Submitted to: Canada Gazette Directorate
info.gazette@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca
Prepared by: Leger
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Contract number: EP373-181464/001/CY
POR-036-17
Mandate awarded October 3, 2017
Project 15726-001
2018-01-11
Leger
507
Place d'Armes, Suite 700
Montréal, Quebec H2Y 2W8
In this document, figures accompanied by the symbol (-) indicate a statistically significant difference lower than the complement, while numbers accompanied by the symbol (+) indicate a statistically significant difference that is higher with respect to the complement.
As the official newspaper of the Government of Canada since 1841, the Canada Gazette offers Canadians access to laws and regulations that govern their everyday lives. Through the Common Services Policy, the Canada Gazette Directorate provides a service to ministries and organizations that are required to publish notices and regulations in the Canada Gazette in compliance with a law or regulation. As part of its Customer Service Strategy, the Canada Gazette Directorate decided to conduct a customer satisfaction survey in 2017.
The Canada Gazette Directorate carried out a similar survey of its key clients in fall 2010 and obtained favourable results in terms of customer satisfaction. Based on the feedback received and statistical information collected as part of this customer satisfaction survey, the Canada Gazette Directorate has improved its services (electronic submission of notices, electronic review, etc.).
The aim of this survey is to gather information to assess client satisfaction with regard to the services offered by the Canada Gazette Directorate. In recent years, numerous changes have been made in an effort to modernize and reduce the environmental footprint of the Canada Gazette Directorate's operations and services, notably eliminating paper copies of the Canada Gazette and providing/promoting electronic services. Data collected will be used to evaluate and improve the services currently offered as well as to implement new services.
The objectives of this survey are to measure customer satisfaction with the services offered by the Canada Gazette Directorate in order to:
More specifically, the research aims to:
This study consisted of two distinct methodological approaches:
The public consultation was launched by means of an open-link survey questionnaire available on the Canada Gazette website. Any individual who visited the site between November 6, 2017 and December 4, 2017 could participate in the consultation by clicking on the link.
This part of the public consultation generated a significant volume of responses. We obtained a total of 632 respondents from the open-link survey on the website. We should remind the reader that the results of this part of the public consultation should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or attitudes of the Canadian public at large. These responses come from a group of individuals who probably have a certain "interest" in the laws and regulations that govern their everyday professional or personal lives, or who had a particular interest in visiting the Canada Gazette website.
The list of clients who had published in the Canada Gazette within the past 12 months was provided to Leger by the Canada Gazette Directorate. The sample consisted of 80 client contacts who had published in the Canada Gazette within the past 12 months. Leger assigned each of them a unique link to access the survey.
The initial invitation to complete the survey was sent to respondents by the Canada Gazette Directorateand three reminders were issued over the course of the data collection period, which lasted four weeks.
Data collection began on November 6, 2017 and ended on December 4, 2017. A total of 35 clients completed the survey.
The detailed methodology is presented in Appendix A.
The English and French questionnaires (for visitors and clients) are available in Appendix B.
The term "client" refers to individuals who have published in the Canada Gazette within the past 12 months, as determined by the initial list used by the Canada Gazette Directorate. Additionally, the term "visitor" corresponds to individuals who visited the Canada Gazette website between November 6, 2017 and December 4, 2017 and who participated in the consultation by clicking on the link.
Lastly, the expression "regular visitors" refers to respondents (clients or visitors) who visited the Canada Gazette website either within the past year or more than 12 months ago. In other words, these are individuals who had already visited the site, i.e. excluding those who had never visited the site prior to completing the survey or those who didn't remember when they last visited the site.
Nearly all clients (91%) say they are generally satisfied with the Canada Gazette website, including two-thirds (69%) who say they are very satisfied. Furthermore, the site meets the needs of more than nine out of ten clients (94%).
Most clients agree that the information provided is accurate (97%), up to date (88%), easy to understand (94%) and complete (84%). The overwhelming majority of clients also state that it is easy to find what they are looking for (91%) and that the amount of time it generally takes to find information is reasonable (88%). Lastly, nine out of ten clients (91%) consider that publishing requirements are clear and a large majority of clients (84%) agrees that posting of special deadlines to submit notices is useful.
The three main reasons for visiting the Canada Gazette website are to check a specific notice (75%), search for information in the archives (56%) and download the "Request for Insertion" form (50%). It is noted that archive searches mainly concern recent archives, i.e. those published between 1998 and 2011 (72%).
More than four out of ten clients (44%) use the Advanced Search tool available on the website. However, the majority of Canada Gazette clients (81%) do not visit the "Proposed Regulations" page under the website's "Consultations" heading. Fewer than two out of every ten clients (16%) visit this page.
Most elements of the website are deemed useful by Canada Gazette clients. In fact, nearly all clients indicate that clear publishing requirements (94%) and the publication and deadline calendar (91%) are useful. Other features such as the posting of special deadlines to submit notices (81%), the Canada Gazette's "Latest Editions" on the home page (79%) or the search engine that offers advanced search functions (75%) are also perceived by clients as being useful. It is noted that three-quarters of visitors (75%) are unfamiliar with the new function that enables the installation of the iCal calendar, though nearly all of those who are familiar with it find it to be useful (22%).
Approximately four clients in ten (44%) say they have access to all the information and functionalities they need on the Canada Gazette website. It is noted that roughly the same proportion of Canada Gazette clients (41%) would like to be able to submit notices electronically on the website.
A minority of clients is subscribed to the Canada Gazette's Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, i.e. Part I: Notices and Proposed Regulations (6%), Part II: Official Regulations (6%), and Part III: Acts of Parliament (6%). The overwhelming majority of visitors who are subscribed to the RSS feeds of Parts I and II find them useful (91%), though we should point out that a smaller proportion finds the RSS of Part III to be useful (84%).
The overwhelming majority of clients who published in the Canada Gazette (85%) visited the website within the past year, mainly within the past month (60%). In the past year, more than half of all clients (57%) visited the site more than 5 times, with their visits lasting an average of 10 minutes or less (78%).
Nearly all of them (94%) use their work computer to access the site. Half of all clients (56%) consult the HTML version of the Canada Gazette publication most often, while nearly as many (44%) prefer the PDF version. In this regard, two-thirds of clients (66%) consider the accessibility of the Canada Gazette in HTML mode to be adequate. None of these clients have ever experienced any problems accessing the Canada Gazette website.
Nearly all surveyed clients (91%) have communicated directly with the Canada Gazette Directorate staff in the past 12 months. Among them, three in ten (31%) contacted the staff by sending an email to info.gazette@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca, while one in four sent an email to a different address (25%) or used a different phone number (25%) than the ones offered.
All clients who communicated with the Canada Gazette Directorate staff are satisfied (100%) or even very satisfied (94%) with the staff that served them. Additionally, nearly all clients (97%) say they are very satisfied with the quality of their published notices after being revised by bilingual editors. Lastly, four out of ten clients (44%) are satisfied with the related services offered by the Canada Gazette Directorate while half (53%) are unable to say.
For all criteria used to evaluate the Canada Gazette Directorate staff, expectations are met for no fewer than nine out of every ten clients that have dealt with this staff. Moreover, the majority of clients (81%) affirm that when the bilingual editors ask a question about their text, the information provided is always clear. The majority (81%) also state that when the bilingual editors propose a correction to their text, the explanations provided are always sufficient.
The majority of visitors (81%) say they are generally satisfied with the Canada Gazette website, including more than one-third (37%) who say they are very satisfied. In the majority of cases (75%), the website meets the visitors' needs.
More than seven in ten visitors agree that the information offered on the site is accurate (81%), up to date (79%), complete (75%) and easy to understand (70%). Seven out of ten visitors (68%) affirm that the amount of time it generally takes to find information is reasonable, and six out of ten (62%) find that it is easy to find what they are looking for.
Lastly, we should point out that four in ten visitors (43%) consider that publishing requirements are clear and a minority of visitors (38%) agrees that the posting of special deadlines to submit notices is useful. Although the two aforementioned elements seem to generate less satisfaction, it is observed that these elements are the ones that visitors know the least well, as approximately four in ten visitors (38% and 41%, respectively) are unfamiliar with these website features and are thus unable to evaluate them.
The three main reasons for visiting the Canada Gazette website are to check a specific regulation (64%) or specific proposed regulation (60%) and to search for information in the archives (45%). It is noted that archive searches mainly concern those published between 1998 and 2011 (73%).
Six in ten visitors to the Canada Gazette website (56%) occasionally consult the "Proposed Regulations" page under the "Consultations" heading. A similar proportion (58%) say they use the Advanced Search tool available on the site.
Although the website meets the needs of most visitors, it can be observed that some visitors are unfamiliar with a number of the site's features. For example, seven in ten visitors (72%) are incapable of assessing the usefulness of the new function that enables the installation of the iCal calendar, either because they are not familiar with it or because they are unable to evaluate it. Keeping with this same trend, half of the visitors are unable to evaluate the publication and deadline calendar (52%) or the posting of special deadlines to submit notices (51%). On the other hand, three-quarters of visitors find the search engine that offers advanced search functions (78%) and the Canada Gazette's "Latest Editions" on the home page (74%) to be useful. Additionally, half (56%) find the clear publishing requirements to be useful.
More than four in ten visitors (45%) say they currently have access to all the information and functionalities they need on the Canada Gazette website. That said, some visitors would like to see an email notification system (43%), the possibility of submitting notices electronically (11%) and a client Web portal (6%).
Each of the three RSS feeds offered by the Canada Gazette is accessed by more than one in every ten visitors, i.e. Part I: Notices and Proposed Regulations (16%), Part II: Official Regulations (15%), and Part III: Acts of Parliament (11%). The overwhelming majority of visitors who are subscribed to the RSS feeds of Parts I and II find them useful (91%), though we should point out that a smaller proportion finds the RSS of Part III to be useful (84%).
Seven out of ten visitors to the Canada Gazette website (69%) visited the site within the past year, mainly within the past month (55%). Within this 12-month period, two-thirds of visitors (67%) visited the site more than 5 times. Their visits lasted an average of 10 minutes or less in half the cases (47%) and more than 10 minutes in the other half (48%).
Nearly two-thirds of the visitors (63%) use their work computer to access the site, compared to 16% who use their laptop and 14% who use their home computer. Half (54%) consult the HTML version of the Canada Gazette publication most often, while four out of ten (39%) prefer the PDF version. It is noted that seven in ten visitors (70%) consider the accessibility of the Canada Gazette in HTML mode to be adequate.
The overwhelming majority of them (85%) have never experienced any problems accessing the Canada Gazette website. However, amongst the minority (8%) who have, six out of ten (58%) state that the problem was at least partially resolved.
The summary analysis of results for the main satisfaction indicators shows only a few variations compared to the 2011 study performed by The Strategic Counsel. The variations observed mostly represent improvements. Examples include:
Clients:
Satisfaction with Canada Gazette Directorate staff:
In light of these results, Leger considers that there do not appear to be any major issues with respect to the level of client or visitor satisfaction with the Canada Gazette website and the services it offers.
Most visitors and clients say they are generally satisfied with the Canada Gazette website as well as its accessibility. Approximately 8% of visitors have already had issues accessing the website. Of these, one-third (32%) indicate that the problem they experienced was not resolved to their complete satisfaction. It would be appropriate for the Canada Gazette Directorate to implement a follow-up system for clients and visitors experiencing this type of difficulty. Doing so would help keep continuous track of the sources of dissatisfaction with the Canada Gazette website. Responding to or working with clients or visitors who have had trouble accessing the site would help improve and/or maintain the excellent satisfaction rate with the Canada Gazette website.
When clients and visitors of the Canada Gazette website are asked for suggestions for improving the site's advanced search tools, a number of them indicate that they would like to be able to filter the search results using new criteria in order to obtain more precise results. Both clients and visitors express an interest in having the possibility of filtering search results, whether it be by key word, regulation, date, agency, number, multiple categories, or product or activity sector. It would be appropriate for the Canada Gazette Directorate to begin to consider what types of filter criteria might be added to the search tools currently offered on the Canada Gazette website.
The Canada Gazette website's new function that enables installation of the ICAL calendar is unfamiliar to three-quarters of the clients (75%). It would be appropriate for the Canada Gazette Directorate to promote this new function and explain why it is useful in its communications with its clientele. In fact, nearly all clients who are familiar with this function find it to be useful.
A little over half of the Canada Gazette's clientele accesses the website content in its HTML version. That said, one-third (34%) of this clientele finds that this version is inadequate and does not meet their needs. Improving Canada Gazette content in HTML format would be highly appreciated by the clientele.
The opinions and observations expressed in this document do not reflect those of the Canada Gazette. This report was prepared by Leger based on research carried out specifically for the purposes of this project. The portion of this study dedicated to visitors of the Canada Gazette website is not probabilistic. For this reason, results may not be transferable to all website visitors. The corporate portion of this research is probabilistic; the results may be transferred to all Canada Gazette clients since all clients received an invitation to complete the survey. The research was designed on the basis of this objective.
Leger certifies that the final deliverables fully comply with the Government of Canada’s political neutrality requirements outlined in the Government of Canada's Communication Policy and in the Procedures for Planning and Contracting Public Opinion Research.