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

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Section 1 – overview of the survey initiative

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 a series of ongoing initiatives to support this commitment to service quality, the Department has implemented the Legal Services Client Feedback Survey (CFS) as a standardized approach to obtaining client feedback on its legal services.

The Corporate Planning, Reporting and Risk Division (CPRR) of the Department of Justice Canada conducts a cyclical CFS (client departments and agencies are surveyed every two to three years) on the legal services provided by the Department.Footnote 3 CPRR works closely with the Statistical Consultation Group of Statistics Canada to ensure that sound methodological principles are adhered to and that the findings contained in each report are accurate.

Context

The CFS aims to help legal services’ Portfolios, Sectors, Legal Services Unit managers and legal services providers incorporate client perceptions into 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. Given the Department’s vision of promoting client-centric strategic partnerships by assisting clients in finding solutions to legal issues and empowering decision-making that furthers both legal and policy objectives, the CFS results presented in this report are complementary in nature.

While the CFS results presented in this report are largely aligned with the findings of senior executive consultations undertaken as part of the Justice Vision initiative, the following report focuses on CFS results, as per previous cycles of the survey. Findings from research conducted across Justice and client departments as part of the Vision initiative indicated a widespread desire to go beyond a transactional relationship to one where we work to understand the client’s context, mitigate and manage risk, and work together in the development of solutions. Enhancing relationships with client departments to focus on more “strategic partnerships” were seen as more adaptive, and adding a depth of service and learning opportunities to both parties, which are not captured by CFS questions. Justice will continue to explore and analyse both findings from the CFS & Vision initiative to understand client feedback to the Department.

Standardized Legal Service Agreements incorporate the Department’s Service Standards for the Provision of Legal Services in Government. The CFS is aligned to the Department’s Service Standards and allows the Department to obtain feedback on performance against those standards.

The Department’s Service Standards are an essential component of the performance arrangements that are addressed in the Memoranda of Understanding between Justice Canada and its client departments and agencies. The Standards, in combination with the survey, provide senior managers with ongoing and reliable information on client perceptions of the provision of legal services relative to service commitments based on the previous 12-month window from the date of the survey.

The CFS is a key element of the Department’s Results Framework, which is prescribed by the Treasury Board (TB) Policy on Results. Specifically, the CFS is one source of evidence used annually in the Departmental Results Report to demonstrate the Department’s achievements regarding the delivery of high-quality legal services to government, which constitutes a considerable amount of overall departmental spending.Footnote 4

New features included in the Legal Services Client Feedback Survey

The CFS has now concluded its third cycle, with the first cycle having taken place from 2006 to 2009, and the second occurring from 2009 to 2012. After the second cycle was completed, the survey underwent an extensive review, with new features being added as a result. These new features include the ability of respondents to provide feedback on a second legal services provider for each of the legal services categories; to provide open-ended feedback using comment boxes; and to assign a level of importance to Justice Canada Service Standards. The results of these new features are presented throughout the following sections and annexes.

Service Type, Dimension and Element Defined

For ease of reference, please see the following definitions to aid in the navigation of this report: