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8. Strategic Branch Reviews EXAMENS
STRATÉGIQUES DES DIRECTIONS |
Committee Recommendation
That the Council
approve the Strategic Branch Reviews process as outlined in this report.
Recommandation du comité
Que le recommande au
Conseil approuve le processus d'examen stratégique des directions ainsi qu’il
est décrit dans ce rapport.
Documentation
1. Executive Director's report (Business
Transformation Services) dated 15 April 2008 (ACS2008-BTS-EXD-0001).
Corporate Services and Economic Development
Committee
Comité des services organisationnels et du développement économique
and Council / et au Conseil
Submitted by/Soumis par : Stephen A. Finnamore,
Executive Director / Directeur exécutif,
Business Transformation Services/
Services de transformation des activités apporteront des changements
Contact Person/Personne ressource : Kevin Whitehouse, Manager, Corporate
Planning/Gestionnaire, Planification municipale
Corporate
Planning/Planification d’ensemble
(613)
580-2424 x15431, kevin.whitehouse@ottawa.ca
SUBJECT:
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OBJET :
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That the Corporate Services and
Economic Development Committee recommend Council approve the Strategic Branch
Reviews process as outlined in this report.
Que le Comité des services organisationnels et
du développement économique recommande au Conseil d’approuver le processus
d'examen stratégique des directions ainsi qu’il est décrit dans ce rapport.
This report provides a framework for Strategic Branch Reviews at the City of Ottawa, along with a schedule for City branches conducting a Review during this term of Council. This is a new process at the City, initiated by Corporate Planning as part of the business transformation program.
As part of its 2007
strategic planning sessions, Council affirmed its interest in moving to an
outcome-based system of management. In
particular the tabled City Strategic Plan (ACS2007-BTS-EXD-0004) includes the
following objectives:
§ Service Delivery #2: Integrate outcome-based performance measurement into a flexible and evolving service delivery model that respects triple bottom line approaches, to respond to community and environmental demands.
§ Service Delivery #3: Establish an agreed-upon set of flexible and appropriate service standards (one-size does not fit all) across the corporation.
In addition, as part of its Fiscal Framework (ACS2007-CMR-FIN-0025), Council directed that:
Branch
Directors will appear before the appropriate Standing Committee once every term
to:
§ Review established service-level standards
§ Review branch performance with respect to established outcome-based performance measures
and:
All new
discretionary programs are subject to review within five years of their
approval by Council.
Council also directed, as part of the Quarterly Action Status report on the 2005 audit recommendations (ACS2007-CMR-OCM-0002) the inclusion of risk management approaches as part of branch business plans:
…develop
a template that would be used to capture the 3-5 most significant risks for
each branch and how those risks are addressed….This will be done in conjunction
with the branch business plans and the corporate contingency plans.
The proposed Strategic Branch Review program will implement the above directions.
Strategic Branch Reviews will serve as both a governance document for
Council and a management tool for staff.
For Council, the Strategic Branch Reviews serve as a governance tool
because they will establish branch performance measures and at the time of
approval each branch will “contract” with Council to deliver a set of services
at predetermined service standards and costs.
Branches will be accountable to Council for delivering on the
“contract”. For management, the process
will improve the ability to manage branch operations and bring them into better
alignment with corporate objectives.
Council’s interest in moving to an outcome-based system of management reflects a global, public sector trend to clearly outline and measure the outcomes for which organizations strive, and to specify what services organizations will provide – at what level and for what cost - to achieve those outcomes.
The Strategic Branch Review process is the tool the City has developed to achieve that outcome-based management approach. The process is based on the logic model for business planning, which will enable branches to track their performance in terms of the degree to which they have achieved improvements in their core outcome objective(s) over time. This will provide extremely valuable data for future branch reviews. Detailed procedures have been developed to provide guidance to branches conducting a Strategic Branch Review and ensure a reasonable level of consistency in the reviews, with flexibility where required, for the branches.
The Strategic Branch Reviews will confirm in broad terms what businesses the City will be in and at what level of service. More specifically, their role is to get Council’s direction on:
§ the strategic direction of the branch, in terms of its mission and vision, aligned with departmental guiding principles and/or department-wide approaches to service delivery
§ what core outcome objectives a branch will strive to achieve, including how to measure success in achieving those outcomes and what are the targets for those measures
§ what services the branch will provide to achieve those outcomes, including:
§ what are the service standards, the performance measures of those services and what are the targets for those measures; and
§ what resources are given to provide those services and those service standards
The Strategic Branch Reviews will document the risks
the branch foresees in achieving its outcomes, and what risk management
approaches the branch is adopting.
Strategic Branch Reviews will also meet Council’s direction to review
new discretionary programs, to see if those programs should be continued.
At a very high level, the process includes the
following elements:
§
During every term of Council, each
operating branch will come forward to Committee of the Whole (except as
otherwise directed by Council) with their branch outcomes, services, service
standards and the cost of providing the service at those service
standards. New discretionary programs
will be highlighted. Committee will be
asked to review the report and recommend its approval to Council. Some branches may require more than one day
at Committee of the Whole, depending on the complexity of their Strategic
Branch Review.
§
The critical services provided by
administrative branches/Centres of Expertise that are fundamental to a branch
service are also to be listed and evaluated in the Strategic Branch Review of
an operating branch. (This will not
include administrative, back office COE functions that are used by all
branches, such as HR staffing, IT support, and the Financial Support Units).
§
If an administrative branch/COE
provides a direct service to the public (i.e. not through an operating branch),
a separate Strategic Branch Review for those direct public services will be
prepared by the administrative branch/COE (due to the 2008 Administrative
Reviews, this will not be required until the next term of Council).
§
Services provided by
administrative/Centres-of-expertise branches, that are completely internal or
back office, and that have not been incorporated into the operating branches’
Strategic Branch Reviews, will be subject to Strategic Branch Reviews. But these reviews will be conducted by a
panel of their branch customers in order to reinforce the accountability of
line directors for their service offerings to citizens, and to move towards
total cost of operations accounting.
Due to the administrative reviews undertaken in early 2008, these
reviews will not occur until the next term of Council.
§
Financial adjustments due to any
recommended changes to services or service levels will be included in the
budget estimates for the subsequent year.
Only once those financial adjustments are approved in the budget
estimates will the changes that require additional funding be implemented.
The following points have guided the proposed schedule
of Strategic Branch Reviews laid out below:
§
Schedule in earlier years those branches
in which Council has expressed an interest.
§
Try to avoid a branch’s Strategic
Branch Review taking place in the same year as an Auditor-General’s review of
branch.
§
Balance the schedule across the line
departments so that each line department has roughly the same number of
branches undergoing a Strategic Branch Review each year.
Proposed Branch Reporting Schedule
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2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
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Strategic Branch Reviews are designed to get Council's direction about what lines of business the City will be in, and what levels of service the City will provide in those lines of business. At the same time as the Strategic Branch Reviews are progressing, branches will also be striving to achieve their established productivity targets as part of the $100M efficiency targets.
In an ideal scenario, branches would first confirm
with Council their service lines and levels before trying to improve efficiency
- otherwise, they risk making efficient lines of service that Council may
decide to exit. As cost-efficiency targets are in effect now, branches will
frequently not have the luxury of waiting for their Strategic Branch Review or
their scheduled Branch Process Review (ACS2006-CMR-OCM-0009) to conclude before
trying to improve their cost-efficiency.
To address the accelerated need to find efficiency savings in all of the
branches across the corporation over the next three years, the mechanism to
support management must be shifted from the current 4-6 per year multi-year
schedule, in the current Business Process Review Program, to a more flexible
approach to assist management in achieving their productivity targets. The Business Process Review Program will be
realigned to ensure appropriate products and services are provided as part of
the business transformation program to meet the accelerated time frames.
Once approved, the Strategic Branch Reviews will
provide the foundation performance measures to be used in future quarterly
performance reports to Council.
At the end of the 2008 Strategic Branch Review cycle, a post-mortem review will be conducted. Any recommended changes to the framework will be presented to Council.
A Strategic Branch Review information session for Councillors and their assistants was held on 8 November 2007. All departments, and specifically divisions with mandates related to the Strategic Branch Reviews, have been consulted in the development of this framework. On 24 January 2008 a half-day facilitated session on Strategic Branch Reviews was held with the Senior Management Team (SMT).
The funding necessary to carry out this work is within existing budgeted amounts.
The following documents on the Strategic Branch Reviews are available from Corporate Planning upon request: policy, procedures and frequently asked questions.
Corporate Planning will coordinate the overall Strategic Branch Review process, provide tools to assist branches and ensure consistency within an acceptable level of flexibility across the corporation. The individual branches will undertake the implementation of Council decisions and recommendations.