2012-2013 Correctional Service Canada

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) was created with the merger of the Canadian Penitentiary Service and the National Parole Service in 1979. CSC has the mandate to contribute to public safety by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane control.

CSC received 785 requests during 2012-13, an increase of 57.6% compared to 2011-12 (498 requests). Despite receiving more requests, CSC was able to close more requests within 30 days and to perform better than government-wide statistics on a number of indicators.

Amongst all of the active requests on hand (882), 712 requests were closed in 2012-13, a completion rate of 80.7% (compared to 84.2% in 2011-12). The average time to complete a request was 54.4 days.^{Footnote 1}

More than half of requests (62.9%) came from members of the public. An additional 22.9% were from the media.

According to its annual report, CSC also processed 347 informal requests that are not captured in the statistical report.

Table 1: Workload

Measures	Reporting Period 2011-12	Reporting Period 2012-13	Difference
Number of requests received	498	785	57.63%
Number of consultations received (from other government institutions)	120	135	12.50%
Average number of pages processed per request closed	96	79	17
% of requests for which more than 1000 pages were processed	1.36%	1.19%	-0.17%
Note: The average number of pages processed per request closed and the percentage of requests for which more than 1,000 pages were processed are calculated from the total of requests completed for which the information was disclosed (in part or totally), exempted/excluded and for requests abandoned. It excludes requests completed for the following dispositions: no records exist, requests transferred and requests treated informally.

The volume of pages processed per request was lower in 2012-13 (79 pages) than in 2011-12 (96 pages). Approximately 81% of requests required processing 100 pages or less. The proportion of requests that required processing 1,000 pages or more was 1.2% (similar to the preceding year).

Timeliness

CSC responded to 522 requests within 30 days or less, representing 73% of all completed requests (10% higher than in 2011-12). With this result, CSC is one of the top 3 institutions that completed the most requests within 30 days. Further, the proportion of requests completed in more than 120 days went down by 2.94 % in 2012-13.

The number of requests closed past the statutory deadline went down from 127 in 2011-12 to 83 in 2012-13, representing a decrease of 11.66%. This proportion represents a “C” grade.^{Footnote 2} The category “other”^{Footnote 3} the principal reason invoked to explain lateness (36 out of 83, or 43.4%)

Extensions

While the number of completed requests went up by 21.9%^{Footnote 4} between 2011-12 and 2012-13, the number of extensions used for these requests also increased by 37.5% during the same period. A total of 157 extensions were taken, compared to 112 in 2011-12.

More than half of the extensions (53.3%) taken in 2012-13 were for 30 days or less. Section 9(1)(a) was invoked as the principal reason for taking an extension, 57.3% of the time.

Disclosure

Of the completed requests, 25.3% were disclosed in full, which is slightly better than the government-wide rate (21.63%). Additionally, of the pages processed, CSC disclosed 15.6% more in 2012-13.

Table 2: Performance

Measures	Reporting Period 2011-12	Reporting Period 2012-13	Difference
Completion of Requests
Completion rate	84.23%	80.73%	-3.50%
Completion Time
% of requests closed within 30 days	63.30%	73.31%	10.01%
% of requests closed past statutory deadline	23.78%	11.66%	-12.12%
% of consultations from government institution closed within 30 days	65.22%	78.74%	13.52%
% of extensions of 30 days or less	44.64%	52.23%	7.59%
Level of Disclosure
% of pages processed that were disclosed	41.32%	56.92%	15.60%
% of requests closed for which the information was disclosed entirely	25.47%	25.28%	-0.19%
Note: The completion rate represents the number of requests completed divided by the total number of requests on hand, which includes the new requests received and the requests carried over from the previous reporting period.

Complaints

The number of complaints received by the OIC against CSC has decreased from 65 in 2011-12 to 57 in 2012-13.

The proportion of administrative complaints against CSC increased by 3.6% between 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Well-founded complaints represented 22 of the 57 complaints received in 2012-13. Complaints not well-founded and still pending (as of May 2014) accounted for 14 complaints each. Finally, 7 complaints were discontinued.