Management Response and Action Plan
Evaluation Report Title: Evaluation of the Ombuds and Informal Resolution Services Office (OIRSO)
Approval Date of Evaluation by Deputy Minister (mm/yyyy): 06/2024
Recommendation 1: OIRSO should review its communication strategy to enhance awareness and ensure that materials provide the best information on the Office’s roles and responsibilities and clearly communicate how it operates within its four fundamental principles of confidentiality, informality, impartiality, and independence.
Rationale for Recommendation: The evaluation found that some employees have a perception that OIRSO is not necessarily independent, impartial, confidential, or able to ensure employees will not experience reprisal from management. These perceptions may be indicative of a lack of awareness or understanding of OIRSO; however, others seem to be speaking based on experiences that they or their colleagues have had with OIRSO.
Although OIRSO conducts a lot of awareness activities, and awareness of OIRSO appears to be on the rise, it is not always clear how OIRSO is independent; how they are impartial; how they ensure confidentiality; and, how they can ensure employees who come to them for help can do so without experiencing reprisal from management.
This level of understanding and trust in OIRSO is imperative and can influence the uptake of services. Justice Canada employees must be sufficiently aware and understand its ability to provide a safe space in order to increase trust and impact culture change in the Department.
Management Response: We agree with this recommendation as it contributes to OIRSO fulfilling its mission and mandate. Enhancing awareness and understanding of our office's roles, responsibilities, and four operational principles is key. Implementing this recommendation is expected to yield several benefits: improved accessibility to our information, fostering trust among Justice employees, and encouraging them to feel more comfortable seeking support.
| Action(s) What SMART action(s) will be taken to address this recommendation? |
Deliverable(s) Expected deliverable(s) to demonstrate the completion of the action. |
Accountability ADM responsible for implementing the action. |
Planned Completion Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| In collaboration with the Communications Branch, review our communication strategy to clearly communicate our mandate, the four principles and OIRSO services including the distribution strategy of our annual report. | A revised communications strategy | Ombuds | April 2025 |
Develop new innovative ways (where feasible) of reaching Justice employees and LSU’s support staff to enhance awareness of our services such as:
|
New communications materials (podcast strategy and IOA video) | Ombuds | October 2025 |
Recommendation 2: OIRSO should continue to collaborate with partners to find opportunities to strengthen reporting on activities and trends and improve information sharing while maintaining confidentiality.
Rationale for Recommendation: The evaluation found that stakeholders look to OIRSO for key information and trends in the department, but that there is interest in more data transparency and data disaggregation, where possible; especially related to the types of services requested, and break downs by occupational category and EDI indicators. Additionally, there was some interest in OIRSO integrating and centralizing data originating from other areas of the Department to allow for a deeper analysis of emerging trends in the department. These interests must be balanced with OIRSO’s fundamental principal of confidentiality.
Management Response: We agree with this recommendation as it reflects our ongoing commitment to transparency. Strengthening reporting on activities and trends, along with improving information sharing, is crucial for fostering trust within our organization.
| Action(s) What SMART action(s) will be taken to address this recommendation? |
Deliverable(s) Expected deliverable(s) to demonstrate the completion of the action. |
Accountability ADM responsible for implementing the action. |
Planned Completion Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conduct consultation meetings with partners within the department to explore opportunities/feasibility for additional data collection/data disaggregation, analysis (such as on the types of services requested, and break downs by occupational category and EDI indicators) as well as to explore the feasibility of the sharing of data from other areas of the department to allow for a deeper understanding of trends in the department. | A workplan containing action items to produce new, additional analysis for OIRSO’s annual report, that establishes links between trends identified by the OIRSO and other departmental teams and reports. | Ombuds | December 2025 |
| Ombuds current database will be updated to capture more efficiently different data by adding more options in link with the GOC calls to action. | A revised and updated database (list of revised fields in the database) | Ombuds | April 2025 |
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