With a mandate to support approximately 9,300 adults with developmental disabilities, The Province of Alberta’s PDD Program provides funding for supports that help individuals in their homes, their communities and their workplace.

Delivering a consistent service level while reducing costs

While Alberta’s PDD Program is unified under a common vision and mission, the organization’s services and administration are delivered through six semi-autonomous regional authorities. However, since its inception, the Program has become increasingly expensive to manage and administer. In addition, evidence was starting to show that the individual regional authorities were delivering somewhat inconsistent service levels across the province.

As a result, the Government of Alberta and the Ministry of Human Services have been taking a long hard look at the existing system to identify opportunities and initiatives that could enhance consistency, effectiveness and efficiency of service while maximizing the PDD Program’s budget.

Building stepping stones to transformation

Starting in 2006, the Ministry responsible for PDD began a series of discrete projects aimed at achieving a number of quick fixes within the overall program and the individual authorities. To support their efforts, the Province has outlined nine ‘Change Initiatives’ that are intended to drive a transformation in the way that the Program serves its clients.

"KPMG in Canada’s broad scope of work has touched almost all facets of the PDD Program and – by providing independent and trusted advice to our CEOs and Executive Directors – has helped us shape the vision for disability services in the province going forward,” noted Brenda Lee Doyle, Assistant Deputy Minister, Community Disability Supports Division, Ministry of Human Services. “Their insight, experience and practical advice has really helped position us to achieve rapid success in our future transformation program."

Because of KPMG in Canada’s long history of collaboration with the Province of Alberta and proven expertise in the disability services sector, the Ministry engaged KPMG in Canada to provide an independent and expert view across a range of separate but interrelated projects.

Developing a roadmap to success

From the analysis of process design and opportunities for program integration through to funding model development and the implementation of demonstration projects, the KPMG team has worked closely with the individual authorities to build a body of knowledge and practical activities aimed at bringing more consistent and cost-effective services to the organization’s clients.

For example, in 2010, KPMG in Canada was engaged to review the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall PDD Program in order to identify opportunities for improvement within the administration that could result in realized cost savings. The final report identified a number of areas where the PDD could improve efficiency and reduce administrative costs by adopting a new organizational model, a new governance approach and a more efficient network of service providers for the PDD Program.

The KPMG team provided recommendations to bring consistency to service delivery, improve cost efficiency, create stronger community governance and leverage technology to create an integrated approach.

While KPMG’s recommendations are currently under review by the Ministry, the findings are widely expected to catalyze change across the Program overall.

Starting down the path to consistent service delivery

Through KPMG’s body of work, the Ministry and the PDD Program have now formed a baseline upon which to build improvements that can bring about greater consistency, effectiveness and efficiency to the quality of service delivered to the Program’s clients.

Moreover, the initiatives have delivered keen insights and lessons learned that will help drive the pace and adoption of the long-term transformation program.

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