Conclusions and recommendations

The Centres fulfil an important function within Justice. Having centralized expertise in widely applicable areas of the law responds to the ongoing needs of federal departments and agencies. There is a continuous need for legal advice, litigation support, policy work, and knowledge sharing activities that the Centres undertake. It would not be possible for each LSU or litigation group to maintain the required level of expertise in all areas of the law covered by the Centres.

The Centres provide high-quality legal advice and, as applicable, policy work, offering a consistent approach to addressing issues related to their respective areas of the law. There is ongoing demand for the expertise provided by legal counsel in all of the Centres and knowledge products are highly valued by stakeholders. In order to accomplish their work, Centres have to share information on their mandates and establish procedures to work collaboratively with stakeholders, which may include client departments, LSUs, NLS and other areas of Justice. While Centres effectively carry out their mandates and deliver effective services to their clients, some areas for improvement to continue to support effective and efficient work were identified.

To support the ongoing work of the Centres, the evaluation includes the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1 – Mandates: Ensure that mandates are clear and effectively communicated to stakeholders through a coordinated approach.

Evaluation findings indicate that there is a basic overall knowledge among stakeholders (LSUs, other areas of Justice, client departments) about the mandate of the Centres; however, findings confirm the need to strengthen that understanding. Throughout interviews, legal counsel in LSUs and litigators emphasized the importance of better communicating the type and extent of services provided, so that they can be more confident about when to engage with each Centre. The evaluation points to a need for a more coordinated approach for achieving this goal.

Recommendation 2 – Protocols and processes: Ensure adequate protocols and/or processes are in place to support effective and efficient Centre functioning and promote stakeholder awareness and adherence.

All Centres have established processes that frame how they undertake all their activities, and particularly the provision of legal advice, which is their predominant function. Overall, these processes are functioning well, and having a formal document or protocol to clearly articulate and communicate how each Centre operates appears beneficial. However, evaluation findings indicate that there could be greater clarity of processes in some cases. Furthermore, even when clear protocols have been established, stakeholders do not always follow established processes. Lack of clarity or inconsistent application of protocols can impact Centres’ ability to provide consistent advice in a timely fashion.

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.

Several Centres have experienced expansions to their mandate and overall level of work during the period of the evaluation, while maintaining generally the same level of resources. As examples: ALC’s mandate has expanded to include policy development; CIPL has experienced an increase in policy work over the last several years; and, HRLS has a new mandate to develop Charter Statements. CLS is limited in the level of support that they can provide to their stakeholders given their current level of resources. All of these Centres function with an A-base funding model which has remained relatively stable over time.

Among the two Centres that have a cost recovery model, CoEPL is currently able to maintain sufficient revenue to cover the costs of the services they provide. However, CLEL has experienced challenges with the cost-recovery model due to the nature of their work, in that revenues are insufficient to cover costs due to some of the work that CLEL does for multiple clients or internally for Justice. While these costs are currently being covered internally by Justice, the current model is not sustainable.

Centres’ current resource levels and funding models should be reviewed to propose solutions that will support the Centres to deliver on their mandates. Given the unique nature of the work and the design of each of the Centres, it is possible that different approaches may be taken, which may include several options, such as development of business cases or other funding model or resource proposals.

Recommendation 4 – Strategic partnerships: Enhance information sharing and engagement with stakeholders to best support strategic partnerships.

Ultimately, the Centres are expected to provide quality, consistent, and timely support to the whole-of-government, and evaluation findings indicate that this goal is largely met. There is a widely shared appreciation for the contribution that the Centres make through their legal advice, litigation support, policy work, and knowledge sharing activities.

Evaluation findings confirm that the Centres collaborate in a positive and professional manner and have developed collaborative working relationships with their stakeholders, including client departments, LSUs, NLS, and other areas of Justice. Centres demonstrate their commitment to the five client-centric principles through the work that they do to share knowledge and information with their partners and stakeholders within Justice and in client departments, and examples of good practices used by the Centres to enhance these partnerships were observed. 

To further enhance the delivery of client-centric and strategic support, the evaluation points to a need for further expand opportunities for all key stakeholders to exchange information, engage in strategic dialogue, and to support and expand stakeholder knowledge of cross-cutting issues and legal positions in specific areas of the law. It is also important to build an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of all groups involved so that the right groups are engaged at the right time in order to support consistent and efficient service delivery. While the evaluation found support for these goals, there are also limitations concerning the capacity of the Centres to add further demands on their team members, which points to a need to prioritize what may be most beneficial at this point in time.

Recommendation 5 – Data management: Ensure consistent recording of activities in LEX to better support departmental reporting and decision making.

The parameters of LEX, the inconsistencies within and among the Centres in how hours are recorded, and gaps in file-related information provided by LSUs or other sectors of Justice (i.e., Centres not being provided with file numbers for the files to which they are contributing) can all have an impact on the ability to accurately record Centre work in LEX. Discussions with Centres suggested that there were inconsistences in recording within Centres in terms of how file information was recorded, and reporting practices commonly differed from one Centre to another as well. As such, the degree to which Centres can report on their activities in an accurate and reliable manner in order to monitor trends and make decisions related to workload and capacity is less than optimal.

For example, some Centres reported that the general category in LEX may have been over-represented and should have been coded more accurately as other types of work (e.g., advisory) or that policy work may have been miscoded and under-represented in the data. In addition, Centres are not always provided with the file number for work they are doing with the LSUs. As a result, they may need to open their own files to record the time, which is not consistent with Justice file management procedures, and makes it difficult to link the files to the original work and the department for which the work is done. Supporting the ability to accurately link Centre work to the correct files, and promoting consistent recording practices within the Centres as well as developing some consistency in recording of information across Centres would provide an opportunity to accurately track activities and monitor trends to support better decision making.