Departmental Response to the MAF Round V Assessment (2007)

The Department of Canadian Heritage is pleased with the recognition that it received for maintaining consistent ratings in its management practices, as outlined in the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) Round V assessment. Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) and the Canada Public Service Agency (CPSA) provided Canadian Heritage (PCH) with the final results of the Round V (2007) assessment in May 2008. These results are a snapshot of the Department’s performance against a specific set of performance indicators as of March 31, 2008.

The Department has proven to be strong in establishing itself as a fair, safe, and healthy workplace, with strong values-based leadership and a workforce that is productive, ethical, and able to adapt to the changing needs of the organization.

Areas where PCH has demonstrated progress include the use of information technology to help achieve organizational outcomes, the creation of more efficient processes for managing and reporting finances, and enhanced corporate risk management activities.

Opportunities identified for PCH to enhance its practices include linking business plans and activities to the Department’s strategic outcomes, and doing more planning and reporting of departmental programs to better measure how the organization is meeting its strategic objectives.

In light of this assessment, PCH implemented a MAF Action Plan to strengthen management practices. While PCH is committed to continuous improvement in all areas of management, we are focusing our efforts in the following areas:

• Implementing the 2009–2010 Program Activity Architecture and the Performance Management Framework to its maximum capacity and continuing to develop integrated business planning to deliver better results-based management; and,
• Providing more quality, in-depth analysis in Treasury Board submissions.

These priorities have been included in the Department’s corporate management priorities and will be adjusted, based on the Round VI (2008) assessment results.

The process for assessing departments using the framework is evolving. Areas of management, lines of evidence, and methodology have been refined since the introduction of the MAF in 2003. Accordingly, Canadian Heritage will continue to work with TBS to refine this assessment tool and pursue its efforts to become an organization of managerial excellence.

The results of the Round V (2007) MAF assessment for Canadian Heritage are available at MAF Assessment: Canadian Heritage - 2007.