Employment and Social Development Canada: Open Government Implementation Plan

4.1 ESDC's Organizational Context

To fulfill its mission, the Department is responsible for developing policies that ensure all can use their talents, skills and resources to participate in learning, work and their community; delivering programs that help Canadians move through life's transitions, from school to work, from one job to another, from unemployment to employment, from the workforce to retirement; providing income support to seniors, families with children and Employment Insurance beneficiaries; helping Canadians with distinct needs such as Aboriginal people, people with disabilities, homeless people, travellers and recent immigrants; overseeing federal labour responsibilities; and, delivering programs and services on behalf of other departments and agencies.

Included in these core roles are responsibilities for the design and delivery of some of the Government of Canada's most well-known programs and services, including Old Age Security, the Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, Canada Loans and Grants for Students and Apprentices Program, the Canada Education Savings Program, the National Child Benefit, the Universal Child Care Benefit, the Wage Earner Protection Program, and, passport services. These direct benefits to Canadians are part of Canada's social safety net and represent 95 percent of the Department's expenditures.

Source: ESDC 2015-16 Report on Plans and Priorities

The Labour Program is responsible for overseeing federal labour regulatory responsibilities, including facilitating compliance with occupational health and safety, labour standards and employment equity legislation, as well as assisting trade unions and employers in the negotiation of collective agreements and their renewal in federally regulated workplaces. The Labour Program also represents Canada in international labour organizations and negotiates and implements labour provisions in the context of trade liberalization initiatives.

Through Service Canada, the Department helps Canadians access departmental programs as well as other Government of Canada programs and services at 615 points of service across the country (581 Service Canada points of service and 34 Passport offices). In addition to in-person services, the organization also serves the needs of Canadians online at servicecanada.gc.ca as well as Canada.ca, through My Service Canada Account and by telephone through 1 800 O-Canada and its network of call centres.

Overall, the organization includes four ministers, two junior ministers and an institutional head. There are over 21,000 employees across all provinces and territories in Canada (see Figure 1). The combination of an extensive mandate and a vast workforce gives ESDC the opportunity to support Canadians during times of change and help to facilitate transition between different life stages.

Figure 1: Distribution of ESDC, Service Canada and Labour Program Employees Across Canada - Text version

• NS:462
• NB:1047
• PEI:109
• NFLD:536
• Quebec: 3106
• Ontario: 4932
• National Capital Region: 6852
• Manitoba: 792
• Saskatchewan : 436
• Alberta: 1388
• British Columbia: 2001
• Yukon: 9
• Northwest Territories: 23
• Nunavut: 14

4.2 ESDC's Open Government Responsibilities

The Department has already achieved several milestones to fulfill commitments laid out in the Directive on Open Government and Canada's Action Plan on Open Government 2014-16. Under the Open Government Licence issued by TBS on June 18, 2013 , ESDC published 71 datasets on major programs and learning and labour market data to the Government of Canada's central Open Government portal. ESDC also supported the 2014 and 2015 Canadian Open Data Experience (CODE) appathons, which were events that promoted the use and reuse of Government of Canada data holdings via the creation of mobile and/or web applications.

The Department is participating in the Government of Canada Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) online services project, which aims to expedite ATIP requests. Through modernizing the administration of ATIP requests, this project serves to enhance the Government of Canada's capacity to publicly disseminate information, contributing to increased awareness among Canadians about government activities and operations.

Furthermore, ESDC has begun creating a department-wide data inventory that will help to maximize the value of data by making it easier to identify, track, search, report and share. The inventory will help identify data of business value for regular release to the Government of Canada Open Government portal, in compliance with applicable security and privacy requirements.

4.3 ESDC's Technological Environment

ESDC relies on technology to deliver programs and services to Canadians. To serve Canadians better, the Department is preparing to replace aging technology and modernize applications through various initiatives, including:

• enhancing benefits delivery through the Employment Insurance Automation and Client Service Improvement Project;
• modernizing system infrastructure for Grants and Contributions applications;
• modifying a number of core and supporting Canada Pension Plan program delivery systems;
• optimizing the administration of Canada's Old Age Security program through increased automation and the introduction of additional electronic services (Old Age Security Service Improvement Strategy); and,
• re-platforming the applications that support Employment Insurance, the Social Insurance Registry and some Integrity systems.

Shared Services Canada is renewing the Government of Canada's information technology (IT) infrastructure to help modernize operations. The Department will work with Shared Services Canada on IT infrastructure improvements, such as the Email Transformation Initiative and moving workloads from legacy data centers to a new end-state data centre environment. Through implementation of innovative Shared Services Canada initiatives and uptake of new technologies, the Department will be positioned to keep pace with the evolving service needs of Canadians.

4.4 Challenges and Opportunities

Given the breadth of ESDC's mandate, implementing the OGIP requires governance and coordination functions between ESDC branches, the Labour Program and Service Canada. The Department has established an interim governance structure (see Section 6 of the OGIP) that will allow ESDC to develop, coordinate and implement open government activities across the organization. As the Department progresses on OGIP implementation, ESDC's governance structure and processes will mature accordingly.

Fostering understanding of the value, use and sharing of data and information across the Department will allow for enhanced intradepartmental collaboration on the delivery of key programs and services. To achieve an internal culture shift towards an "open by default" environment, ESDC public servants will need to be informed of the opportunities and benefits presented by open government principles.

6.1 Roles and Responsibilities – Deputy Head and Information Management Senior Official

The governance of ESDC's OGIP is informed by the responsibilities identified for the Information Management Senior Official (IMSO) and Deputy Head in sections 6 (Requirements), 7 (Monitoring and Reporting Requirements), and 8 (Consequences) of the Directive on Open Government. These responsibilities include:

• maximizing the release of Government of Canada open data and open information under an open and unrestrictive licence;
• ensuring that open data and open information is released in accessible and reusable formats;
• establishing and maintaining comprehensive inventories of data and IRBV held by the Department to determine their eligibility and priority, and to plan for their effective release;
• developing, posting to the designated website, implementing, and annually updating a departmental Open Government Implementation Plan (OGIP); and
• maximizing the removal of access restrictions on departmental information resources of enduring value (IREV) prior to transfer to Library and Archives Canada as part of planned disposition activities.

The development of ESDC's OGIP is a collaborative effort between key stakeholders within the Department who are responsible for data management, information management, communications, and programs and services. The Strategic and Service Policy Branch (SSPB) coordinated the development of the first OGIP, with an interim streamlined governance structure led by an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) Steering Committee (see Figure 2). The ADM Steering Committee monitors implementation of the OGIP and its deliverables across the Department. The Committee includes ESDC's Chief Information Officer (CIO) who is also the departmental IMSO. Final approval of ESDC's OGIP will come from the ADM Steering Committee and the Deputy Minister. The ADM Steering Committee will report on OGIP progress to the Corporate Management Committee (CMC)^{Footnote 1} twice a year and to Portfolio Management Board (PMB)^{Footnote 2} on an annual basis to confirm that ESDC meets the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) requirements and the Directive on Open Government requirements for open government.

By working with the members of the ADM Steering Committee, ESDC's IMSO will ensure that key stakeholders are involved in the implementation of the Directive on Open Government, identifying gaps in performance and compliance issues to the Deputy Minister and ensuring corrective action is taken when required, as well as reporting any performance or compliance issues to the CIO Branch of the TBS.

ESDC will integrate open government requirements in future plans for procuring, developing, and/or modernizing departmental information applications, systems, or solutions in support of the delivery of programs and services. Open government requirements will be integrated into existing IT and business governance structures and into the Department's Application Portfolio Management and IM/IT Strategic Plans.

ESDC's governance will mature over the five year implementation of this OGIP, to verify that the Department is meeting all requirements of the Directive on Open Government.

Figure 2: Interim ESDC Open Government Governance Structure - Text version

From the bottom to the top:

Consultation:

• OG Working Groups: Consultations^{Footnote *}, Info. Mgt.^{Footnote *} and Data Mgmt.
• Director General IM Working Group
• Director General Data Committee

Direction:

• Director-level Open Government Working Group

OGIP Coordination (SSPB)

Oversight:

• Information Management Senior Official
• ADM Open Government Steering Committee
• Corporate Management Committee
• Portfolio Management Board

Accountability:

• Deputy Head

6.2 Roles and Responsibilities – Key Stakeholders

This section details ESDC's internal division of responsibilities for developing, implementing and overseeing the first departmental OGIP.

6.3 Communication, Awareness, and Engagement

Initial efforts will be targeted towards increasing internal awareness, building understanding and beginning a process of culture change at ESDC. Designating an ESDC open government lead is a key component of this objective, along with increasing ongoing internal communications efforts.

PASRB will continue to connect and take direction from the open government communications lead (TBS) to ensure consistency in communications and brand recognition for Canadians. ESDC will continue to partner with TBS for annual Government of Canada-supported CODE appathons and other events to promote the public use of published datasets.

PASRB will continue to be an active member of the Open Government Communications Network, created to enable information sharing and collaboration for implementing open government commitments across the Government of Canada. Specifically, this would include ensuring effective flow of information related to policy work and communications supporting open government, enhancing information on the open government website and sharing information and communication plans.