Item - 2020.GL12.10

The General Government and Licensing Committee:

1.  Directed the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, to report to the General Government and Licensing Committee in the first quarter of each year on performance standards and timelines in relation to those outlined in Figures 1 to 6 of the report (February 24, 2020) from the Deputy City Manager, Infrastructure and Development Services, and that the report in 2021 include results for any ward to which staff travel significantly further as the result of them being moved out of the North York Civic Centre.

This report responds to a request from the General Government and Licensing Committee to report on identifiable and measureable performance standards for Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) and the redeployment of Investigation Services' staff to the North York Civic Centre (NYCC).

MLS previously reported on enforcement service standards, after direction from the General Government and Licensing Committee, in September and November 2019.  Service standards refer to the target response times that MLS sets for the various work programs performed by the division. All divisions, including MLS, also set target response times for complaint assessment and internal investigation. For example, with property standards, MLS aims to initially respond to 70 percent of property standards service requests within 5 business days. Although the current service standards are useful metrics, MLS recognizes that they are insufficient for the public, as performance standards should be linked to the desired outcome (e.g. residents are better off). As such, MLS will be implementing a results-based management and accountability framework.

MLS continues to optimize space in an effort to mitigate its real estate footprint and facility costs. In the last decade, MLS has reduced its real estate footprint by half (from 16 to 8 business locations). This has the added benefit of co-locating by-law enforcement staff, enabling increased collaboration, and shared resources such as fleet vehicles. This approach also aligns with the City's efforts to optimize office space.

In continued optimization efforts, on August 28, 2019, 26 Investigation Services (IS) staff located at NYCC were relocated to one of three MLS district offices (Central, West or East). The relocation recognized MLS' distribution of service requests, consolidated the IS operation into a three-district model (to align with MLS' other business units), and ensured all IS staff are co-located with staff from By-law Enforcement. While MLS is committed to modernization, it is also committed to taking steps to meet or exceed all performance targets. While staff travel times have increased in a limited area of North York (such as those close to NYCC), in a preliminary analysis of service delivery, optimizing business locations has not had demonstrably negative effects to service delivery.

This report was prepared in consultation with the Corporate Real Estate Management Division and Fleet Services.