Canada School of Public Service 2024–25 Departmental Plan: At a Glance

A departmental plan describes a department's priorities, plans and associated costs for the upcoming three fiscal years.

Established on April 1, 2004, under the Public Service Modernization Act, the Canada School of Public Service operates under the authority of the Canada School of Public Service Act (CSPS Act).

Under the CSPS Act, the School has the mandate to:

Encourage pride and excellence in the public service
Foster a common sense of purpose, values and traditions in the public service
Assist deputy heads in meeting the learning needs of their organizations
Conduct research and encourage greater awareness of public management, administration and innovation

The School plays a key role in helping public servants serve Canadians with excellence in a digital age where Canadians expect their government to be effective, transparent and open by default.

The School delivers a common curriculum to equip public servants with knowledge, skills and competencies across five business lines:

Read the full departmental plan

Key priorities

The School supports a culture of innovation and excellence across the Government of Canada by providing a broad range of learning opportunities to enable public service employees to deliver government priorities and meet the needs of Canadians effectively. The School is committed to ensuring that its operations are effective, efficient and responsive to governmental priorities. In 2024‒25, the School will focus on:

Leading the government's enterprise-wide approach to learning by providing a common, Government of Canada-specific curriculum that provides public service employees with skills unique to the craft of government and that enable them to exercise their responsibilities at all stages of their careers.
Developing and delivering leadership programs to produce high-calibre leaders who reflect the diversity of Canadian society, who have a whole-of-government perspective, and who benefit from the experience of leading-edge thinkers to foster leadership capacity in support of Canadians in an ever-changing and complex environment.
Developing and delivering learning products to empower public service employees to combat all forms of hate, discrimination and workplace inequalities effectively, promote a shift in organizational culture and foster behavioural change, and support the Government of Canada's commitment to enhancing intersectionality, fairness and inclusion.
Providing an expanding suite of learning products focused on digital and data literacy and service design to support the long-term government-wide Public Service Skills Strategy, the Government of Canada's move towards improving service delivery, and to provide the public service with modern skills and a digital-first mindset to best support Canadians in a changing world.
Improving current learning design and delivery processes, modalities and practices to ensure optimal effectiveness, efficiency and learner experience, leverage innovative approaches to achieve learning objectives, meet the growing needs of public service employees while maintaining a greater focus on measuring learning acquisition and application, and assess the impact of learning against operational costs (i.e., return on investment analyses).

Refocusing Government Spending

In Budget 2023, the government committed to reducing spending by $14.1 billion over the next five years, starting in 2023–24, and by $4.1 billion annually after that.

As part of meeting this commitment, the School is planning the following spending reductions:

2024-25: $(1,273,000)
2025-26: $(1,908,000)
2026-27 and after: $(2,776,000)

The School will achieve these reductions by doing the following:

A reduction of 18.5% in spending on consulting, other professional services and travel
A reduction of 3.3% in operational costs (salaries and operations and maintenance [O&M])

The figures in this departmental plan reflect these reductions.

Highlights

A Departmental Results Framework consists of an organization's core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve, and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.

Common public service learning

The Canada School of Public Service provides common learning to all employees of the core public service to serve Canadians with excellence.

Departmental results:

Common learning is responsive to learning needs
Quality common learning is provided to the core public service
Common learning is accessible to all employees of the core public service
Strengthened capacity across the core public service to use innovative approaches

Planned spending: $64,839,102
Planned human resources: 497

The Common learning planning will aim to provide public service employees with the skills and knowledge they need to deliver programs, policies and services. It will focus on delivering common learning that is responsive, high-quality, accessible, and that strengthens the capacity for innovation across the core public service.

More information about common public service learning can be found in the full departmental plan.