In particular the new architecture provides improved transparency of how departmental activities link to key results and an improved basis for linking financial and non-financial information.

Environment Canada is at a crossroads with regard to the management of human resources. The impact of changing pressures and the new Human Resources Modernization Framework will lead to significant strategic decisions regarding how "people management" needs to be conducted within the Department and where we want to make investments to improve our approach and systems for the longer term.

In 2003-2004, Environment Canada progressed on the development of an overarching "People Plan" to guide human resource management activities. This initiative communicates the Department's people-management commitments and overall direction to all levels of management and staff.

Environment Canada will continue to ensure managers have the tools and expertise they need to meet the broad standards set out by central agencies to ensure a culture of sound management and accountability within the federal public service. This includes attention to developing enhanced capabilities in managing in an environment of financial reallocation.