The CAO's Benchmarking Initiative is playing a key role in the Ontario municipal sector when it comes to measuring and comparing service delivery. Our expert panels are committed to developing powerful methodology that will generate "best practice" insights, improved service costing and quality measurement tools for municipal business planning - all important steps toward excellence in government.

It is a privilege and a delight to work with such a fine team. Your efforts and willingness to work together pave the way for continuous and improved municipal management and public accountability.

Bruce Macgregor, CAO York Region
Mike Trojan, CAO Niagara Region

Background

Since 2000, the Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs)and the City Managers from OMBI partner municipalities have been developing a Benchmarking Model in conjunction with the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and other municipal partners. These early experiences were based on the lessons learned from pilot projects in earlier phases whereby the model was applied to functions in Roads Operations, Long Term Care (Homes for the Aged), Water/Wastewater, Solid Waste Management, and Emergency Medical Services (Ambulance).Over the years the original group has expanded to include several large single-tier cities in Ontario and has developed a Project Charter and Workplan. In accordance with the workplan, the services involved in this exercise have also expanded dramatically and now cover virtually all major municipal services provided by regional municipalities and single-tier cities.

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Project Purpose

The Project Charter states that the purpose of the initiative is:

• Identify and collect comparable service specific performance measures across the partner municipalities.
• Analyze the data to provide an external peer perspective to complement each municipality’s examination of their own internal performance over a multi-year time frame.
• Share different practices and policies, to provide senior management with insights into opportunities for how the municipal services delivered by member municipalities can be improved.
• Report performance measurement information using established protocols, to Council and the Public in order to demonstrate the accountability and transparency of municipal government.

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Workplan

To meet these goals, a workplan was developed and presented to a very successful "kick-off" meeting on October 18, 2000 at which over 120 municipal employees from 15 municipalities were in attendance. The invitation list was comprised of municipal staff who had been appointed by their respective CAO to participate as a Municipal Champion or as a member of seven Expert Panels. These Panels were created to address each of the issues which were explored in the pilot projects plus a Treasurers Groups (now Finacial Advosry Panel ) and a Communications Panel. Each of these Expert Panels developing their own Workplans and appointed their own Panel Lead.

The Project is co-ordinated by a Management Committee composed of the Municipal Champions of each of the member municipalities. This Team is responsible for ensuring that the Project Workplan in implemented and is accountable to a board comprised of the Chief Administrative Officers and City Managers of the Regional and Single-Tier Mayors and Chairs of Ontario (MARCO). The OMBI Lead CAO is Bruce Macgregor of the Region of York. The initiative is managed through a Project Management Office which includes the Project Manager, Data Analyst/Consultant and Administrative Assistant.

A regular Newsletter is published to share information among all participants. This Newsletter and other information is available on the “News and Public Documents” page at the Project's Web site.

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Evolution and Next Steps

In 2001, in accordance with the Workplan, an environmental scan was completed to ensure that the initiative learned as much as possible from other benchmarking initiatives and from the pilot projects. This exercise was designed to develop a Benchmarking Framework that will be applied to other municipal functions and other municipalities. This Framework was developed with the intention of integrating the municipal benchmarking model with the Province of Ontario Municipal Performance Measurement Project (MPMP). This Provincial initiative required municipalities to report on 35 performance measures for the year 2000.

Each of the Expert Panels undertook their own initiatives to further expand the results of the pilot projects. The Water & Wastewater Panel proposed a national initiative based on the National Research Council sponsored benchmarking project that involves approximately 35 municipalities from coast to coast. The Waste Management Panel is working closely with a private sector group (Corporations Supporting Recycling) and the Ontario Waste Diversion Organization to develop a benchmarking model that meets their needs and respects the CAO's Benchmarking goals and objectives. The Emergency Medical Services Panel has broadened their original sample group of 5 unnamed municipalities to further test their pilot project model with all OMBI partners.

The Treasurer's Group has been exploring the appropriate treatment of capital assets, indirect support costs and other financial issues, in our model. Since 2003 there has been an effort to include not only the direct operating costs, but also corporate indirect or support costs. OMBI has developed a model that has been endorsed for use in the MPMP for all municipalities with a population of 100,000 or greater. During 2004 we expanded the services included in the performance model from the original 5 pilot projects to 34 service and program areas covering almost all areas of municipal responsibility in a pilot project involving 7 municipalities. In 2005 these draft measures were further refined in consultation with our municipal service expert network; and the pilot was further expanded at that time to include all 15 OMBI partner municipalities. In 2007 OMBI released its first 2005 Performance Benchmarking Report with 12 service ares reporting, followed by its 2006 Benchmarking Report in October of 2007 with 16 service areas reporting. OMBI has released the 2007 Performance Benchmarking Report in December 2008, with 22 municipal services reporting. The 2008 report was released in October 2009 and now includes three years of data on 25 programs and services. The quality and consistency of the OMBI data will continue to improve as we refine and improve these measures along with our benchmarking and public reporting processes.

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