Department of Justice Canada Client Feedback Survey
Survey Results – Cycle III (2016-2019)

Full PDF Version

Executive Summary

This report presents the aggregated results of the Department of Justice Canada Legal Services Client Feedback Survey (CFS) Cycle III conducted between November 2016 and June 2019. The two previous cycles of the CFS, were completed in 2012 and 2009. For this cycle, forty-one (41) client departments and agencies were surveyed. They are arranged, for administration purposes, by portfolio and are: the Aboriginal Affairs Portfolio, the Business and Regulatory Law Portfolio, the Central Agencies Portfolio, the Public Safety, Defence and Immigration Portfolio, and the Tax Law Services Portfolio. The Department also obtained survey feedback specific to the National Litigation Sector for litigation services as well as Public Law and Legislative Services Sector for legislative and regulatory drafting services.

Results for Overall Quality

Clients were asked to rate their satisfaction of the overall quality of the four legal services offered by the Department. The four service types are Legal Advisory, Litigation, Legislative Drafting, and Regulatory Drafting Services. The Department had a set target of 8.0 on a 10-point scale and exceeded the target across all of the four service types. The Department exceeded this target for the majority of individual service elementsFootnote 1 as well. These survey results indicate that Justice Canada service users are satisfied overall with the services provided by the Department in the previous 12 months for which they completed their survey.

The results on the overall quality of legal services are "strong" across all four service types.

Cycle III (2016-2019) Overall Quality of Services
Legal Advisory
Services		 Litigation
Services		 Legislative
Drafting Services		 Regulatory
Drafting Services
8.5 (±0.0)
Strong		 8.4 (±0.1)
Strong		 8.6 (±0.1)
Strong		 8.4 (±0.1)
Strong

Annex B, as well as Annexes D through G, provide a detailed comparison of ratings across the three cycles that have been administered to date for Justice Canada client organizations.

Ratings by Four Dimensions of Client Satisfaction

The following table provides the composite ratingsFootnote 2 for each of the four dimensions of client satisfaction. These figures are presented aggregately (composite ratings across all four types of legal services). Annexes C through G provide a full breakdown of individual elements by legal service type (i.e. legal advisory, litigation, legislative drafting, and regulatory drafting).

Composite Ratings by Service Dimension
Composite Rating
Accessibility/Responsiveness of Legal Services 8.7
Strong
Legal Risk Management 8.5
Strong
Timeliness of Legal Services 8.2
Positive
Usefulness of Legal Services 8.4
Strong

The composite ratings show that all service dimensions scored above target with “strong” results for accessibility/responsiveness, legal risk management and usefulness, and “positive” results for timeliness. When examining the service elements from this survey cycle to the last, all scored higher except for one.

When breaking down results by service type, Regulatory Drafting services scored slightly below target for two elements under accessibility/responsiveness and two elements under timeliness; Legal Advisory services scored slightly below target for one element with respect to accessibility/responsiveness; and, Litigation Services scored slightly below target for one element with regard to usefulness.

Survey Response Rates

A total of 53,230 potential users of Justice Canada legal services across 41 departments and agencies were invited to participate in the CFS. Of this total, 17,729 responded to the questionnaire, and 5,545 individuals at the EX-minus-2 level and above in the National Capital Region and the EX-minus-3 level and above in the Regions, reported having used Justice Canada legal services in the twelve months preceding the survey. Legal Advisory services was responded to the most at 88% of respondents, followed by Litigation services at 30%, Regulatory Drafting services at 10%, and Legislative Drafting services at 6%.

Conclusion

The Cycle III survey results for Justice Canada are largely positive, with a “strong” rating for the overall quality of legal services and a score slightly above Cycle II results. Although some individual elements scored slightly below target in a few instances, the majority of individual satisfaction elements have exceeded the departmental target of 8.0 and most results on individual elements scored higher than Cycle II.