Benefit Programs

Our Day-to-Day Activities

We contribute directly to the economic and social well-being of Canadians by delivering benefits, credits, and services to eligible recipients. We administer the Canada Child Tax Benefit, the goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax credit, and Children’s Special Allowances, which are core federal programs that issue benefit payments. We also deliver the Universal Child Care Benefit on behalf of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the Disability Tax Credit, as well as other benefit and credit programs and services on behalf of federal, provincial, and territorial government clients. During 2009-2010, our benefit programs touched the lives of over 20.7 million Canadians.

Our goal

Our goal in 2009-2010 was to ensure effective service delivery that issued timely and correct benefit payments to eligible families and individuals. In addition, we aimed to reduce the overall cost of government by reducing duplication in administration and delivery functions.

Our outcome

In 2009-2010, we met each challenge we encountered. We maintained exceptional performance in delivering programs while incorporating important additions and changes to our programs and services. Our results show that we consistently administered reliable, high-quality programs and services to benefit recipients and client governments during one of the most difficult economic periods that Canadians have faced in recent years.

Our challenge

We understand the importance that Canadians place on our reliable and accurate delivery of payments and credits on behalf of our government clients. We are challenged each year to ensure that increased needs and limited resources do not have a negative effect on our delivery of essential benefits and services.

Spending Profile

Our 2009-2010 priorities

In support of our overarching objective of achieving excellence in program delivery, we committed to undertake a number of initiatives that focused on strengthening service and addressing non-compliance.

Strengthening service

The work that we do affects the financial security of individuals and families across the country. We strengthened service during 2009-2010 by making our programs and services more accessible and efficient. We invested resources to enhance our electronic self-service options to ensure that benefit recipients had timely access to the information and tools that they needed. For example, individuals now have the ability to remit benefit overpayments electronically. This can now be done through some financial institutions and also through the CRA’s My Payment web service.

To ensure that Canadians know about and can access benefit and credit programs, we were involved in outreach activities during 2009-2010. We sent representatives from our Disability Tax Measures Initiative to attend several medical conferences. At some of these events, we distributed a new Disability Tax Credit compact disk containing information for qualified practitioners. Recognizing a need for targeted messages for First Nations and the Territory of Nunavut, we created and distributed posters containing information about benefit and credit programs. The Nunavut poster is available in English, French, and Inuktitut.

There was a dramatic increase over the last year in visits to My Account. We attribute this increase to enhancements such as a status indicator for users of the Automated Benefits Application, more information for new programs, and an updated marital status confirmation process for Benefits Online Applications. Large increases like this show us that the self-service options on our Web pages are becoming increasingly popular and can also be linked to a national trend towards increased use of e-services.

By communicating directly with benefit recipients, we validated marital status, children’s care situations, addresses, and income information. The information we give recipients during validation reviews is designed to inform and educate them about their eligibility and entitlement requirements. We provide this service to encourage recipients to comply with program reporting obligations so that their payments are accurate.

Expected results

Our expected results are the criteria we use to measure our activities and report to Canadians on their effectiveness. We carry out our Benefit Programs activities to achieve two expected results.

Benefit recipients are provided with information, tools, and various forms of help geared to their needs. We communicate with Canadians through the Internet and on paper, but many people still rely on the telephone as their main method of contact. As noted in our Performance Report Card, for Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) and goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) credit enquiries, we were successful in meeting our target for the percentage of callers able to reach us by telephone. We had to make constant adjustments during the year to balance taxpayer expectations with available resources to handle the fluctuations in demand and to equalize program performance.

We also met our service standard for answering CCTB enquiries within two minutes of entering the agent queue. Our GST/HST credit telephone service was similarly successful. Note that there is currently no service standard for GST/HST credit enquiries.

We strive to provide accurate telephone service by using various tools and updating the reference materials we need to work efficiently. This year, in order to improve our agent training materials, we undertook a major revision and redesign of courses into modernized, online formats. Enhancements to our intranet site and the internal search engine enabled agents to provide better service.

Based on the number of individuals who were able to contact us by telephone, the number of people who accessed our Internet pages for information, and the work we did to enhance our communication products over the past year, we confirm that we met our expected result for benefit recipients having access to timely and accurate information.

To ensure that accurate payments are received on time by the right individuals, recipients must provide us with timely and valid information, and we must process this information efficiently and accurately. We also need to communicate with recipients in a clear and straightforward manner so that they understand the status of their accounts, as well as the information that was used to calculate their benefits and credits.

We must process applications, marital status change forms, written enquiries, and telephone referrals promptly so that we have the latest and most accurate information when we calculate benefits. In 2009-2010, we met our timeliness service standard target for processing applications and marital status change forms.

Information from benefit recipients must also be processed accurately. We review the results of our processing activities to ensure that we meet high timeliness and accuracy standards. We confirm account adjustments and explain the information we use to calculate benefits through the benefit notices that we send to recipients. To ensure that our notices are clear and our messages are understandable, we reviewed them during 2009-2010. We also reviewed the quality of correspondence we send to taxpayers.

Benefits validation

We strive to ensure that we deliver the right amount of benefits and credits to eligible families and individuals across Canada. This maintains the integrity of our programs, assuring individuals and client governments that they can have confidence in the effectiveness of our administration. In 2009-2010, we applied elements of our compliance strategy to enhance the accuracy of benefits and credits issued.

To measure levels of compliance, we review and verify recipient information each year, contacting individuals to confirm details of their accounts. If the account information is incorrect, we update it. We use both random sampling and specific criteria to select accounts. Using these two methods allows us to gauge how effectively we are identifying groups that pose a high risk for potential over- or underpayments. Over 94.4% of the random accounts that were validated during 2009-2010 contained accurate information, while over 53.5% of the individuals contacted as a result of targeted reviews required account adjustments. Comparing these results indicated that we used effective criteria for selecting accounts for review, that we ensured benefits were paid only to those who qualify, and that the correct amounts were issued.

We reviewed 212,017 accounts in 2009-2010. Our adjustments uncovered $82 million in benefit and credit underpayments and over $156 million in overpayments. When recipients were overpaid, we offset amounts from future payments, refunds, and credits that they are entitled to.

When we discuss accurate benefit and credit determination and payment, we assess our internal activities to ensure that we are on target, but we also recognize that accurate and timely processing is only half of the story. The ability and willingness of benefit recipients to provide reliable information as soon as there has been a change that would affect their benefit calculation is the other essential element. We invest resources to make it easy for benefit recipients to comply with their obligations and we undertake rigorous validation activities and contact large numbers of recipients each year to confirm that the information used to calculate their benefits is accurate.

Based on the measurement of the speed and accuracy of our adjustments to benefit recipient accounts, and the results of our validation activities, we confirm that we met our expected result for timely and accurate eligibility determination and payment processing.

Performance Report Card

Date modified:

2010-11-02