Section 1 – Overview of the Survey

Introduction

The Department of Justice Canada is committed to providing high-quality legal services to support the federal government and its departments and agencies. As one of many ongoing initiatives to support this commitment to service quality, the Department has implemented the CFS as a standardized approach to obtaining client feedback on its legal services. The Corporate Planning, Reporting and Risk Division, within the Finance and Planning Branch of the Management Sector, conducts a cyclical CFS on the legal services provided by the Department.Footnote 4

Context

The CFS is intended to help the Department incorporate client feedback into decision-making regarding the delivery of legal services. It is also used to identify areas where service improvements may be needed and to jointly monitor with clients, progress in meeting client needs and expectations over time. For Cycle IV of the CFS, progress on action plans has been regularly monitored and reported to the Department’s Performance Measurement and Evaluation Committee.

In April 2011, Standardized Legal Service Agreements began to incorporate the Department’s Service Standards for the Provision of Legal Services in Government.Footnote 5 The CFS is aligned with the Department’s Service Standards, allowing the Department to obtain feedback on performance against these standards. As part of the CFS, standards are assessed by legal service type provided (i.e. Legal Advisory, Litigation, Legislative Drafting, and Regulatory Drafting Services), with the aim of enabling the Department to better ascertain and address any potential issues and areas of improvement.

The Department’s Service Standards for legal services are an essential component of the Memoranda of Understanding between the Department and its client departments and agencies. The Service Standards, in combination with the results of the CFS, provide senior managers with ongoing and reliable information on client perceptions of legal services delivery relative to service commitments.

The CFS is a key element of the Department’s Results Framework, which is prescribed by the Treasury Board’s Policy on Results. Specifically, the survey is a key source of evidence used to demonstrate the Department’s achievements regarding the delivery of high-quality legal services to government, which constitutes approximately 45% of overall departmental spending.Footnote 6

New features for Cycle IV

Prior to the commencement of CFS Cycle IV, the survey underwent a comprehensive review, with new features added as a result. Notably, questions with low response rates during Cycle III were removed and the survey population was narrowed. Specifically, a new target population was established to include employees at the EX-minus-1 and above levels in the NCR (previously EX-minus-2 and above) and employees at the EX-minus-2 and above levels in the regions (previously EX-minus-3 and above). As a result, a more concentrated group of potential service users was surveyed as part of Cycle IV.

Since Cycle III, legal service users have had the option to provide feedback by way of open-ended comment boxes. The comment analysis process for the current cycle incorporates the use of text-analysis, an in-house initiative carried out in collaboration with Justice Canada’s Business Analytics Centre (BAC). This allows for a more comprehensive analysis of the comments received from legal service users by categorizing comments as either positive, neutral or negative.

The results of the survey, including these new features, are presented in the following sections and annexes of this report. Of note, composite ratingsFootnote 7 from previous cycles may not be fully comparable at all levels to those of the current cycle due to the restriction of the target population and minor changes in the grouping of elements.