Internal services

Human resources

The success of the CRA as a trusted tax and benefit administration—and as an employer—relies significantly on its people. It is our highly-skilled and experienced workforce of more than 40,000 people in communities from coast to coast to coast that contributes to effective tax administration and the successful delivery of benefits to Canadians.

The Agency recognizes its need to develop employees for managerial roles and has demonstrated this by promoting learning and developmental opportunities at the CRA, such as the improved Agency Leadership Development Program, and our Take me with you initiative. The following chart illustrates the success the Agency achieved during the year in exceeding the employment equity representation levels beyond those based on general labour market availability.

Workplace well-being is a key Government of Canada priority, emphasized by the Clerk of the Privy Council. In support of this important government-wide priority, the CRA put in place its Respectful Workplace and Well-Being Strategy. As part of this strategy, the Agency launched its Discrimination and Harassment Centre of Expertise; an e-learning product on workplace discrimination and harassment; and a lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer + (LGBTQ+) network.

Overall, the CRA has made significant achievements in the field of human resources in 2016-2017.

• The CRA successfully launched its "Cracking Down" recruitment campaign with the goal of recruiting specialists—like lawyers, accountants or auditors with expertise in fields such as financial markets, tax planning, tax advisory services, litigation and wealth management—to help with the Agency's efforts to crack down on tax evaders and combat tax avoidance.
• 51 student ambassadors were trained to represent and promote the CRA on 36 post-secondary campuses across the country
• We launched the Respectful Workplace and Well-Being Strategy, featuring a webpage with content that supports well-being in the workplace
• In February 2017, the CRA held a National Suicide Prevention event, attended on site by over 373 and a further 1,967 through webcast

• In November 2016, the CRA launched the Indigenous Mentorship Initiative; in March 2017, an Indigenous-specific recruitment campaign and website; and introduced an Indigenous recruitment, retention, and promotion strategy
• The CRA was named a top employer in the National Capital Region and one of Canada's top employers for young people

Gender-based Analysis Plus

The CRA has been engaged in the Government of Canada's commitment to gender equality through the Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) tool. This tool ensures that government policies, programs, and services are sensitive to the different impacts their decisions can have on diverse groups of men and women. It assesses the effects of government initiatives on these groups through the lens of gender and other identity factors such as age, income, language, and geography. We support the Government of Canada's commitment by using this approach in developing policies, procedures, and programs and by ensuring all Treasury Board submissions, Memoranda to Cabinet, and significant changes to the design and implementation of national programs and services include gender and other considerations.

In 2016-2017, the CRA responded to the Government of Canada 2016-2020 Action Plan to ensure government-wide implementation. We developed and implemented our own action plan to improve the application of GBA+ in assessing our programs, policies, and services. To date, we have successfully:

• implemented our own GBA+ policy framework and developed a mechanism to report progress
• established a Centre of responsibility to ensure consistent application
• maintained oversight and governance through an Executive Champion and reporting to management committees
• developed tools, data and information resources, and training products to help employees integrate GBA+ into their initiatives
• created a virtual network to promote GBA+ awareness across the CRA
• applied the GBA+ lens to thirty CRA initiatives in support of inclusive program and service delivery

Integrity and security

Canadians rely on the CRA to exercise the highest levels of integrity and security to protect their personal information and they have every right to expect Agency employees will perform their duties fairly and honestly. To this end, the CRA strives to earn the trust of Canadians by incorporating integrity and security considerations into every aspect of its strategic decision-making and daily operations. Through various mechanisms, such as monitoring electronic transactions and using identity and access management tools, the CRA is well equipped to prevent, detect, and mitigate unauthorized access to its systems, as well as to manage employee access to information.

The CRA's Chief Privacy Officer oversees decisions related to privacy and monitors and champions personal privacy rights, including managing internal privacy breaches and completing privacy impact assessments. In 2016-2017, we completed 22 privacy impact assessments—the most in our history and over five times more than the previous fiscal year.

Integrity and security remained one of the CRA's most important priorities in 2016-2017, as evidenced by its advancement of the following initiatives:

• Data Security Initiative
• Identity and Access Management project
• National Audit Trail System (NATS) Modernization project

All of these projects aim to protect taxpayer data from unauthorized access. Particularly in regard to the NATS project, the CRA has strengthened the security and confidentiality of taxpayer information by automating its processes to proactively detect, identify, and investigate questionable user transactions using advanced fraud monitoring and detection capabilities.

Information management

The CRA meets its legislative and regulatory obligations, supports decision-making, and fulfils the operational needs of the programs it administers by applying sound information management principles. This also helps the CRA derive value from its information and deliver its programs and services efficiently and effectively.

As the CRA increasingly relies on technology to deliver programs and services, integrating information management requirements into planning becomes even more important in order to ensure the long-term integrity of the CRA's information, regardless of changes in the organization, movement of employees, changing technology, or changes in the law.

Over the 2016-2017 fiscal year, the CRA's suite of information management policy instruments was redesigned to better reflect our information management environment. It streamlines information management rules for employees and managers, reducing policy instruments from 22 to eight, and ensures alignment with Government of Canada policy renewal activities, Agency policy simplification efforts, and the current information management strategy.

The CRA set the stage for the launch of the new information management policy and its four new directives to be put into force in April 2017. This new suite allows employees to locate the guidance they need faster and to better understand their roles and responsibilities. It also helps to reduce legal and operational risks to the Agency.

During the CRA's 2016 Information Management Awareness Week Campaign, we launched a simple tool called the IM Assistant Renaming Tool. It helps employees manage their information by renaming and moving multiple files in one step, in accordance with the CRA's file naming conventions.

The CRA implemented significant digital services in 2016-2017.

• We prepared for the April 2017 launch of our new information management policy.
• We launched our IM Assistant Renaming Tool, which was downloaded 10,000 times, including by over 7,500 employees during our awareness campaign.

Finance and administration

Sound financial management remains a priority for the CRA. The Agency uses a robust system of financial controls to ensure the integrity and effective management of the funds it receives and disburses. The Commissioner and the Chief Financial Officer have put these measures in place; they are regularly reviewed internally and externally and improved for efficiency and effectiveness.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the CRA's Board of Management oversee the Agency's activities; the Office of the Auditor General audits the Agency's financial statements.

In 2016-2017, the CRA continued to advance its Chief Financial Officer Model, a government-wide best practice to formalize the role of the Chief Financial Officer as the lead senior executive for all aspects of financial management, program financing, and financial reporting and disclosure. To this end, in April 2016, the Agency created a new direct reporting relationship with Finance and Administration regional directors—who now report to the Chief Financial Officer—with the goal of standardizing, streamlining, and strengthening financial services across the CRA.

Information technology

Service to Canadians and innovation were two of the Agency's key strategic priorities throughout 2016-2017. The CRA's information technology expertise has been crucial to the Agency's ability to deliver on those priorities; to be a world-class tax and benefit administration; and to fully prepare its applications to successfully process the anticipated volume of work at our busiest time of the year.

In 2016-2017, the CRA advanced digital delivery of external correspondence to include redesigned notices made available through its Online mail service. Information technology continues to provide the Agency with the capacity, availability, and performance it needs to sustain both current and emerging business needs, and to help the Government of Canada meet its commitment to provide fair, helpful, and easy-to-use service.

Awards and partnerships

The CRA is committed to establishing and maintaining collaborations with both internal and external partners.

In November 2016, the CRA earned two Distinction Awards at the Government Technology Exhibition and Conference. These awards recognized the CRA's efforts in modernizing staffing processes, and assisting developing countries through the online cloud-based Knowledge Sharing Platform to develop and sustain an effective tax system and analyze potential non-compliance. These awards are proof that the CRA is maturing into a world-class tax and benefit adminstration.

Over the course of 2016-2017, the CRA successfully collaborated with several partners:

• Employment and Social Development Canada, to make it easier for users of the CRA's My Account and Employment and Social Development Canada's My Service Canada Account to link between the two and access online services without the need to login or validate their identity with each department
• Shared Services Canada, in an effort to support the Agency's business needs while improving underlying information technology infrastructure
• Public Services and Procurement Canada, to prepare for the April 2017 launch of the CRA's first Shared Case Management System, fulfilling the needs of the Office of the Taxpayer's Ombudsman

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