DATE: March 5, 2014 REPORT NO. PHSSS Income & Employment Support. David Miskiw, Manager Income & Employment Support

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1 DATE: March 5, 2014 REPORT NO. PHSSS TO: FROM: PREPARED BY: Chair and Members Social Services Committee Dan Temprile, General Manager Public Health Safety and Social Services Jo Cupoli-Atanas, Director David Miskiw, Manager 1.0 TYPE OF REPORT CONSENT ITEM [ x ] ITEM FOR CONSIDERATION [ ] 2.0 TOPIC Implementation of Social Assistance Management System (SAMS) 3.0 RECOMMENDATION THAT the Implementation of Social Assistance Management System (SAMS) Report PHSSS BE RECEIVED. 4.0 PURPOSE The purpose of this report is to update Social Services Committee and Council on the implementation of SAMS. Public Health, Safety and Social Services 220 Colborne Street, P.O. Box 845 Brantford, ON N3T 5R7 Phone: Fax:

2 Date: March 5, 2014 Page BACKGROUND The Ministry of Community and Social Services is responsible for managing the computer system for the delivery of social assistance. Municipal use is mandatory for the delivery of Ontario Works. Since 2010, the Ministry has a project working to replace the current Service Delivery Model Technology (SDMT) with Social Assistance Management System (SAMS). The project is known as Social Services Solutions Modernization Project (SSSMP) Ontario Works Brant has been working collaboratively with SSSMP to successfully implement SAMS. Staff has demonstrated our commitment by representing Consolidated Municipal Service Managers on provincial committees, seconding staff to SSSMP, participating in the SAMS project pilot during the summer of 2013, and by being extensively involved in system testing and troubleshooting. The original launch date for SAMS was June That original launch date was adjusted to November 2013, and now to May Training is currently underway and began in early January. After much lobbying by municipalities, the Province agreed to provide some onetime funding. The City of Brantford will receive $42,000 from this funding. Although the funding is welcome it does not come near the investment that the municipality must make to implement SAMS. The training of the entire curriculum is scheduled to be completed in a 13 week period, with that period ending on the eve of the system launch. This is a very tight time frame. The technology provided by SSSMP for training has been plagued with performance issues. These identical issues had been experienced prior to the start of training, and had been communicated to the project on numerous occasions via letters, teleconferencing, endless testing conducted by staff, and face-to- face meetings with the Province s Chief Information Officer, Corbin Kerr, and the Deputy Minister, Marg Rappolt. During Deputy Minister Rappolt s visit she witnessed our issues first hand. Despite SSSMP s awareness of the performance issues SSSMP decided to start the training, citing significant improvements as the reason for proceeding. As predicted, the errors have continued and staff has borne the brunt of ineffective training. Staff were not learning how to use SAMS to perform their duties. The Province describes the implementation of SAMS as a partnership between CMSMs and SSSMP. In terms of training, it is SSSMP s responsibility to develop core materials and to provide a mock SAMS database for training. The expectation is that all training activities are the responsibility of the municipality with no additional resources provided by the Province. Staff and management have been redeployed from regular duties to work on implementation and training. The Ontario Works management team has been tasked with delivering the training and have invested hundreds of hours into preparation. As a good partner Ontario Works Brant has met and continues to meet our obligations.

3 Date: March 5, 2014 Page 3 As a result of SSSMP s inability to correct the system issues they offered municipalities the option of pausing the training while they tried to isolate and repair the problems. Given this option, the City Of Brantford elected to pause the training. The City of Toronto, the City of Thunder Bay, and District of Nipissing have also paused training. These four sites represent 25% of all users in the Province. When this first occurred, SSSMP advised us the pause could not last longer than a week or it would affect the go live date set for May. As of February 14, the pause had reached three weeks. During the training pause, staff has continued to be actively engaged with SSSMP working to test and resolve the issues. SSSMP had stated that the four CMSMs opted to stop training. This was a gross misrepresentation of the facts; we did not have a choice. SSSMP later acknowledged this misrepresentation by admitting that sites were forced to pause training due to the errors in the technology. Implementing SAMS has been and remains to be a major undertaking for Ontario Works staff and management. It will impact all areas of operations: service delivery, program management, administrative support, and financial controllership. The municipality is responsible to develop new procedures that align with the functioning of the new system. To date, we have not been able to move forward with development of policies or protocols due to system issues and because many questions that are essential to decision making still remain unanswered. A project of this magnitude which necessitates the reallocation of staff, results in a variety of costs. Staff that would otherwise be focused on program delivery and customer service have been assigned to this project. The costs to the municipality increase with each change to the timeline and schedule. We must continue to reallocate resources to deliver and maintain core business functions while simultaneously remaining in a perpetual state of readiness. We must be prepared in the event SSSMP is able to see a launch cycle through completion. All of this constant juggling must be done in unison with the expectation that customer service levels will not be impacted. Although we continue to strive to deliver quality customer service, we cannot commit to that same high level to which our customers and council are accustomed. In some sites, Ontario Works offices have already communicated to their customers that services may be impacted during this transition. Thus far, our experience has been one of missed milestones, unmet timelines, lack of meaningful communication and two delays requiring complete project rescheduling. Since the beginning of the project, Ontario Works Brant has raised these concerns. In fact our staff has been instrumental in gathering together over 40 of the 47 Ontario Works delivery agents to collectively raise the issues. We coordinated the development of a 13 page document outlining the issues faced by Ontario Works offices. A meeting was organized in Toronto for all CMSMs to present the issues to SSSMP. Our hope was to collaboratively work

4 Date: March 5, 2014 Page 4 with SSSMP to resolve the issues. After the meeting staff reported that the Ministry and the project team did not provide them with confidence that the targeted launch date would be May 2014 or that we would have all our questions answered before implementation. We have been consistently stating from the beginning of the project that there has been an absence of meaningful consultation to set system requirements, poor communication, and a lack of project readiness according to SSSMP s own timetable. On numerous occasions we have also addressed the need for adequate resources such as financial assistance, project expertise to facilitate local implementation and for the project to show the Ontario Works sites their contingency plans. 6.0 CORPORATE POLICY CONTEXT Excellence in governance and municipal management. 7.0 INPUT FROM OTHER SOURCES Ontario Works Brant has been networking with other municipal service managers across the Province to share information and to collectively raise our common issues with the Ministry of Community and Social Services. We arranged to meet with SSSMP on February 12 and almost all of the 47 Consolidated Municipal Service Managers were in attendance to proactively and jointly facilitate a plan to move the project forward. We have also raised the issues and are communicating with the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA) to advocate on our behalf. 8.0 ANALYSIS Throughout the process of preparing to implement SAMS, we have faced endless resource pressures and a multitude of issues around scheduling and rescheduling training, appointment times and staff vacation. Vacation times have been impacted by the on again/off again training and lack of SSSMP preparedness. Staff s vacations have been denied or limited to ensure training is delivered in the timeframes prescribed by SSSMP. We have strongly cautioned SSSMP that launching or training during the summer would be detrimental to staff morale and customer service. Municipalities play a major role in this implementation and have significant responsibilities with respect to how the new system s capabilities can be maximized locally. In addition to our resource pressures we have also experienced significant issues with respect to the development of critical local policies and procedures that need to accompany implementation. We have been strongly encouraged by SSSMP to proceed despite a bevy of incomplete and

5 Date: March 5, 2014 Page 5 inconsistent information and a testing environment that is incapable of supporting this type of development. The inability to adequately prepare for issues we will face at launch also highlights the concerns associated with the post-implementation planning. Currently we have not been fully apprised of what plans are in place for the period during the conversion of the data known as the black out period when all operations must be performed manually, as well as the period immediately following launch. Furthermore conversion of data remains an issue for the project; to date they have not converted enough data in their testing and preparations to determine if conversion to the new system will be successful. 9.0 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS The Ministry of Community and Social Services has allocated a onetime payment of $42,000 to Ontario Works Brant. This represents a small fraction of the resources that have been and remain to be allocated to this project. Costs related to implementing SAMS include dedicating staff to schedule, coordinate, prepare, print materials and deliver training. There is a cost in terms of lost productivity as every staff member will attend approximately 50 hours of training. Furthermore, staff required to support their colleagues require additional enhanced training to become system experts. Staff is also responsible for designing and implementing procedural changes to support using SAMS to deliver social assistance. Meeting these obligations represent a major reallocation of human resources. Managing ongoing operations during implementation has other implications such as limits to the duration and timing of staff vacations. While these issues represent actual and measurable monetary costs such as overtime, printing, travel and transportation costs, and costs of carrying over vacations, the potential impacts to customer service are far more difficult to quantify in this manner CONCLUSION Ontario Works Brant strives to provide high quality programming to the most vulnerable members of our community. This report is presented to inform Committee and Council of the extreme challenges being faced by staff in trying to maintain high quality service delivery while attempting to implement the new technology.

6 Date: March 5, 2014 Page 6 Jo Cupoli-Atanas, Director Dan Temprile, General Manager Public Health, Safety & Social Services David Miskiw, Manager Attachments: NA Copy to: NA In adopting this report, is a by-law or agreement required? If so, it should be referenced in the recommendation section. By-law required [ ] yes [ x ] no Agreement(s) or other documents to be signed by Mayor and/or City Clerk [ ] yes [ x ] no Is the necessary by-law or agreement being sent concurrently to Council? [ ] yes [ x ] no