October 15, 1999

To: Administrative Committee

From: Chief Administrative Officer

Subject: Reporting Relationship of the City Clerk and City Solicitor

Purpose:

On July 27, 1999 the Administration Committee requested that the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) report on the role and function of the City Clerk and City Solicitor and whether they should report directly to Council through the Administration Committee with functional reporting to the Chief Administrative Officer on administrative issues.This report discusses the role, function and political and administrative reporting relationships of the City Clerk and City Solicitor.

Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

There are no financial implications resulting from the adoption of the recommendations in this report.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that:

(1) the reporting relationship of the City Clerk and City Solicitor as approved by Toronto City Council on February 4, 1998 be reaffirmed;

(2) all organizational charts representing the City of Toronto's administrative structure reflect the dual reporting relationship of the Solicitor and City Clerk;

(3) during the recruitment process for the Commissioner of Corporate Services, the role of the Commissioner be clarified with respect to the City Clerk and Solicitor. The role of the Commissioner is to provide administrative direction and coordination;

(4) the Chief Administrative Officers report during the next term of Council on the need, timing, and scope of a review of the City's administrative structure, giving consideration to the completion of the transition process; and

(5) the appropriate City Officials be authorized and directed to take the necessary action to give effect thereto.

Background:

On February 4, 1998 Council approved an administrative structure for the City of Toronto which was designed to ensure a transitional organizational structure with the capacity to integrate seven independent administrations and to streamline the management of the organization. The structure provides senior staff with the responsibility and authority to drive the transition process over several years.

The present structure comprises the CAO and six Commissioners reporting to the CAO for the service groups of Community and Neighbourhood Services, Economic Development, Culture and Tourism, Urban Planning and Development Services, Works and Emergency Services, Corporate Services and Finance. This structure addresses the management issues of workload balance, political complexity, lines of accountability, span of control, as well as explicit recognition of dual reporting relationships. It provides for the City Solicitor and City Clerk to report directly to Council for their statutory and professional responsibilities, and to the Commissioner of Corporate Services on administrative issues, such as human resources, budget coordination and information technology among others.

On July 29, 1998, City Council amended the Council Procedural By-law to provide that the City Auditor report to Council through the Audit Committee. This change was deemed necessary by Council to ensure the need for 'perceived independence'of the Auditor. To date, this has been the only major adjustment to the administrative structure.

Comments:

Role of the Clerk:

The City Clerk's mandate is derived from various pieces of legislation including the City of Toronto Act, 1997, the Municipal Act, and the Municipal Elections Act. The functions of the City Clerk can be divided into three types of responsibilities: statutory responsibilities of the Clerk, statutory responsibilities of the City and delegated to the Clerk by Council, and non-statutory responsibilities.

In terms of the statutory responsibilities of the Clerk, the City Clerk oversees and manages the legislative process and related activities for Toronto City Council, community councils, council standing committees and special committees of council including:

(a) recording of resolutions and decisions of Council;

(b) recording the vote of every member of Council;

(c) keeping the books, records and accounts of Council;

(d) preserving and filing all accounts of Council; and

(e) ensuring that the originals of Council by-laws and minutes are maintained.

The Clerk also has statutory responsibility to run municipal elections, maintain the assessment roll of voters, and maintain vital statistics. Additional statutory responsibilities of the City, which have been delegated to the Clerk, include ensuring access and privacy protection under the Freedom of Information Act, issuing marriage licenses, operating the archives, and licensing charitable organizations for gaming purposes. Those non-statutory responsibilities which Council has determined are important to the City and are now located in the Clerk's office include Council support services, printing and distribution, and protocol.

The City Clerk currently reports directly to Council for the statutory functions despite being located within the corporate services cluster (Appendix A). The Clerk is not unique as other City staff have statutory responsibilities (e.g., the Treasurer, the Chief Building Official and the Medical Officer of Health). How these functions are positioned in the organizational structure is independent of any presence of these responsibilities.

Role of the Solicitor:

Legal Services provides legal advice, litigation and prosecution services for the Corporation. It represents the interests of the Corporation before all levels of courts and administrative tribunals (e.g., Ontario Municipal Board, Environmental Assessment Board, Labour Relations Board, etc.), provides oral and written opinions, and advises and reports on matters affecting the Corporation. In addition, Legal drafts all by-laws for enactment by Council, coordinates and reports on all requests for legislation by Council, and negotiates and prepares commercial and property agreements.

Both Council and the administration require legal advice. Although Legal Services is not a statutory function, it provides this support to both client groups. The location of Legal Services in the corporate services cluster for administrative coordination (Appendix A) does not preclude the Solicitor from having a solicitor-client relationship with standing committees, Council or the Commissioners.

Rationale for the Present Structure:

The Administration Committee's directive requested staff to report on whether the Solicitor and Clerk should report directly to Council through the Administration Committee. In fact Council approved this reporting relationship for the Clerk and Solicitor's professional and statutory responsibilities in February 1998. Reporting for administrative purposes still requires clarification.

In the current structure, the Clerk and the Solicitor report directly to Council, through the Administration Committee, for legislative and policy matters, and to the Commissioner of Corporate Services for their day-to-day coordination of administrative issues (i.e., budget, human resources). This is referred to as dual reporting and enables both the Clerk and Solicitor to function independently from the Commissioner of Corporate Services for their professional and statutory responsibilities. Both positions are viewed as independent and neutral and their legal, procedural and other statutory responsibilities are undertaken without interference from the Commissioner, Chief Administrative Officer or Council. While it is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Corporate Services to conduct performance reviews of the Clerk and Solicitor, the Commissioner must seek comments on the evaluation of achievements and agreed upon goals and objectives from the CAO and members of Council including, the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Chair of the Corporate Administration Committee.

Single purpose organizational structures were not established as part of this transitional administrative organization. Functions such as Legal Services and Clerks were placed within a cluster to ensure they had the proper level of administrative support as well as alginment with complimentary functions. Given the political and operational complexity of the City of Toronto, six direct reports have proven to be a manageable span of control for the CAO function. It has enabled the CAO to provide leadership to the senior management team, ensure sufficient time is devoted to the City's transition phase and provide a focus for strategic, financial and policy matters within the corporation. If the functions of Clerk and Solicitor are removed from a cluster and become single purpose structures reporting to the CAO, several issues arise. A new reporting relationship will expand the span of control for the CAO thus requiring more of his time to manage. It also raises the question of which functions should remain in Clerks given the division of responsibilities between statutory resonsibilities of the Clerk and other responsibilities. It may be determined that some of these other functions would be more suitably located in Corporate Services. This would necessitate a review of the Corporate Services function which would be inappropriate at this point in the amalgamation and in isolation of the remaining clusters.

Other jurisdictions:

Staff conducted a scan of several Canadian cities to determine if a trend exists in the reporting relationships of the Clerk and Solicitor. Most of the cities chosen for review had undergone amalgamation or restructuring in the past couple of years. This scan provided valuable insight into the various approaches taken in other jurisdictions and their practicality. Of the three or four models generally used, one is dual reporting through a Commissioner of Corporate / Administrative Services. This is the model in Calgary which has recently adopted this structure and Halifax which has had it in place for some time. In Edmonton the Clerk and Solicitor report through the General Manager of Corporate Service on all matters. No clear pattern was evident as to why a city chose one structure over another. As with these other jurisdictions, the City of Toronto's administrative structure must be customized to the local situation given the management and political complexity of the environment in which we work.

Conclusions:

The administrative structure must be capable of providing advice, receiving political direction and maintaining accountability to Council and its committees. It is our experience to date that the present organizational model best achieves this. The administrative structure as approved by Council in February 1998 explicitly provides for the direct reporting relationship of the Clerk and Solicitor to Council with respect to their statutory and professional responsibilities. The model adopted by Council was chosen in recognition of the scale and complexity of the City, the management issues mentioned above, and the need to contain the number of direct reports to the Chief Administrative Officer.

It is important to remember that we are at the beginning of the restructuring process, not the end. To establish a climate of stabilization requires that the transition process be completed before undertaking further change. Until the rationalization, realignment and integration of services and staff at the service delivery level are complete, changing the senior management structure is premature. It is anticipated that this process will take at minimum three to five years to complete. Changing the structure in mid-stream would create confusion in the organization, possibly derail the service integration initiatives underway and trigger new restructuring initiatives and cost impacts. The clustering of functions may have to be reconsidered in the future as the most appropriate forms of service integration become evident and further experience with the structure is gained.

The recruitment process is underway for a new Commissioner of Corporate Services and includes both the Solicitor and Clerk as part of the overall administrative responsibilities within the cluster. This process must emphasize that the Clerk and Solicitor are responsible to Council for their professional and statutory responsibilities.

It is recommended that Council reaffirm the reporting relationship of the Clerk and Solicitor as approved in February 1998 and ensure that all organizational charts used in the Corporation reflect this relationship. It is also recommended that the CAO report, during the next term of Council, on the need, timing and scope of a review of the administrative structure, giving consideration to the completion of the transition process.

Contact:

Rosanna Scotti

Director, Strategic and Corporate Policy

Tel: 392-8637 / Fax: 696-3645

rscotti@mta1.metrodesk.metrotor.on.ca

Michael R. Garrett

Chief Administrative Officer

List of Attachments:

Appendix A (Corporate Services Department Organizational Chart)