Reporting on Results
The House Administration relies on its vision, mission, core values, and priorities for guidance on how to best support the House of Commons and the work of Members of Parliament. The Strategic Plan 2019–2023 has served as a valuable roadmap, enabling many important achievements.
Vision, mission and priorities of the House Administration
Vision
To deliver outstanding services to Members of Parliament and their employees in support of parliamentary democracy.
Mission
To support the parliamentary work of Members by anticipating their needs and delivering streamlined, personalized, quality services.
The Strategic Plan 2019–2023 outlines four key priorities that serve as a corporate roadmap for the House Administration.
Improved client experience and operational excellence
The House Administration strives to be a leader in service excellence in support of the parliamentary work of Members of Parliament and their staff—on the Hill, in their constituency offices, and abroad.
Unified and seamless services
The House Administration offers a wide range of services to Members and their staff to support them in various roles. We continuously strive to simplify access to services to facilitate their work.
Empowered and engaged workforce
We employ a dedicated and professional workforce. Our goal is to empower and motivate our employees to deliver outstanding services. To do that, we foster a culture of innovation and creativity that engages employees with diverse skills at all levels. This helps generate new ideas on ways to better serve Members and their staff.
Modernized physical spaces and associated services
The parliamentary precinct is the seat of our democracy and is the setting for much of the work of Members and their staff. The multi-decade rehabilitation program currently underway in partnership with Public Services and Procurement Canada provides an opportunity to restore and modernize the physical and digital workspace to continue to meet the needs of parliamentarians.
Retirement of the Clerk of the House
On December 7, 2022, Charles Robert announced his retirement after five and a half years as Clerk of the House of Commons and a 42‑year career on Parliament Hill. During his mandate, he oversaw many important accomplishments. Among them are the historic move into West Block and the opening of the interim Chamber, the renewal of the Members’ Orientation Program, the use of hybrid proceedings and e-voting applications in response to the constraints imposed by the pandemic, and the creation of the Client Care Team. On February 13, 2023, Eric Janse was appointed acting Clerk of the House of Commons.
Development of our next Strategic Plan
On March 31, 2023, the House Administration completed the final year of the Strategic Plan 2019–2023. This plan helped guide our collective efforts in delivering outstanding services to Members for the past four years. To help shape our new Strategic Plan 2023–2026, consultations and working sessions were held with employees from across the House Administration over the last several months.
The mission of the House Administration remains to support the work of Members by anticipating and responding to their needs. To achieve this, the Administration relies on a skilled, diverse workforce with the capacity to innovate and the expertise to serve parliamentary democracy.
Highlights of 2022–2023 results
The Board of Internal Economy, the governing body of the House of Commons, ensures that progress against the Strategic Plan is communicated through the annual Report to Canadians. In 2022–2023, a new type of report was created to provide all House Administration employees with updates on the progress of corporate initiatives. This report helps mobilize and engage our workforce, highlighting how they contribute to the success of the Strategic Plan.
This section presents some of the work undertaken by the House Administration between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, in support of Members’ activities and in alignment with our four strategic priorities:
- Improved client experience and operational excellence
- Unified and seamless services
- Empowered and engaged workforce
- Modernized physical spaces and associated services
Improved client experience and operational excellence
Helping Members throughout the parliamentary cycle
After each election, the House Administration provides newly elected and re-elected Members with a variety of resources to help them get started in their role. This year, the House Administration continued to enhance its onboarding processes for Members and their employees by improving support for constituency office set-ups and streamlining tools and processes to reduce the number of administrative tasks. These enhancements also benefit departing Members, enabling the House Administration to support Members continuously—from the day of their election, throughout the parliamentary cycle, to their transition out of their parliamentary functions.
Using technology to work more effectively
In 2022–2023, the House Administration continued to support, maintain and life cycle its technology products. Services, systems and processes were improved to deliver value and promote innovation when supporting Members as they carry out their parliamentary functions. Members and their staff continued to have access to educational material through online training and information sessions, while the House Administration delivered a series of courses on online collaboration tools, helping Members with office operations.
Introducing digital signage on the Hill
In an effort to replace paper-based signage throughout the parliamentary precinct, the House Administration has been testing out a more modern digital solution. In addition to traditional communication channels, messages are displayed on large screens located in select buildings to provide parliamentarians, employees and visitors with House news as well as the latest on services and upcoming events.
Unified and seamless services
An easier way to plan meetings and events on the Hill
The House Administration developed an all-in-one tool to help Members and their employees organize and track meetings and events related to their parliamentary functions on Parliament Hill. Building on existing channels, this tool offers a single point of service, making it simpler for Members to book meeting rooms, coordinate visitor and vehicle access, and request services such as multimedia and technical support, catering, photography, and interpretation.
About the new tool
- Launch date: August 2022
- Number of meeting rooms booked using the new tool: 10,040
- Types of meetings and events: Committee meetings, caucus meetings, Board of Internal Economy meetings and protocol events
Technology experts available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
In January 2023, the House’s IT call centre joined the Client Care Team. This team brings the House Administration’s service centre together to offer unified and seamless support to Members and to improve their client experience. The technology experts of the IT call centre provide Members, their staff, and House Administration employees with advice and services related to computers, software, mobile devices, and digital applications.
Empowered and engaged workforce
Providing a more accessible environment
On December 1, 2022, the House of Commons published its Accessibility Plan 2023–2025, which highlights 60 short-, medium- and long-term initiatives to be implemented over the next three years. This plan fulfills a duty under the Accessible Canada Act and represents an important milestone for the House, as it outlines the steps that the House will take to identify, remove and prevent barriers that limit the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities. Every three years, an updated plan with new initiatives will be published to ensure that the House fulfills its commitment to create a barrier-free environment. In addition, a report will be available at the end of every year to provide an update on the House’s progress.
Empowering leaders at all levels
In December 2022, the House Administration launched the redesigned Clerk’s Leadership Program, which now features a dynamic, conversation-based format giving leaders the opportunity to learn and contribute in new ways. The format allows 25 participants to leverage the insights and guidance of the House’s senior leaders and the experts in the fields of leadership excellence, diversity, and business strategy. This program is offered over a five-month period and includes a team project assignment in line with the House’s Strategic Plan and current organizational priorities.
Enabling a safer and healthier workplace
Through different programs and activities, including training and prevention initiatives, the House Administration continued to promote health and safety at all levels of the organization. In compliance with Part II of the Canada Labour Code and its applicable regulations, the House completed a hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA) across the entire organization. The HIRA provides management with concrete action plans to help control health and safety risks on a continuous basis. Also, the House Administration created an electronic system for managing and reporting disability and labour relations cases, and simplified the access to up-to-date safety data sheets for every hazardous product to which employees may be exposed in the workplace.
Modernized physical spaces and associated services
Planning the House of the future
More progress was made on the rehabilitation of the Parliament Building over the past year. Several of the projects well underway will ensure that all modernized accommodations meet the needs of parliamentarians, employees and visitors with regard to technology, broadcasting and videoconferencing, physical security and cybersecurity, as well as accessibility and sustainability. This year again, the House sought feedback from Members on how the rehabilitation could best support the future work of parliamentarians. Key decisions were made regarding the designs for additional meeting spaces for parliamentarians and regarding the requirements for the use of space in the new Parliament Welcome Centre. Once finished, this centre will provide visitors with an accessible entrance and accessible amenities such as a café, souvenir boutique, coat check, and washroom facilities. The House Administration also planned for additional parliamentary offices to reflect the changes to the electoral boundary distribution and the number of Members in the House. To ensure that Members remain informed of and engaged in the rehabilitation project, they were regularly invited to tour Centre Block to see first-hand the rehabilitation work underway.
Preserving and restoring an important part of our Canadian heritage
The ongoing rehabilitation of the Parliament Building will safeguard and honour the building’s heritage for future generations. Teams are working diligently to preserve heritage pieces such as these frescoes created by Italian artist Attilio Pusterla in 1920.
Reinforcing physical and digital safety
The House Administration is committed to strengthening the security of Members, employees and visitors as it continues to evolve its security practices. New initiatives were launched to help support Members’ security needs while they are away from the parliamentary precinct. These initiatives include raising awareness and providing advice, assessments and equipment, as well as organizing outreach activities with local police forces.
This year, investments were made in security-related technology to make the parliamentary precinct even safer for everyone.
