New Chair's First Anniversary Message
Eliminating the Backlog & Improving Timeliness

When the Vice-Chair and I arrived at the Commission at the end of October 2005, one of the major challenges we faced was the serious and growing backlog of review cases. The unacceptable delays in responding to cases denied complainants and members timely access to justice and undermined the credibility of the Commission. I am pleased to report that our first year on the job has been the most productive period in the history of the Commission. I want to thank our dedicated staff for their Herculean effort. I want to share with you, the public, how our team achieved this remarkable success. It is one example of how we are working to provide robust public accountability of the RCMP.

We developed a dual action plan, which balanced eliminating the backlog with responding to new complaints more quickly.

Strengthening the Complaints Review Process

Challenges

• 363 review cases as of Oct. 31, 2005
• Historic nature of backlog:
  • 60 percent of cases in queue for more than one year
  • Many in queue for 2-6 years
• Increasing Backlog
  • Gradual increase from 307 cases to 363 over previous 14 months
  • Projected backlog of 427 cases by end of FY 06-07

Dual Action Plan

• Eliminate backlog by Dec. 31, 2006
• Implement 120-day performance standard – Apr. 1, 2006

We completed a record 437 reports in twelve months by increasing and stabilizing monthly productivity of reports within our current fiscal framework.

Our increased productivity meant that every month we managed to reduce our inventory of review files. By the end of our fiscal year, we will have reduced our inventory to 63 files rather than the projected inventory of 427 files. We will have achieved an inventory steady state, which will enable us to balance input and output within a 120-day cycle.

We divided the backlog into two categories. Firstly, there were 218 cases, which we had been asked to review prior to 2005. All except one of these cases was completed by the end of October 2006.

Secondly, there were 170 cases in 2005. The 18 cases which were still active at the end of October, will be completed by the end December.

On April 1, 2006, we implemented an aggressive service standard of 120 days to complete new review cases. By the end of October, we were exceeding our goal for this fiscal year of completing 80 percent of our new cases within 120 days. Our average time for completed files was significantly less than 120 days.

In Summary

• Most productive 12 months in history of Commission
• 437 review reports completed
• Elimination of backlog by Dec. 31, 2006
• Implemented 120-day "turnaround" on Apr. 1, 2006
• Reduced average review turnaround time from 527* to less than 120 days

* Five-year average (2001-2005)