March 9, 1999

To: Strategic Policies and Priorities Committee

From: Chief Administrative Officer

Subject: Identification and evaluation of policy areas within the various Departments

Purpose:

The purpose of this report is to comment on the transition team s proposed Strategic Directions Secretariat as requested by SPPC and describe the policy functions now being undertaken by staff and their location within the City s departments and the staff roles and responsibilities for policy development in the future, as requested by the Budget Committee.

Source of Funds:

There are no funding requirements.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that this report be received for information and that a copy of the report be forwarded to the Budget Committee for its information.

Council Reference/Background History:

On January 28, 1998, the Special Committee to Review the Final Report of the Transition Team directed that the Chief Administrative Officer report on the appropriate functions and name of the Transition Team s proposed Strategic Directions Secretariat.

Further, the Budget Committee at its meeting on March 23, 1998 requested the Chief Administrative Officer to review the policy and planning functions as part of the report on the Strategic Directions Secretariat proposed by the Toronto Transition Team including the identification and evaluation of policy areas within the various departments; the appropriate mechanisms for providing policy and planning services to Council, the Chief Administrative Officer and each department; including functions, operations and the best fits within the corporation.

Comments:

The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) combined the corporate policy and healthy city functions within one Strategic and Corporate Policy Division within his office.

An independent review of the policy activities underway and proposed for the new city was carried out by the Randolph Group. This review was to consider the context of the Transition Team s recommendation to create a Strategic Directions Secretariat and address it accordingly. The overall objectives of the review were to define corporate and departmental policy, and to recommend roles and responsibilities for developing the City s corporate and departmental policies. The end products of the review included: a common understanding of the types of policy positions by department as of September 1998; clear directions on roles and responsibilities for policy development, both corporately and for program areas; and a framework for deciding how policy work is assigned.

Discussions with Commissioners and their staff indicate that policy is being developed throughout the corporation. Generally speaking the types of policy being developed can be categorized into three main types:

Operational policy is entirely within the jurisdiction of the department and often involves operating procedures and practices. Decisions can be made by the director of a division. Operational policy development is entirely the responsibility of the department.

Program policy is of a higher order than operational policies and usually involves more than one division in a department. These policies require Commissioner approval and may require Council approval. Program policies are the responsibility of the department but may involve the CAO s office and/or other departments when there are corporate interests.

Corporate policy has a strategic impact on the corporation or affects multiple departments. This is a complex area of policy development. Corporate policies very often require Council approval. Because of the impact and profile, the CAO s office and departments are involved in all corporate policies.

These three policy categories are summarized in Appendix 1.

Taking a snapshot of how policy is being developed now provides an inaccurate interpretation of how policy can and should be undertaken in the City of Toronto.

Because the organization is still in transition, moving from the former seven municipalities to one, the primary focus of effort continues to be on becoming one operation with a consistent set of policies, procedures and practices for how work is undertaken and how programs and services are provided.

A key challenge has been determining the number of policy staff working in the City of Toronto. The difficulties in determining accurate staffing numbers related to three main factors:

Defining what is meant by policy. For the purpose of the review, policy staff are those staff working on program or corporate policy as defined above.

Organizational structures are still being finalized. The organizational structures within the large departments are still being designed and staffed. As a result the actual number of policy functions and their specific responsibilities is not finalized.

Policy is often only part of the job description for certain positions. While efforts were made to estimate whether the policy work is full-time or part-time, the current transition has made it difficult to accurately calculate the full-time equivalent policy positions within the corporation.

Before the structures were determined, a preliminary estimate indicated that in September 1998, 32 staff worked full time on policy development across the corporation. Fifteen of these staff work in the office of the CAO, with the remaining seventeen working in other departments across the corporation. The review identified that about another eighty staff spend a portion of their time on policy initiatives across the corporation. As a result of the study, the City has a better definition of policy categories and this inventory will be updated based on the defined categories in Appendix 1 once the corporation has stabilized and a new policy development model is operational.

A review of best practices indicates that different jurisdictions have approached the delivery of policy in different ways. However, the review suggests that policy functions tend to be either centralized and undertaken in the Office of the CAO, or decentralized and undertaken primarily by departments. The Provincial and Federal governments both have policy being developed by ministries or departments, with a strong central policy group providing strategic support, coordination, consolidation and guidance on how policy should be developed across the Ministries.

The new City of Toronto has a tremendously challenging opportunity to develop a policy operation that is built on the needs of the municipality and best practices based on the seven former municipalities and other organizations.

As the City of Toronto organization stabilizes it must establish a model which recognizes the need for policy to be developed and owned by the entire organization. This approach must also reinforce the importance of horizontal collaboration across the corporation. However, at this early stage in the City s organizational development, the corporate policy function is centralized in the Office of the CAO, while at the same time the CAO is utilizing specific expertise within the departments. The new City has numerous big picture corporate issues being referred to the

CAO related to the amalgamation and the corporation s transformation which require the time and attention of a centralized corporate policy staff. Examples include: guiding the amalgamation project; leading the strategic planning exercise; service harmonization; support for the review of the City s ABCs; changes to Toronto Hydro due to Bill 35; taxi industry reform; support to Council for AMO, FCM, GTSB and intergovernmental relations; new corporate wide administrative policy development such as conflict of interest and the expense policy; governance reviews and international relationships. Departmental staff are also heavily engaged in policy and procedures development as they move forward to amalgamate and stabilize their departments.

Based on the review to date, the CAO and the Commissioners are discussing moving forward to: develop a mandate for a central corporate policy division focussed on ensuring the development of strong corporate policy; establishing a corporate policy workplan and assigning responsibility for policy development; establishing agreed upon working relationships for corporate policy staff in the Office of the CAO and across the departments; creating a corporate-wide policy group who meet regularly to discuss the City s corporate policy development and continuous improvement; and, establishing measures for the monitoring of corporate policies which have been developed and implemented.

Once the corporation has stabilized and the city-wide corporate policy working group is established, the senior management team will review the ongoing requirements of Council, the corporation and the departments with regard to policy functions and appropriate staffing requirements.

Conclusion:

This report responds to the information requested by SPPC and the Budget Committee by describing how policy functions will be delivered in the City of Toronto s transition years by the Office of the CAO and departmental staff. It is recommended that this report be received for information.

Contact:

Barbara Hume-Wright Tel: 392-8770/397-4125

Michael R. Garrett

Chief Administrative Officer

Attached: Appendix 1