The City of Cambridge Corporate Services Department provides a range of services that support city initiatives and address community needs.  The department’s main services include:

  • Administering municipal elections, licenses, certificates and Commissioner of Oaths
  • Managing recruitment, labour relations, health and safety and organizational development
  • Managing information technology and supporting internal business systems
  • Educating and responding to our community’s fire and emergency needs
  • Preparing and presenting various annual reports to Council and members of the public, including various Financial Statements and Budget documents
  • Tax and water billing
  • Maintaining a procurement system that provides a cost-effective method for obtaining quality goods and services for the City
  • By-law Services – administer and enforcing City by-laws
  • Promoting and managing accessibility and diversity services for our community members

Service areas

The following areas support the Corporate Services Department:

  • Accessibility and Diversity – improves City programs, services, facilities, and processes to be accessible and inclusive for all people
  • Administration – provides centralized support for divisions and acts as liaison with other departments
  • By-law Enforcement– enforcement of all municipal by-laws
  • City Clerk – legislative duties of the municipal clerk include the Marriage Act, Vital Statistics Act, Access and Privacy and Protection and Privacy, Municipal Election and management of Cambridge’s historic archives and artifacts
  • Emergency Management – works with all city departments and agencies to prepare for, respond to and recover from major emergencies as well as ensuring the continuation of essential City services, in addition to educating residents to be self-prepared to deal with emergencies
  • Fire Services – provides the delivery of fire prevention education, fire suppression services and community safety
  • Financial Services – ensures fiscal stewardship, ensures all divisions meet legislative requirements, procurement, tax billing, water billing, accounting and budgets, and Service Cambridge
  • Human Resources – strengthen organizational proficiencies and builds confidence of all employees through organizational development and corporate health & safety and wellness
  • Service Cambridge - provides a corporate customer service focus supporting a number of departments in the Corporation through the provision of call centre and customer facing services, information services through a variety of technologies, and emergency management planning including business continuity.
  • Technology Services – implementation and support of business systems, management of network servers, data centre, information security and GIS services

Department goals

The Corporate Services department has several key goals, including:

  • To support corporate direction by creating, communicating and improving key plans that support our strategic focus and corporate values
  • To engage and develop staff by focusing on corporate strategies, structures and systems
  • To promote and encourage positive change within the organization to work collaboratively in achieving corporate goals 
  • To strengthen values by incorporating them into the daily operations of the City
  • To ensure a high level of customer service for the City 

Values

The Deputy City Manager of Corporate Services uses the following principles to guide the department's actions:

  • Establish, maintain and promote positive relationships with elected officials, departments and the public while demonstrating the City's core values - integrity, respect, inclusiveness and service
  • Promote a corporate enterprise perspective and collaboration to achieve objectives
  • Promote and support a customer service-oriented culture
  • Empower all leaders to efficiently and effectively identify strategic directions and collaborate to provide open, transparent, accountable and innovative leadership 

Roles and responsibilities

The Deputy City Manager of Corporate Services has the following expectations for the functions of the department:

  • Increasing confidence in staff, City Council and the citizens of Cambridge in order to achieve the City's goals and objectives
  • Demonstrating support for the corporate Strategic Plan, the vision, mission and values
  • Guiding and encourage all members of the department to execute their work plans with the same strategic focus
  • Providing all employees with an opportunity to develop, learn, expand their work, and achieve higher performance while delivering quality service to all customers
  • Committing to a collaborative workforce culture based on our core corporate values
  • Promoting excellence in customer service through continuous improvement and by engaging all employees throughout the organization
  • Improving and expand the knowledge, skills and abilities of employees within the department and the corporation
  • Communicating internally and externally, using all available methods in alignment with corporate values

The City's strategic plan is implemented by focusing on People, Place and Prosperity.