Executive summary

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page

Introduction

The Evaluation of the Centres of Expertise (hereafter Centres) was part of the Department of Justice Canada’s (hereafter Justice) Five-Year Departmental Evaluation Plan, and was conducted in accordance with the Treasury Board’s Policy on Results (2016). The evaluation covered the fiscal years 2015-2016 to 2019-2020 and its main objectives were to assess the design and service delivery models of the eight Centres, to identify any challenges and common elements related to success, as well as good practices and lessons learned.

Program Description

A total of eight Centres were examined as part of the evaluation, which fall under three Portfolios (Business and Regulatory Law Portfolio (BRLP), the Aboriginal Affairs Portfolio (AAP), and Central Agency Portfolio (CAP) and one Sector (Public Law and Legislative Services Sector) (PLLSS) (see Table 1). The types of work conducted by the eight Centres varies, but generally consists of some combination of the following: legal advice (including legal policy advice and litigation support), policy work, and knowledge management and outreach activities.

Note: The Trade Law Bureau is Justice’s ninth Centre. It has been excluded from the evaluation given the complexity of its joint structure with Global Affairs and current ongoing work.

To provide their services, the Centres have established a set of protocols and processes that helps structure the distribution of work within the Centres and guide the interactions between the Centres and other Justice counsel (i.e., legal services units [LSUs], the National Litigation Sector [NLS], and other areas within Justice), as well as with client departments and agencies. Regardless of differences in design and service delivery models, all Centres share the common goal of providing timely, high-quality, and consistent legal advice.

Relevance

The Centres continue to meet a demonstrated need within Justice. Stakeholders agreed that having access to centralized groups of experts within specific areas of the law was valuable. The Centres were found to collectively enhance the capacity of Justice to support client departments and agencies by providing expertise that would otherwise not be available. The Centres also supported the goal of incorporating a whole-of-government perspective when addressing key legal issues, and ensuring that Justice speaks with one voice. In addition, ongoing or emerging government priorities were supported by the Centres through their contributions to policy development and legal advice, which was seen as beneficial to stakeholders. Overall, the number of hours logged for the Centres during the evaluation period remained fairly constant, which demonstrated a continued demand for their expertise. The vast majority of the work provided by the Centres was for legal advice, with all Centres having worked on a mix of low, medium and high risk and complexity files.

Efficiency, Design and Service Delivery

Ensuring that the mandates of the Centres are widely known and understood by all stakeholders allows them to function according to their design and service delivery models. The evaluation found that the Centres have implemented activities to ensure that legal counsel within Justice, as well as client departments and agencies, are made aware of the services they can offer. However, there is a need to further increase the understanding and awareness of the Centres’ mandates among stakeholders. This includes enhancing communication with respect to the type and extent of services provided by the Centres that would allow stakeholders to be more confident about when to engage with the Centres.

The Centres function through the establishment of their own protocols and processes that support ongoing activities and operations. Evaluation findings indicate that each set of protocols and processes offers its own benefits, such as:

• Supports awareness of who to engage (i.e., formal protocol and designated counsel);
• Facilitates consistency by having centralized groups of experts that incorporates a whole-of-government perspective (i.e., exclusive mandate);
• Develops knowledge of the client department and agency context (i.e., direct relationship with client departments and agencies and discretionary engagement with Centres, and designated counsel);
• Supports flexibility and knowledge transfer (i.e., discretionary engagement with Centres); and,
• Allows for continuity of service (i.e., designated counsel).

In addition to these successes, there are opportunities for the Centres to improve their overall functioning by ensuring that processes are clear and by promoting greater adherence to their specific protocols and processes. This can be achieved by establishing effective information and communication practices that will support stakeholder awareness of Centre services and the division of roles and responsibilities.

The structure of each Centre is unique given their individual governance, reporting, funding, and overall capacity. Although human resources levels of the Centres vary based on their mandate and work, several factors that supported effective functioning of the Centres included: maintaining a stable team, providing meaningful mentorship opportunities for legal counsel, and the inclusion of paralegals, where possible, to support the overall delivery of services. One challenge experienced by some Centres during the evaluation period was an expansion of their mandates and overall level of work, while maintaining the same level of human resources.  

Evaluation findings indicated both strengths and challenges of the two funding models of Centres (A-Base and cost-recovery). There were challenges with both funding models in supporting the full range of activities being undertaken by the Centres, impacting legal counsel workloads. Depending on the Centres’ nature and level of work, likelihood of fluctuations in types of work over time, and the corresponding workload pressures, different funding models may work better for some Centres than others. Based on evidence from the evaluation, several Centres (i.e., CLEL, ALC, CIPL, HRLS, and CLS) were experiencing challenges in managing workload and in fully delivering on their mandates based on their current resource levels and funding models.

Another important aspect to the functioning of the Centres involves effective data management practices. The manner in which work is recorded within iCASE/LEX and the risk and complexity assigned to the files helps Centres proactively plan and identify issues and trends that are occurring. However, the evaluation found the amount of time recorded to various file types may not accurately reflect the work being conducted by the Centres. Given this, there is an opportunity to identify ways in which the tracking of time spent on different types of Centre activities could be improved.

Effectiveness

The Centres were found to deliver high-quality legal advice, including legal policy advice, to their stakeholders. The Centres were also found to deliver timely legal advice, while recognizing that workload pressures may have an impact on the timeliness of the services provided. Legal advice provided to NLS was found to be meeting their needs, and was typically delivered in a timely manner, which was viewed as particularly important given the nature of work. For those Centres that engage in policy work, they were actively involved in a number of files involving Justice and other client departments and agencies that was highly valued. Finally, the Centres engaged in a range of knowledge management and outreach activities that were also valued by stakeholders. They indicated that they benefit greatly from these activities developed by the Centres and suggested that further products be made available, if feasible.

One of the central pillars of the vision of Justice is the development of client-centric strategic partnerships, which requires legal counsel to not only examine the legal issue at hand, but work to understand the client context, mitigate and manage risks, and work together to develop solutions. Evaluation findings confirm that the Centres collaborate in a positive and professional manner with their stakeholders and work towards the development of strategic partnerships by developing various mechanisms to share information (e.g., working groups, practice groups, regular meetings, etc.).

To further enhance the delivery of client-centric and strategic support, the evaluation points to a need to further expand opportunities for all key stakeholders to exchange information, to engage in strategic dialogue, and to support and expand stakeholder knowledge of cross-cutting issues and legal positions in specific areas of the law. Building a strong understanding of client department and agency priorities and operational realities will also assist in providing legal advice that is actionable. It is also important to build an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of all groups involved so that the appropriate groups are engaged at the right time in order to support consistent and efficient service delivery. Efforts to strengthen engagement activities will need to be balanced with resource levels and workloads, and reasonable in the context of the mandates and service delivery models of individual Centres.

Recommendations

Based on these findings, the evaluation is proposing the following recommendations:

• Recommendation 1 - Mandates: Ensure that mandates are clear and effectively communicated to stakeholders through a coordinated approach.
• Recommendation 2 - Protocol and processes: Ensure adequate protocols and/or processes are in place to support effective and efficient Centre functioning and promote stakeholder awareness and adherence.
• Recommendation 3 - Resource levels  and funding models: Review and adjust resource levels and/or funding models as necessary to ensure that Centres are able to fully deliver all aspects of their mandates.
• Recommendation 4 - Strategic partnerships: Enhance information sharing and engagement with stakeholders to best support strategic partnerships.
• Recommendation 5 - Data management: Ensure consistent recording of activities in LEX to better support departmental reporting and decision making.

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page