Audit Report - Program Integrity at CPC Vegreville

Audit Report
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Internal Audit and Disclosures
September 2004

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Roles and Objectives
• Audit Objective
• Audit Scope
• Audit Methodology
• Audit Observations and Recommendations
  • APRs
  • APR Referrals
  • TR Extensions
  • TR Referrals
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Management Action Plan

Introduction

The Internal Audit and Disclosures (IAD) Branch completed a risk-based audit plan that identified the need for an audit of operational delivery at the Case Processing Centre (CPC) in Vegreville.

Prior to the creation of the CPC, Employment and Immigration Canada’s Immigration Group faced the challenge of delivering the inland immigration program more efficiently. Centralized processing emerged as an efficient way to handle high-volume, routine work at Citizenship and Immigration Centres (CICs). Traditionally, all applicants had to apply to the local CICs and undergo an interview. However, it was determined that the majority of cases could be decided without the need for face-to-face client contact. [Note 1]

Various pilot projects tested the merit of centralized, mail-in processing. The result was the creation of two CPCs—one in Mississauga and one in Vegreville—both of which opened for full processing in April 1994. The CPCs were introduced to attain greater resource efficiency and to achieve uniform national levels of service. [Note 2] The CPC in Vegreville was tasked with processing temporary resident (TR) extensions (formerly visitor extensions) and inland applications for permanent residence (APRs) (formerly applications for landing) that did not require an interview. Complex cases and cases that should be refused based on the exercise of discretion were to be referred to the local CIC where the applicant resided.

The two primary business lines have remained the same since the CPC opened: TR extensions and APRs from within Canada. The TR (or non-immigrant) business line includes extensions for visitors, students, workers and TR permit holders. The permanent resident (or immigrant) business line includes inland applications from protected persons and Convention refugees, live-in caregivers, permit holders, spouses or common-law partners, and persons seeking humanitarian or compassionate consideration.

The CPC also processes requests for protected persons status documents and requests for loans to cover the right of permanent residence fee.

The volume of applications received at CPC Vegreville has increased substantially since its creation. The following chart provides an overview of the CPC’s budget, full-time equivalents (FTEs), and applications for both temporary residence and permanent residence over the past five years.

Roles and Objectives

The 2003–04 business plan identifies the CPC’s main objective as providing quality client service while processing Canada’s non-immigrant and immigrant applications and applications for loans to cover the right of permanent residence fee in accordance with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), regulations and departmental policies. The CPC endeavours to process these applications within the specified time frames for production and service delivery, while maintaining program integrity and the health and safety of Canadians.

Audit Objective

The audit objective was to assess the degree of compliance with legislation, regulations and policies associated with the delivery of the immigration program at CPC Vegreville.

Audit Scope

The audit scope covered applications processed between October 1 and December 31, 2003, in both the immigrant and the non-immigrant business lines. The immigrant business line includes inland APRs from protected persons and Convention refugees, live-in caregivers, permit holders, spouses or common-law partners, and persons seeking humanitarian or compassionate consideration. The non-immigrant business line includes applications for extensions from visitors, students, workers and TR permit holders, as well as applications for extensions of protected person status documents. All of these types of applications were included in the scope.

We also reviewed cases referred to inland offices between October 1 and December 31, 2003. Referred cases were examined to determine compliance with referral criteria, and not compliance with respect to the decision made by the CIC.

Audit Methodology

The audit involved examining two lines of enquiry: immigrant and non-immigrant business lines. We examined a sample of immigrant and non-immigrant applications to ensure compliance with legislation, regulations and policies. Field work was conducted between February and May 2004 and involved reviewing the paper files and the information available on the Field Operations Support System (FOSS). Referred cases were examined through FOSS exclusively.

The audit was conducted in compliance with the Treasury Board Policy on Internal Audit and the Institute of Internal Auditors’ Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing.

Audit Observations and Recommendations

APRs

In order to examine APRs, we selected a random sample of 95 APRs finalized between October 1 and December 31, 2003, proportionally stratified to represent the five types of immigrant case files. We examined four humanitarian and compassionate applications, 10 live-in caregiver applications, 41 protected person applications, and 40 spouse or common-law partner applications. While permit holders were included in our scope, none were included in our sample because the CPC had not processed any during the selected sample period.

We expected to find that APRs processed by CPC Vegreville were compliant with legislation, regulations and policies associated with the immigration program. Of 95 files examined, we found that 92 complied with these criteria. We identified a weakness in the process that resulted in the non-compliance of the three remaining files. Once management was informed, corrective action was taken immediately.

APR Referrals

Referred cases were examined using the same sample period. Over this time period, 75% of CPC Vegreville’s APR referrals were referred to five inland offices: Etobicoke (23%), Montreal (19%), Scarborough (15%), Mississauga (9%) and Vancouver (9%). We selected a sample of 95 immigrant case files referred to these five offices during the three-month period. The sample was proportionally stratified to represent the five offices. We expected to find that cases were being referred in compliance with referral criteria. In broad terms, this means that refused cases and cases requiring discretion are referred to inland offices. We found that all 95 cases examined were referred in compliance with the criteria.

TR Extensions

In order to examine TR extensions, we selected a random sample of 95 files finalized between October 1 and December 31, 2003, proportionally stratified to represent the four types of case files. We examined one TR permit, 27 students, 25 visitors, and 42 workers.

As with the APRs, we expected to find that TR extensions processed by CPC Vegreville were compliant with legislation, regulations and policies associated with the immigration program.

Overall, TR extensions were not processed to the same level of compliance as APRs. Many of the weaknesses resulted from unclear operational policies, applications and guides.

The policies are often specific regarding the requirements, but many of the requirements are specified in overseas manuals. The manual for inland TR extensions is not comprehensive, unlike the inland APR manuals. For this reason, it is often challenging to find the appropriate inland guidance. An example of this is the requirement for medical follow-up of all inland TRs, which can be found in the foreign worker manual.

One result is that many of the requirements set out in these policies are not reflected in the kits that contain the guide and application. For example, the policy that applies to students (an overseas policy) indicates that students must provide a certain level of proof of financial sufficiency. However, the guide and application that are available to the public do not ask applicants to supply the same information required by the policy. Under these circumstances, the CPC considers an application compliant if the applicant supplies the information requested in the guide, which does not meet the requirements set out in the policy.

Recommendation

1. Policy manuals and the delivery of inland TR applications should be reviewed to ensure that they are consistent.

Management Response

Policy and Program Development agrees with this recommendation. The Policy Sector will work with the Operations Sector and the Departmental Delivery Network (DDN) to ensure that the immigration regulations, operational policy manuals, application kits and guides, and the departmental Web site are more consistent as they relate to the TR program. More specifically, management will ensure that inland manuals better reflect policy intent and provide clearer guidance to officers on how they are to implement TR-related regulations.

Centralized Services Delivery and Corporate Services (CSDCS) agrees with this recommendation. The DDN will provide the service lines with the support required to enable them to update policies and manuals to reflect inland operations.

Recommendation

2. The application kits should be reviewed and updated to ensure that the applications and the guides that accompany them reflect the regulations and policies.

Management Response

CSDCS agrees with this recommendation. The DDN will work closely with the service lines to obtain the information required to update application kits and guides to reflect the regulations and policy. The DDN already has a consultation process in place with the service lines and Operations to update kits annually. Updates to application kits for CPC Vegreville’s business lines are scheduled to commence in the fall for completion by the end of the fiscal year.

In addition to these problems, the audit identified a small number of processing errors that were made at the CPC. A quality assurance program would provide assurance that these errors are identified and corrected.

Recommendation

3. The CPC should implement a quality assurance program to ensure that it identifies and corrects processing weaknesses.

Management Response

CSDCS fully supports this recommendation. It is recognized that CPC Vegreville’s current ad hoc quality assurance process is less than ideal. Unfortunately, because of the significant increase in application intake over the last several years, with no increase in funding, in order to implement a comprehensive quality assurance process, CPC Vegreville would have to divert resources away from processing. At a time when application intake is so high and processing times are outside the norm, diverting resources will only increase backlogs and processing times. CPC Vegreville will seek additional funding to develop and implement the comprehensive quality assurance process. In addition, depending on the results of the work of the departmental Service Delivery Strategy Task Force, CPC Vegreville will re-evaluate the possibility of diverting resources to a comprehensive quality assurance program.

We also reviewed a random sample of 95 protected person status documents issued between October 1 and December 31, 2003, to confirm that they were issued properly. We found that all of them were issued in compliance with the legislation.

TR Referrals

Referred cases were examined for the same sample period—October 1 to December 31, 2003. Over this time period, 78% of CPC Vegreville’s TR referrals were referred to eight inland offices: Vancouver (18%), Montreal (15%), Scarborough (14%), Etobicoke (12%), Mississauga (6%), Ottawa (5%), Edmonton (4%) and Calgary (4%). We selected a sample of 95 TR case files referred to these eight offices during this three-month period. The sample was proportionally stratified to represent the eight offices. As with the APR files, we expected to find that cases were being referred in compliance with referral criteria. We found that the applications referred did indeed comply with the referral criteria. In other words, complex cases requiring discretion were referred to inland offices.

Conclusion

Overall, we found that CPC Vegreville complied with legislation, regulations and policies associated with the delivery of APRs. We found that TR extensions were not processed to the same level of compliance as APRs. The Department is committed to reviewing the operational policies, applications and guides to ensure consistency in order to strengthen the TR business line.

Appendix: Management Action Plan

Footnotes

• [1] CPC Final Project Report, April 1994, p. 1. [back to note 1]
• [2] CPC Program Management Team, “Final Communiqué: Final Design Report,” p. 2. [back to note 2]