Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just going to give the Premier a moment to get back to his seat. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain what plans to -- sorry, what plans exist to monitor and evaluate success or areas for improvement of service integration and ISD units as they begin to expand beyond Yellowknife to Fort Simpson, Inuvik, Hay River, and other communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. So service integration is the umbrella term we use for our efforts to integrate services across departments and ensure that residents are able to approach the government and get the services they need without having to bounce around between different departments. Under that, we have Integrated Service Delivery Yellowknife which is what used to be called integrated case management. So I just wanted to get the terminology straight while we begin talking about this. And so to monitor and evaluate how we're doing when we roll out the service integration initiative, we are currently developing a monitoring and evaluation framework that should be done in the very near future, within the next month. And what we're going to do is use that -- we're going to test that by evaluating the Integrated Service Delivery Yellowknife site. So that's formally known as integrated case management. That site's been active for quite a while now, and it'll serve well to test out that monitoring and evaluation framework. We have integrated service teams, so service integration teams in four other communities, and as we go forward we will then be able to use that tool to monitor the progress and efficiency and effectiveness of those teams as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier elaborate if future plans for service integration and, indeed, those service delivery teams will dovetail or overlap, where appropriate, with the work of EIA to strengthen relationships with NGOs that provide crucial expertise in social service delivery? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And yes, those things go hand-in-hand. Integrating services doesn't just mean integrating the GNWT services; it means integrating with our partners and those are often NGOs who deliver services across the territory that are vital to many of our residents. The Member mentioned transitional housing in her statement earlier, and I was just over at the transitional housing site by the Folk on the Rocks here and speaking with the Yellowknife Women's Society staff about how they are integrating their services and working with the GNWT, EIA, and other partners to deliver services. So we are already seeing the benefits of working more closely with NGOs and better supporting NGOs, and we fully intend to continue that work. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier tell me whether the -- if the success of service integration, and its predecessor ICM, would encourage EIA to increase this unit's capacity and budget into future years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So right now we have a budget before us, and it has in it what it has in it. But with that being said, we've already -- we've recently put a lot of money into service integration, into transitional housing, into better supporting NGOs across the territory, not just here in Yellowknife, and so as we move forward the idea is that we would get better at breaking down barriers and working across departments and government, and we want to move to a place where we don't need pathfinders to work with someone to go and access individual government departments. We want to make that easier for people. So in the long run, the goal is to get to a point where we don't need teams like this anymore and hopefully doing things more efficiently and actually saving money in the long run. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
