Cambridge's City Manager is the most senior official on the City's administrative team. The City Manager helps City Council and senior management develop and focus priorities in order to create programs that improve the delivery of customer service for all areas of the City's administration and operation.

Service areas

To support the City Manager, there are three Deputy City Managers responsible for specific City service areas, including:

In addition to the Deputy City Managers, the following divisions support the City Manager:

  • Corporate Communications (provides strategic communications services)
  • Legal (provides legal services and advice to the City of Cambridge, guided by the Law Society Act, ultimately providing a preventative law function)
  • Administration - provides centralized support for divisions and acts as liaison with other departments

Department goals

The Office of the City Manager has several key goals:

  • Leadership with Council (advising, informing and making recommendations based on trends and opportunities both internal and external to the City)
  • Community leadership (building and maintaining key relationships as well as influencing community direction)
  • Corporate leadership (developing a shared vision for the organization, developing and maintaining leadership in the organization, maintaining a customer service-oriented culture)

Values

The City Manager uses the following principles to guide the department's actions:

  • Establishment and maintenance of a cooperative and meaningful relationship with Council
  • Development and maintenance of leadership and collaborative workforce culture in accordance with the City's core values and strategic plan
  • Promotion of excellence in customer service through a culture of continuous improvement involving all employees throughout the organization
  • Promotion of internal and external team building designed to eliminate barriers to internal and external growth
  • Promotion of operational and financial efficiencies on a corporate-wide basis
  • Creation of a sustainable plan for the development of programs and growth opportunities designed to raise the profile of the City of Cambridge

Roles and responsibilities

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

  • Providing leadership to the organization that promotes and develops the City
  • Building stakeholder relationships in the community and on a regional, provincial and national scale
  • Designing a shared vision that incorporates Council's vision of the community
  • Achieving strategic objectives
  • Creating a high performance organization focused on quality and customer service
  • Providing all employees with a supportive work environment with the same concern, trust, respect and caring attitude shared with the citizens and stakeholders of the City of Cambridge
  • Implementing organization wide activities to ensure that the City acts ethically and in accordance with its risk appetite
  • Providing guidance to the Internal Audit function

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