Operational Bulletin 506 – March 13, 2013
Settlement Program Expenditure Control Policy for Support Services
Summary
The Support Services Expenditure Control Policy promotes efficient and consistent spending at a national level. However, it promotes spending only on Settlement Program support services that include:
- Care for newcomer children
- Transportation support
- Provisions for disabilities
- Translation and interpretation services and,
- Crisis counselling
Some clients require these services for accessing Settlement Program activities. These activities would typically include:
- Needs assessments
- Information sessions and,
- Language classes
However, the costs for support services must not exceed 20 percent of the total Contribution Agreement (CA) value. That too, per fiscal year.
Issue
The authorities conducted a review of the Settlement Program expenditures. This review highlighted the need for guidance through a consistent, national approach on how support services spending is:
- Defined
- Approved and,
- Tracked
Background
The Support Services Expenditure Control Policy is a response to the evaluation of the Language Instruction for Newcomer Canadians (LINC) program. This evaluation took place in 2009-10. It highlighted a considerable increase in expenditures over a five-year period for:
- Child-minding support and,
- Transportation support
The Support Services Expenditure Control Policy facilitates the provision of the same services across regions. However, it also focuses on limiting overall expenditures. Therefore, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) funds a number of direct settlement services, including support services like:
- Transportation assistance and,
- Care for newcomer children (also known as child-minding)
However, the Support Services Expenditure Control Policy does place limitations on the amount that officers could spend on providing support services.
Costs for support services must not exceed 20 percent of the Contribution Agreement (CA) value per year. This is inclusive of salaries. Similarly, the authorities could authorise support services costs in excess of 20 percent in exceptional cases. Such cases would typically include instances where:
- The recipient provides a written justification
- The officer provides a recommendation and,
- The supervisor provides an approval after consulting with the Integration Program Management Branch
In such situations, the officers would need to document these exceptions on the files.
Exceptional circumstances could also include cases where:
- Language Instruction for Newcomer Canadians (LINC) providers have a high number of clients, who have children requiring care or,
- Recipients are serving a high number of vulnerable clients, who have children requiring care, while their parents derive the benefits from the settlement services
Situations could arise where a recipient has two or more Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) agreements for direct services. In these cases, the officers would need to apply the 20 percent threshold to the sum of all these agreements.
The authorities have included the monitoring of spending on support services as a part of claim-review activities. This is to ensure that costs do not exceed the agreed-upon amounts. The authorities believe that support services are a cohesive set of services. Thus, they consider these support services in whole, when they monitor the costs of these services.
Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)