The AGCO is committed to delivering on the Ontario government’s priorities and fiscal objectives. We continue to ensure our strategic priorities and operations align with government direction and ensure cost-effective, customer-focused service delivery. Government priorities are embedded in our strategic direction and day to day approach. As evidenced in our work, the AGCO has been focused on liquor modernization, igaming, burden reduction, combatting the illegal cannabis market to keep our youth and communities safe, and our ongoing response to the Auditor General of Ontario’s Value for Money Audit.
The AGCO also received a mandate letter from the Attorney General outlining a series of priorities including: competitiveness, expenditure management, transparency and accountability, risk management, workforce management, diversity and inclusion, data collection, and digital delivery and customer service.
To address these priorities AGCO pursued the following initiatives.
Competitiveness, Sustainability, and Expenditure Management
The AGCO continued its work on a funding framework review with the Ministry of the Attorney General to mitigate its ongoing structural deficit and respond to the government’s commitment to program sustainability, and in response to the Auditor General’s recommendations for the AGCO to become a more financially self-sufficient regulatory agency.
The objective is to identify opportunities to bring greater consistency in legal authorities and processes to recover costs across the sectors the AGCO regulates and aims to reduce the AGCO’s annual net allocation from government to the greatest extent possible. During the year, the AGCO developed and submitted recommendations to support its objective and continues to work with the Ministry to determine how best to move forward.
The AGCO remains committed to its Value for Money action plan and recognizes the value of the Auditor General of Ontario’s recommendations to enhance its effectiveness as a modern regulator. The AGCO has continued to deliver steady progress over the past fiscal year, providing regular updates to the Auditor General, and it remains a priority for 2024–25.
Transparency and Accountability
For fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, the AGCO Chair, CEO and Chief Administrative Officer have attested to government that the AGCO is in compliance with all applicable legislation, regulations, directives, and policies, has maintained an effective system of internal controls; and has established and maintained a system of internal controls that supports the integrity and reliability of the Agency’s financial reports for the year ended March 31, 2024.
Risk Management
The AGCO uses an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework to support the organization in identifying areas of risk and assists management in making strategic decisions that contribute to the achievement of the AGCO’s corporate objectives. The goal of the ERM framework is to embed risk management within all operations and across all levels of the organization.
The framework sets out a process for identifying and assessing risks and highlighting and reviewing controls and mitigation strategies. The final key risks are reviewed and approved by C-Suite, the Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee and the Board of Directors.
Workforce Management Risk – The AGCO will continue to develop its “People First” strategic plan that will include actions to retain, develop and attract the workforce needed to deliver on its mandate.
Information Security Risk – The AGCO will continue to assess, develop, and implement information security awareness, staff education, policies, and protocols to mitigate current and emerging cyber threats and increase the security maturity of existing controls.
Regulatory Effectiveness Risk – The AGCO regularly reviews and augments its regulatory effectiveness to ensure changes in the sectors it regulates, and stakeholder expectations are addressed in a timely and effective manner.
Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
For the AGCO, it is important to have a workforce which reflects the public we serve. Confidence in public services is enhanced when the public sees itself represented in its service provider. The AGCO is committed to delivering services to the public in a way that considers the diverse and evolving needs of Ontarians.
The AGCO understands that building and cultivating an inclusive workplace culture that fosters communication, collaboration, flexibility, respect, and fairness to leverage diversity empowers all individuals to contribute to their full potential and enhances employees’ work life.
In 2023, a permanent DI&A Office was established and is comprised of a new Senior Manager of DI&A and a DI&A Advisor position. As we operationalize diversity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout the AGCO, a DI&A lens is being applied to all Human Resources and Organizational Development policies, programs, and initiatives.
Workforce Management
Collaborative efforts across the AGCO have led to the creation of innovative programs and strategies aimed at identifying and nurturing talent within the organization, thereby contributing to its growth and success. The AGCO has placed a strong emphasis on continuous improvement, utilizing a risk-based methodology to ensure effectiveness and responsiveness to evolving needs.
The AGCO maintains a people-first approach and leverages a hybrid work model to support the needs of employees to balance their work and home lives, while maintaining an engaged, productive workforce.
Data Collection
The AGCO is in its second year of implementing its enterprise Data and Analytics Program, in alignment with its enterprise Digital Strategy. Year two of the Data and Analytics Program focused on leveraging strategic partnerships across the enterprise to enhance regulatory compliance activities and elevate the customer experience. There was continued development and deployment of the Data Governance Framework, ensuring that data used for analytics and decision making is well defined and managed, including where it could drive improvements in compliance activities and consumer interactions.
- The AGCO introduced the Data Governance by Design Framework to embed governance, such as Privacy Impact Assessments and Data Definition at project inception, ensuring data is secure and defined for use.
- A Records and Information Management Program are underway, which will ensure the proper management of information assets throughout their lifecycle.
- The AGCO continues to facilitate the processing of large datasets and enabling advanced analytics capabilities like Machine Learning through the internal Data Driven Compliance App.
The AGCO continues to look at data sharing opportunities with various ministries and other crown corporations within the broader public sector, such as Supply Ontario. Currently, the AGCO is prioritizing data sharing initiatives that will help with its compliance and regulatory activities such as those related Liquor Retail Expansion.
Digital Delivery and Customer Service
The AGCO relies on digital platforms to deliver accessible, reliable, secure, and customer-centric services to Ontarians. The AGCO met its established enterprise-wide service standards for service transactions last fiscal, at a 92 per cent average, surpassing the 80 per cent target. AGCO is also working towards establishing new service standards for application turnaround times for high volume applications in the year ahead.
The AGCO also uses service insights such as customer satisfaction surveys and complaints, inquiries, and service performance measures from iAGCO to identify opportunities for customer service improvement.
In line with the Government of Ontario’s focus and commitment to deliver simpler, faster, better services to Ontarians, the AGCO recognized the need for an enterprise Digital Strategy to guide and prioritize the agency’s digitalization efforts. Beginning this work in 2022-23, a Digital Vision was established to set an aspirational, desired future state for the agency. During 2023-24, guided by the Digital Vision as a strategic compass, the AGCO embarked on the development of its enterprise Digital Strategy and the resulting transformation effort will become firmly integrated into both the AGCO’s strategic long-term planning efforts and effectively support its current operations. It will span across all of AGCO’s key commitments, strengthen its organizational foundation, and help the AGCO:
- Build toward a resilient digital future,
- Optimize digital assets and operational capacity, and
- Enable strategic decision-making and continued momentum.