Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the committee for the invitation today and for undertaking a study on the access to information and privacy system.
Global Affairs Canada works closely with the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Office of the Information Commissioner, and other federal institutions to share best practices, to address complaints, and to position ourselves to successfully meet operational challenges.
Most recently, Commissioner Maynard visited our department in early October to meet with then acting Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cindy Termorshuizen.
At Global Affairs, we recognize the importance of continuing to improve on-time responses, implementing efficiencies and building capacity through education and skills development on ATIP. We can, and must, do better.
This past June, Global Affairs Canada, under the direction of the deputy ministers, adopted an ambitious plan to reduce the backlog of access to information requests, recognizing the need to do better. Targets were established, the responsibility level of assistant deputy ministers was strengthened, and accelerated training was implemented.
To date, since the start of the fiscal year, we have trained 544 departmental employees on access to information. Our efforts are supported by commitments horizontally, that is, throughout the department, and vertically, or at all levels, both of which are essential. Progress is monitored very closely. In addition, gaps are identified and reported as soon as possible.
We are making progress. The proportion of requests processed on time, which had fallen to a low of 19% during the first year of the pandemic, has now risen to 57%. This represents steady improvement. We have achieved this at a time when access to information requests regarding the previous fiscal year have risen by 30%.
The challenges we experienced during the pandemic have sharpened our understanding of what we need to change. First, we needed to identify ATIP as a critical service to access our buildings during repeated waves of the pandemic. At the outset of the pandemic, our ATIP processing software was housed on a secure network, accessible only from the office. Global Affairs identified access to information as a critical service. Between June and September 2020, virtually all GAC ATIP employees resumed working on site, including processing secret and top secret files.
As we work to fully clear our backlog, I would like to highlight two other areas of focus. First is people. The shortage of qualified ATIP specialists is well known. We work on multiple fronts to fill positions: holding our own GAC recruitment processes, working with the Treasury Board Secretariat and other government departments on the community development office initiative on collective staffing processes and with our internal professional development program encouraging employees to build a career in ATIP.
We also have a number of specialists on contract who are experienced with access to information. All of these efforts are needed to make up for long-standing staff shortages across the federal government in the area of access to information.
Let me talk about our investments in technology. Last year, we set up a new system for processing unclassified documents for ATIP requests, which increases our efficiency and our flexibility for remote work. Over the next fiscal year, we will begin transitioning to a new generation of document processing software for ATIP, taking advantage of the Treasury Board Secretariat’s recent approval of new technology resources. This transition will propel our system, currently based on 2007 standards, to the 2020s, with obvious gains in efficiency and the possibility of using tools such as artificial intelligence.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that my department takes the efficient processing of ATIP requests within established timelines very seriously. We will continue the efforts we undertook earlier in the year.
I would be happy to take your questions at the end of the opening remarks.
Thank you.