Early signs of trouble: Findings from the third-party evaluation of Ontario’s Employment Services Transformation

Since it was announced in 2019, the Ontario government’s Employment Services Transformation (EST) project has been working to integrate social assistance employment services with other employment services offered through Employment Ontario, creating a new Integrated Employment Services (IES) system.

In 2021, the Ontario government contracted the third-party consulting group Goss Gilroy Inc. to conduct an evaluation of the first three “prototype” EST areas: Hamilton-Niagara, Peel, and Muskoka-Kawarthas. The evaluation was finalized in August 2023.

In December 2023, the government sent a memo and a Questions and Answers document to all Employment Ontario service delivery partners, noting that the evaluation report would not be released because too much time had passed since the evaluation period and the COVID-19 context impacted the results. Instead, the ministry shared several high-level, positive findings from the evaluation and noted that they will continue to monitor the implementation of the new system.

Through a Freedom of Information request, Maytree obtained a full copy of the third-party evaluation report. Upon review, we found that the report documents fundamental concerns about the design of the new system for people receiving social assistance. Furthermore, the government’s public summary of the report did not accurately reflect the full scope and context of the findings.

The evaluation report describes the EST project as it existed two years ago in the prototype regions, and the situation is likely to have changed since then. Yet the government has published little information on the EST project’s progress since its inception, or the actions it has taken in response to the evaluation report. It is also unclear how social assistance recipients are experiencing the system today.

Fortunately, a forthcoming report by First Work, which we were able to review, sheds light on the current status of IES implementation in the prototype regions. Through focus groups and interviews with key players in the system, the report finds that while some have reported progress in their service areas since the launch of the new model, several significant challenges remain, particularly for people receiving social assistance.  

In sharing the evaluation report and our analysis, we hope that the issues identified will spark a more open and transparent discussion, ultimately leading to better employment services, reporting, and delivery in Ontario—especially for social assistance recipients.