Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for allowing me to be here today.
As Mr. Chair has indicated, with me is Monsieur Raynald Chartrand, who is the executive director for the secretariat that supports the Social Security Tribunal.
I'd like to begin by describing the role and mandate of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, or ATSSC for short, and specifically its role in supporting the Social Security Tribunal.
The ATSSC was established on November 1, 2014, with the coming into force of the ATSSC Act. Our organization is responsible for providing support services and facilities to 11 administrative tribunals by way of a single integrated organization.
These services include the specialized services required by each tribunal—that is, registry, research and analysis, legal services and other mandate and case-specific work—as well as corporate services, which include human resources, financial services, accommodations and security, and information management and technology.
The provision of these services enables the tribunals to exercise their individual powers and perform their unique duties and functions in accordance with their respective legislation, rules and regulations. The purpose of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, or ATSSC, is to improve the tribunals' capacity to meet their needs, achieve efficiencies through economies of scale, and improve access to justice for Canadians.
This year our organization has planned for expenditures of $82 million and a staff of 550 employees. We support the nearly 200 Governor in Council appointees who are members of the 11 administrative tribunals.
The Social Security Tribunal is the largest we support. It comprises 90 members, and currently 150 employees are dedicated exclusively to the tribunal. This year's funding to support the tribunal is set at $18 million.
From April 2013 to November 2014, the tribunal received all of its support services from its portfolio department, Employment and Social Development Canada. Since November 2014, the ATSSC has been responsible for providing the tribunal’s support services, and we have been providing the specialized support services (registry, legal, research, etc.) directly to the tribunal since then.
In terms of corporate services, an arrangement was made for those services to continue to be provided by the department on behalf of the ATSSC to allow for a full but gradual transition to the ATSSC over three years. Given that the tribunal's operations had been embedded in the department previously, many corporate systems were also integrated into those of the department. It was therefore more prudent for those transferred to be phased in over time to minimize any risks to the tribunal's operations.
This was especially important at a time when the tribunal's focus was on reducing the backlog in CPPD appeals in addition to delivering on the other parts of its mandate.
We are satisfied that these internal services have been appropriately provided by the department on our behalf, and we are currently in discussions with the department to plan the transition and begin the transfer, in phases, of these services to the ATSSC. As the chairperson for the Social Security Tribunal just indicated, the tribunal has been working hard in the last three years to set up necessary systems, processes, policies and practices that ensure fair, impartial and expeditious processing of appeals. The ATSSC has been diligent in supporting the tribunal in its endeavours in all areas of its mandate, including in the area of income security.
As relates to the Auditor General's review of the Canada pension plan disability program, the ATSSC assumed responsibility for the tribunal's support services in the last seven months of the review period. Along with the tribunal, the ATSSC agrees with the findings and recommendations in the report, and it will work with the tribunal to provide the necessary support in responding to those recommendations and in implementing the action plan.
To this end, I would like to note that several improvements have already been achieved in addressing the two recommendations in the Auditor General's report.
In relation to data quality, there have been five updates to the tribunal’s case management system since November 2014. Each update enhances the system’s capabilities in reporting and quality assurance functionality. For instance, the case management system is now able to track the receipt of notices of readiness from parties; allow vice chairpersons to assign files to members; and reflect the business appeal process in all divisions through automated workflows. Those are but a few of the improvements carried out each new update to the system. Several more updates are planned for the upcoming year, which will continue to address the action plan and will ultimately improve the tracking and reporting of the tribunal’s statistical data.
In relation to the review of policies and practices, the ATSSC has worked closely with the tribunal to improve a number of aspects of its operations. To begin, we proceeded with hiring additional staff to support tribunal operations and backlog reduction efforts.
Among these new employees are employees assigned to a call centre to communicate directly with parties to provide timely and relevant information on their cases. Other new employees are legal service employees who, in addition to providing legal counsel, participate in the development of guidelines and tools that assist members in making quality decisions. As well, communications and IT employees were hired to publish the tribunal's decisions on its website and provide remote IT support to members located across the country.
Other ATSSC employees worked with the tribunal to develop more than a dozen operational instructions in the income security sector alone. These instructions provide written and clear guidance for registry employees, which ultimately reduces the number of potential errors and allows them to work faster and more efficiently.
Despite all that has been accomplished thus far, our work is by no means done. The action plan that we share with the tribunal outlines several areas in which we will focus our efforts in the coming months.
Further enhancements of the case management system and the quality of statistical data will be undertaken. We will give continued attention to making operational processes more efficient and we will seek out advice in so doing.
We are committed to continuing to support the tribunal in all aspects of its mandate, a mandate that is so crucial to the lives of so many Canadians.
This concludes my remarks, Mr. Chair, and I will be pleased to respond to questions.