Program directory · Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Digital Policy
- Department
- Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
- Program code
- BXB02 (TBC)
- Core responsibility
- Administrative Leadership
- In Departmental Plans
- 2018-19 – 2022-23 · Appeared and later dropped
What it does
To support its operations, including trusted program and service delivery, the Government of Canada requires standardized policy direction and related requirements concerning the management of its information and data, information technology, services, access to information, privacy, and security. This is especially important as the completion of government processes are increasingly digitally enabled.
The Digital Policy program sets the strategic direction and develops the policies in these areas for government institutions, departments, and agencies, as applicable. The program is also responsible for GC wide plans and activities, and externally facing portals and services in support of Open Government.
The program supports its areas of management by establishing government wide governance, setting management requirements and expectations, overseeing compliance and performance, conducting research, providing strategic advice, and supporting departments and functional communities with policy implementation guidance and support, community events, training/learning and development, and GC wide tools.
Source: the department's Program Inventory, via GC InfoBase.
History and lineage
First appears in GC InfoBase's actual spending by program in 2017-18. The data does not record when a program was created; it may be older than its first appearance here, which is limited by the sources (program spending starts in 2010-11, Departmental Plans in 2018-19).
| Program | Relation | Years with data | Actual spending over those years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Policy | This program | 2017-18 – 2024-25 | $127M |
No earlier or later program in the same department has a similar name.
Significant changes in scope and budget
Detected from the data: renames between plans, programs it appears to replace, merge with or split into (matched by name), year-over-year changes in spending of at least 25% and $5M, or in employees of at least 20% and 25 FTEs, linked budget measures, and results indicators added or dropped.
| Year | What changed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Indicators added: Percentage of institutions that respond to 90% or more of access to information requests within legislated timelines | Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase) |
| 2019-20 | Indicators dropped: % of access to information requests responded to within established timelines; % of contracts over $10,000 disclosed within established timelines; % of personal information requests responded to within established timelines; Degree to which business clients are satisfied with the delivery of Government of Canada services, expressed as a percentage | Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase) |
| 2019-20 | Renamed from “Service Delivery Policies and Initiatives” to “Digital Policy”. | GC InfoBase program names by year |
| 2020-21 | Indicators dropped: Degree to which clients are satisfied with the delivery of Government of Canada services, expressed as a score from 1 to 100; Percentage of Government of Canada priority services available online | Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase) |
| 2021-22 | Indicators added: Percentage of Government of Canada high volume services that meet service standards | Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase) |
| 2021-22 | Indicators dropped: Percentage of priority services that meet service standards | Departmental Results Framework (GC InfoBase) |
| 2022-23 | Employees (FTEs) 172, against 137 in 2021-22 (+26%). | FTEs (GC InfoBase) |
| 2023-24 | Planned employees (FTEs) 99, against 172 in 2022-23 (−42%). | FTEs (GC InfoBase) |
| 2023-24 | Planned spending $14.2M, against $23.3M in 2022-23 (−39%). | Latest Departmental Plan |
Success criteria
The program's indicators from its department's Departmental Results Framework: the target set in each year's plan, and the result reported the following year. Source: GC InfoBase.
Historical: targets against results
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | ≥ 2,000 | 2019 | 3,168 3,168 new datasets published in 2018-19 (11,340 total non-geospatial datasets available in 2018-19 on open.canada.ca). | Met |
| 2019-20 | ≥ 2,000 | 2020 | 1,258 Canada is transitioning its open data efforts to better focus on providing access to relevant, high-quality data in one place. For example, TBS is in the process of aggregating provincial and municipal data, an important step to allowing users to access data from one source, no matter where the data originates in Canada. As the open government movement in Canada evolves, priorities and efforts ar… | Not met |
| 2020-21 | ≥ 2,000 | 2021 | 1,613 The 2020–21 result is below the 2020–21 target of at least 2,000 but above the 2021–22 target of at least 1,000. TBS set a lower target for the current year because it wants to focus on the quality and usefulness of the data rather than on volume. | Not met |
| 2021-22 | ≥ 1,000 | 2022 | 1,991 | Met |
| 2022-23 | ≥ 1,000 | 2023 | 1,684 | Met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | ≥ 90% | 2020 | 67% The performance target for institutions is to respond to 90 percent of access to information requests within legislated timelines. The majority of institutions met this target: 84 of the 139 institutions that responded to access to information requests in 2019-20 met the 90 percent target. For the government as a whole, of the 149,592 requests that were responded to across government, 67 percent… | Not met |
| 2020-21 | ≥ 90% | 2021 | 69% Of the access to information requests that institutions responded to in 2020–21, 70% were responded to within legislated timelines, up from 67% in 2019–20. About half of the institutions that responded to access to information requests met this target (69 out of 140, or 49.3%). Seventy-one institutions did not meet the target, mainly because of restrictions and workload pressures stemming from th… | Not met |
| 2021-22 | ≥ 90% | 2022 | 42% Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had a disproportionate impact of on the Access to Information program. Of the 222,721 Access to Information received, IRCC accounted for approximately 80% of all requests received and more than 78% of the 188,077 requests closed. If IRCC data is excluded, 45,248 requests were received and 40,365 requests were closed. Of this number, the percent… | Not met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | ≥ 80% | 2020 | 70% 70% of priority services met their service standard (compared to 69% the previous year), which remains below the established target of 80%. In the guidance, tools and advice that TBS provides to departments, it will encourage them to set meaningful, comprehensive and transparent service standards and to review those standards regularly. | Not met |
| 2020-21 | ≥ 80% | 2021 | 69% To improve on the 2020–21 result, TBS will work with departments to increase the use of client feedback and user consultations to design and continuously improve government services. | Not met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | ≥ 70% | 2020 | 69% 69% of priority services were available online, down from 74% the previous year and narrowly missing the 70% target. The result is lower this year because, as part of implementing the new Treasury Board Policy on Service and Digital, TBS is using more rigorous standards when assessing whether departments’ services are available online. TBS is working to improve this result by communicating with d… | Not met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | ≥ 100% | 2019 | 93% The result improved 5 percentage points from the previous year. TBS is clarifying requirements and deadlines for departments to report contracting activity. | Not met |
Current: the 2026-27 plan's targets
No indicators in the 2026-27 plan.
Future goals: targets due after 2026-27
No targets with a later due date.
Spending and employees: planned against actual
Spending
Show the numbers
| Fiscal year | Planned | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | — | $20.2M |
| 2018-19 | $23.9M | $22.5M |
| 2019-20 | $16.9M | $21.6M |
| 2020-21 | $13.8M | $19.9M |
| 2021-22 | $14.1M | $19.3M |
| 2022-23 | $14.2M | $23.3M |
| 2023-24 | $14.2M* | — |
| 2024-25 | $14.2M* | — |
Employees (FTEs)
Show the numbers
| Fiscal year | Planned | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | 96 | 141 |
| 2018-19 | 139 | 166 |
| 2019-20 | 113 | 154 |
| 2020-21 | 99 | 151 |
| 2021-22 | 99 | 137 |
| 2022-23 | 99 | 172 |
| 2023-24 | 99* | — |
| 2024-25 | 99* | — |
Planned spending, plan by plan
Each row is one year's Departmental Plan and its forecast for the next three fiscal years; read a column down to see how the forecast for one year changed. The last row is what was actually spent. Click an amount for its source. Biggest changes in federal spending plans
| Plan | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 plan | $23,873,167 | $22,849,870 | $11,298,451 | ||||
| 2019-20 plan | $16,859,147 | $13,779,189 | $13,694,645 | ||||
| 2020-21 plan | $13,796,878 | $13,789,218 | $13,820,623 | ||||
| 2021-22 plan | $14,094,218 | $14,124,362 | $14,124,362 | ||||
| 2022-23 plan | $14,170,776 | $14,170,776 | $14,170,776 | ||||
| Actual | $22,544,080 | $21,578,763 | $19,886,900 | $19,250,750 | $23,321,842 |
Actual spending is from Departmental Results Reports and the Public Accounts, as published in GC InfoBase. FTEs are full-time equivalents.
