Evaluation of the International Student Program

6. Findings: Resource Utilization

To address resource utilization, the evaluation utilized four years of available data from CIC's Cost Management Model to examine trends in ISP Costs specific to CIC and OGDs. The evaluation also focused on operational efficiency^{Footnote 1} to calculate an annual cost per application decision and compare this number with cost per decisions for other Temporary Resident lines of business.

6.1 ISP Costs for Fiscal Years 2009/2010 to 2012/2013

Data from CIC's Cost Management Model was used to examine trends related to specific ISP costs including CIC Operations Sector costs (which is the sector within CIC responsible for processing study permit applications) as well as other CIC Program Management/Support costs and OGD costs. As displayed in Table 6-1, Operations Sector costs (which represented slightly over half of all CIC ISP costs between FY 2009/2010 and FY 2012/2013), decreased by 31% from $11M in FY 2009/2010 to $7.6M in FY 2012/2013.^{Footnote 2} Table 6-1 also illustrates that this reduction stemmed from a decrease in Operations Sector support/internal services costs (-50%) between FY 2009/2010 and FY 2012/2013 and not costs associated with direct program delivery, which actually increased by 22% over the same period. Between FY 2009/2010 and FY 2012/2013, ISP costs allocated to Other CIC Sectors (e.g. Corporate Services, Finance, Strategic and Program Policy) decreased by 54% (from $12.7M to $5.9M) while OGD costs decreased by 15% (from $24M to $20.5M).

Source: CIC Cost Management Model

While interviewees were generally unable to comment on the specifics of ISP costs, information received as part of the financial data suggested that a potential explanation for the reduction in ISP costs can be linked to changes associated with the federal government's 2011 Deficit Reduction Action Plan and C-50 Modernization initiatives (e.g. the closure of Canadian Visa Offices Abroad as such as Dhaka, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Berlin, Belgrade, Buffalo's visa and immigration section, etc. as well as the centralization of some functions). This is consistent with data presented in Table 6-1 which illustrate the costs of locally engaged staff and other DFATD costs associated with ISP program delivery.^{Footnote 3} As shown in Table 6-1, DFATD costs for locally engaged staff and other costs (i.e. infrastructure) which are all tied to processing overseas, have both decreased between FY 2009/2010 and FY 2012/2013 (Locally Engaged Staff by 9% and other DFATD costs by 24%).

6.2 Temporary Resident Business Line Cost Comparison, Fiscal Years 2009/2010 to 2012/2013

Four years of Cost Management Model data was also used to analyze and compare the estimated CIC and OGD costs of the ISP with other Temporary Resident business lines, specifically Visitor visas and Temporary Foreign Workers.^{Footnote 4} As displayed in Table 6-2, while the overall Program cost decreased for each Temporary Resident business lines from FY 2009/2010 to FY 2012/2013, the largest proportional decrease was associated with ISP:

• ISP costs fell by 29% from FY 2009/2010 to FY 2012/2013 ($47M to $34M);
• Costs for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program fell by 17% ($112M in FY 2009/2010 to $94M in FY 2012/2013); and
• Costs for the Visitors Program fell by 25% ($178M in FY 2009/2010 to $132M in FY 2012/2013).

Source: CIC Cost Management Model(cost information), GCMS (# of decisions)

As volumes for number of decisions increased while costs were declining between FY 2009/2010 and FY 2012/2013, the cost per study permit application decision fell from $251 in FY 2009/2010 to $156 in FY 2012/2013, with an average cost of $198 per decision over the four years. Similar to results from the 2010 ISP evaluation, the average cost per decision for study permits was lower than temporary foreign worker visas ($284) but higher than visitor visas ($130), given the different complexities in processing these three types of applications.

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