Laying the Foundation: Enabling Canadian Public Sector Collaboration
Land Acknowledgement
The Institute for Citizen-Centred Service respectfully acknowledges that we live and work on the traditional lands of the Indigenous Peoples (Inuit, First Nations, Métis) of Canada. We honour the ancestry, heritage, and gifts of the Indigenous Peoples and give thanks to them.
Message from the President
Over the past year, it’s been exciting to see the ICCS lay the solid foundation needed for the organization and its members. The organization reviewed and realigned its approach to better support our members innovate, enable collaboration and remove barriers to services in Canada.
I’ve been able to bear witness to the growing maturity of the ICCS as an organization and its ability to evolve with members’ evolving needs and expectations. The team has taken steps to increase awareness of the organization’s work through a new corporate look and tools that reflects the changes of the past year.
Most importantly, the ICCS also began to engage with a more diverse ecosystem that reflects the broader landscape and better enables members’ ability to meaningfully advance existing and emerging priorities. I’m confident that the ICCS will continue to be key in helping members address Canadians needs and expectations.
Mark Burns, President
Message from the Executive Director
It’s my pleasure to present the 2024-25 ICCS Annual Report Laying the foundation: enabling Canadian public sector collaboration.
This past year has been a milestone for the ICCS. We have begun to lay the foundation that will allow us to more effectively meet members' needs and support them in their work to improve services for individuals and businesses in Canada.
As the issues faced by governments get increasingly complex, it’s clear to me that the ICCS, as a trusted space for bilateral, multi-lateral, and pan-Canadian collaboration, is more important than ever. That’s why we continue to be committed to keep evolving how we support our members and help them meet their goals.
As the executive director of the ICCS, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished this past year. We have put the ICCS on a path to sustainability with stable funding, challenged our team to work differently, supported governance work, launched a new corporate look and tools, and supported inter-jurisdictional initiatives meant to drive meaningful results. We also began to engage with a broader ecosystem to better reflect the changing landscape and enable effective cross-governmental work to remove barriers to access.
I’m excited for us to keep enabling this important work as our members negotiate ongoing political and economic uncertainty. And I’m keen for the ICCS to build on its successes this year as we keep an eye to the future.
Lin Zhu, Executive Director
Who We Are
The ICCS is a non-partisan, not-for-profit team of advisors, doers, and connectors focused on helping governments deliver integrated citizen-centred services that work for Canadians. Created by, and for, the public sector, the ICCS serves as a single window to access information, analysis, advice, and support services for senior executive tables.
As a trusted pan-Canadian forum that fosters and facilitates the flow of information and the sharing of expertise and resources to support member objectives, the ICCS works with, convenes, and advises federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal colleagues and subject matter experts to remove barriers to access to services.
What We Do
- Enable and support interjurisdictional collaboration to advance digital government and deliver tangible results for individuals and businesses in Canada.
- Provide secretariat and strategic planning services to key senior public sector leadership teams, tables, and councils with focus on pan-Canadian collaboration.
- Assess the progress of the Canadian public sector in meeting individuals' and businesses' expectations and measure their level of satisfaction with service delivery.
- Champion citizen-centred services and serve as a public sector resource for advice and access to best practices and tools that promote accessible public-sector services.
Effective Information Sharing
The core of the ICCS’s work continues to be how we advise, support, and provide a platform for our members to efficiently advance priorities. Examples include how the ICCS helped jurisdictions deliver on key aspects of a pan-Canadian collaboration agenda such as the cyber security information sharing agreement and created a standardized approach to support effective delivery on emerging priorities identified by ministers at the FPT Symposium on Digital Trust and Cyber Security in 2024.
The ICCS also supported pan-Canadian inter-jurisdictional councils focused on citizen-centred service delivery through its work with the Joint Councils which is made up of the Public Sector Chief Information Officer Council (PSCIOC) and the Public Sector Service Delivery Council (PSSDC). With our members of the PSSDC, we supported the sharing of information and best practices and identified pan-Canadian service delivery challenges. Collectively, we gained insight into client needs and developed practical solutions to help create seamless services across all levels of government.
The PSSDC’s membership represents a wide range of functions and priorities, creating challenges in fostering effective collaboration across similar areas. To better serve our members, support partnership opportunities across provinces and territories, and enhance their ability to collaborate with their colleagues with similar responsibilities, the ICCS undertook the mapping of the benefit and service delivery environment.
Enabling Inter-jurisdictional Work
The nucleus of the ICCS’s work continues to be how we advise, support, and provide a platform for our members to efficiently advance priorities identified by ministers at the FPT Symposium on Digital Trust and Cyber Security. We’ve helped to deliver on key aspects of a pan-Canadian collaboration agenda such as the cyber security information sharing agreement and created a standardized approach to support effective delivery on emerging priorities.
Through its work with inter-jurisdictional councils, the ICCS helped enhance digital services through pan-Canadian collaboration in managing information technology, digital trust, cyber security, interoperability, and emerging technologies. Much of the work focused on identifying potential alignment for bilateral or multi-lateral initiatives with our members of the PSCIOC.
Governance and Strategy
Working with senior government officials from each province and territory, the ICCS developed a collaboration agenda, formalized table operations, and facilitated a mandate and priorities discussion. We also led one-on-one jurisdictional consultations across Canada to identify opportunities for bilateral, multi-lateral, and pan-Canadian cooperation.
To meet member expectations, the ICCS team pivoted to an outcomes-based approach and developed a strategy to better enable discussions and alignment within the broader ecosystem. The result has been the ability to more effectively manage resources to achieve key priorities and help lay the foundational elements that enable digital services and digital government.
Helping Organizations Improve
A trusted partner for public service professional development, the ICCS and its learning programs continue to be in high demand. Our learning and certification offerings help public sector employees design and deliver services in a way that meets the needs and expectations of individuals and businesses in Canada. The ICCS successfully added The Client Journey workshop so participants learn how to use various mapping techniques to better understand clients and ensure that service improvements are focused on the right things.
The ICCS also initiated partnerships with the Institute on Governance and Code 4 Canada to continue to provide robust learning content aligned with our members’ needs and priorities. We look forward to working together to further strengthen public sector ability to successfully develop and deliver services.
Board of Directors
Mark Burns - ICCS Board President and Director, eServices for Citizens, Information & Communications Technology Highways & Public Works, Government of Yukon
Kathryn Bulko - Executive Director, Municipal Information Systems Association of Canada (MISA Canada)
Mark Healy - ICCS Vice-President and Executive Director, Operations and Security, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
Gillian Latham - ICCS Secretary and Executive Director, Citizen Services, Service Nova Scotia, Government of Nova Scotia
Sean McLeish - ICCS Board Treasurer, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer, Government of Yukon
Mohammad Qureshi - Corporate Chief Information Officer / Associate Deputy Minister, Government Information Technology Ontario, Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery, Government of Ontario
Jackie Stankey - Director of Strategic Engagement and Integrated Initiatives, Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, Government of Alberta
Paul Wagner - Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Digital Service, Government of Canada
Tracy Wood - Chief Digital and Operating Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat, Government of Prince Edward Island
Lin Zhu - Executive Director, Institute for Citizen-Centred Service
Financial Summary
At a Glance
In 2024-25, the ICCS saw a slight increase in revenue compared to previous years.
Year to date shortfall of revenues over expenses of $67,095, which is $18,852 less than what we had budgeted.
Chart
Revenues totalled - $977,791. This is more than budget by $23,898.
Expenditures totalled - $870,696. This is less than budget by $169,144.