by Jack de Klerk
The GTA Clinic Transformation Project didn’t start out as a grandiose plan on the part of a few dreamers. Rather, there were some relatively small problems that a couple of clinic directors thought they could fix if they worked together.
Before very long, two clinics working together became six.
Critically though, we kept all the options on the table until our researcher was finished pulling together the strands of what was important to us, what frustrated us and what we were hoping to accomplish. We were told that we needed to have larger organizations and that the boundaries that defined our respective catchment areas had little rational foundation. Things have changed since our clinics were established.
We asked ourselves, “What would our Toronto clinic system look like if we were setting it up for the first time today?”
Developing a consensus
Given that we all have a stake in the present system, it was critical that we find a vantage point to ground the discussion that did not look after our own interests first. Agreeing that our focus had to be on what was in the best interests of our client community was not difficult. It has proven to be a very useful lens to look through when evaluating ideas and past practices. It certainly helped us understand that the status quo could not be maintained.
There are, of course, other interests than those of our clients. We are entirely dependent on Legal Aid Ontario for funding the work we do; we have community partners, including political representatives, on whom we depend for working with our clients; we have Board members who volunteer and give direction to our work; and, we have staff who do the work. Our conclusion was that we needed all these people in the process and that we all had to agree in the end: we knew that we could only proceed by developing a consensus.
Expanding and enhancing our work
Money is a big thing for small not-for-profit organizations. This is especially true at a time when governments are pretty tight fisted at budget time. Moreover, our recent history with our funder focused on increasing efforts to realize savings in our budgets.
Job security for staff is a big part of the money picture. From the beginning, we realized our own commitment to move away from the status quo was completely tied to the vision of change that was not an exercise in cost cutting.
A very big part of the problem with the status quo is that too many poor people were not getting the legal services they needed. Cutting costs would only exacerbate that problem. We needed to protect our staff positions and our budgets if we wanted to expand and enhance our work for our client community.
A change process directed by clinics
It did not take rocket science to figure out that a consensus on change could not be built on staff and service cuts. Any sense in the community of change moving in that direction would feed resistance and hostility to that change. So, given the history of clinics and their funder, it was also essential that the change process be directed by clinics.
In July 2013, LAO first announced and then withdrew a provincially-mandated budget cut. Initially our request for written assurance that there would be no further cuts was rejected. The foundation of our consensus, namely that we were all working for the best interests of our client community, seemed to be disintegrating underfoot.
The GTA Project
By this time, the GTA Project was well underway. Sixteen of the 17 GTA-based general service clinics signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize their participation in the Project, agreeing to a process without committing to the final result. A Steering Committee of clinic boards and staff were established to govern the Project with a Working group of seven executive directors (EDs) to manage it.
Two of the EDs are working on the Project on a half-time basis to take care of day-to-day matters. A Project Consultant was also hired.
The Project’s work plan detailed quantitative and qualitative data to be collected, focus group reports, literature to be reviewed and, finally, a draft recommendation to be developed.
This coming spring, the Steering Committee will approve the final recommendation as to how many clinics there should be in the GTA, what their catchment area boundaries should be, and how these respective clinics should be resourced.
Success requires openness on all sides
Moving forward, we realized that we needed both greater assurances from LAO that our budgets would not be cut, and an understanding from LAO that they would financially support the final recommendations. The latter point required they be engaged throughout the process as a participant. These arrangements needed to be formalized.
We arranged a face to face meeting with LAO’s CEO, Bob Ward. Success required openness on all sides and we worked hard to ensure that in advance. More importantly, success would require mutual acknowledgement that LAO and the clinics in the GTA Transformation Project were fellow travellers on the road to improving services for our clients.
In this meeting, we recognized everyone wanted the Project to succeed. We agreed that we could work together much more effectively if we looked forward rather than backward; if we talked about transformation rather than administrative savings.
Like a complicated puzzle, finding this one piece made the rest of the work much easier and less contentious. It got us to “yes” quickly and the framework agreement flowed naturally.
Jack de Klerk is the Director of Legal Services at Neighbourhood Legal Services. He is one of the project leads of the GTA Clinics’ Transformation Project.