Great Cities Reward Results. Toronto Should Too.

Summary 

Toronto’s public service has the talent and commitment to deliver at a high level, but it operates in a system designed for a slower and less complex city. Decision-making is slowed by layers of process, consultation, and political intervention that make it difficult for leaders to act quickly or consistently. The city expects results, but it does not yet provide the incentives, authority, or rule-based pathways needed to achieve them.

High-performing jurisdictions show what works. Singapore, Danish, and Spanish cities empower their senior leaders with clear, measurable goals, give them the authority to streamline internal rules, and reward them when they deliver. Toronto cannot replicate their institutional histories, but it can adopt their structural foundations: objective targets, stable citywide rules, and incentive-based compensation for senior leadership tied directly to outcomes.

This memo proposes a shift to a modern, performance-oriented municipal system—one where Council sets long-range goals, staff apply consistent rules, and leaders are empowered and incentivized to deliver. It is a pragmatic, positive framework designed to let Toronto’s public service succeed at the scale residents now expect.

Bold Goal: Implement a modern, performance-based executive compensation system in the first year of the next Council term.

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Background and Motivation 

Toronto is a fast growing, ambitious city supported by a dedicated public service. The challenge is not a lack of talent, but a system that was built for a slower and less complex city. Toronto asks its leaders to deliver more housing, modernize infrastructure, and run major services, yet it structures their roles around process management rather than outcome delivery. In a city growing at Toronto’s pace, this mismatch prevents good people from producing the results residents expect.

Other successful jurisdictions approach this differently. Singapore, Denmark, and Spain’s national and regional infrastructure institutions all give senior leaders clear and measurable goals. They give them the authority to adjust internal rules to meet those goals. And they link compensation more directly to performance. These places succeed not because their staff care more, but because their systems help talented people focus on outcomes instead of navigating endless processes.

Toronto does not have the long standing engineering corps of Spain or the deeply professionalized ministries of Denmark. But this is exactly why incentive aligned compensation matters more here: when administrative culture is still developing, incentives and authority can help build a performance oriented mindset quickly.  A clear path to better results can be created by tying leadership compensation to a small set of objective targets and empowering leaders with the ability to simplify internal rules. Today, Toronto caps senior-staff bonuses at 20–25 percent and allows them only in agencies¹. It’s a poor model across the board: fragmented, too small to motivate performance, and unavailable to most municipal public service leaders.

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Singapore deserves special attention because its compensation strategy is unusually bold and unusually relevant. It pays senior public leaders at levels competitive with top private sector roles, not as a luxury but as an intentional strategy to attract exceptional talent and make corruption irrational. High compensation is paired with clear, objective performance expectations and the authority to adjust internal rules to meet those expectations. These expectations are tied to measurable indicators such as growth in median household income, employment stability, service delivery reliability, project timelines, and cost control — metrics that are transparent, auditable, and directly influenced by leadership. 

While Singapore’s political context is different, the administrative logic behind its performance regime is universal: tie leadership compensation to a small set of measurable outcomes, give those leaders real authority, and publish results transparently. Toronto can borrow this structure without borrowing the politics, creating a performance regime that mirrors Singapore’s alignment of incentives, authority, and accountability while working entirely within a democratic municipal framework.

Governance reform also requires rethinking how political oversight works. Today, councillors are drawn into too many tactical decisions, including approvals, consultations, and procedural steps that should be handled through clear and predictable administrative rules. This is not intentional, but it is the natural outcome of a system that requires political sign off for routine actions. A modern performance-driven framework shifts Council upward to a true governance role: setting goals and guardrails while allowing administrative institutions to execute within them. A negative consent model, where routine decisions proceed unless a majority of Council chooses to intervene, preserves democratic oversight without slowing down day to day delivery.

Toronto’s rules have also accumulated over decades into a tangle of micro requirements that slow work down without improving outcomes. A growing city cannot stay locked into outdated rules, but it also cannot rely on constant political fixes to update them. When senior city staff  are incentivized to meet clear goals, they have a reason to streamline rules and remove barriers that do not add value. The aim is to create a straightforward way to stay focused on results, so accountability rests on what they deliver, not on how many procedures they follow.

This is not a criticism of the public service. It is an attempt to give Toronto’s talented staff a system built for performance rather than process. Strong people need clear goals, simple and predictable rules, and the authority to act. Consultation should shape the rules, and the rules should guide consistent execution.

Toronto has the people and the ambition to be one of the most effective city building governments in the world. Aligning incentives with measurable outcomes, empowering leaders to simplify internal rules, and shifting Council toward a goal setting rather than execution driven role will give the city an operating model that can deliver results at scale. Toronto is ready for this shift. Now the system needs to match the city’s potential.

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Real World Examples

Singapore

Singapore uses compensation more aggressively than almost any other jurisdiction to attract top talent into government. Senior public leaders earn salaries benchmarked to high performing private sector roles, with ministerial pay in the range of $1.2 to $1.7 million per year and permanent secretaries earning $600,000 to $850,000. These salaries are tied to objective national indicators, and bonuses fall when targets are missed. The combination of competitive pay, clear goals, and authority to adjust internal rules creates a leadership culture defined by professionalism, integrity, and predictable performance. The lesson for Toronto is that strong incentives and clear authority can rapidly build a high performing administrative culture even without deep institutional history.

Denmark

Denmark shows how a rules based, professional public administration can deliver consistently in a democratic system. Senior officials work within clear mandates and stable administrative rules, and routine decisions are not routed through elected bodies. This stable environment lets professionals focus on service quality, infrastructure maintenance, and long horizon planning rather than navigating political process. Denmark’s experience demonstrates that clarity, autonomy, and professional trust can significantly improve public sector performance.

Spain

Spain’s infrastructure agencies are global leaders in cost effective delivery. Spanish high speed rail has been built at roughly 15 to 20 million euros per kilometre², far below the 40 to 60 million euro norms in other countries with high-speed rail. By comparison, Canadian high speed rail proposals estimate costs of roughly 80 billion dollars for a 1,000 kilometre corridor, or about 80 million dollars per kilometre—four to five times higher than Spain’s benchmark. Spain achieves its performance through standardized processes, predictable decision pathways, and technical leadership that can remove internal bottlenecks. The lesson for Toronto is that stable rules and empowered institutions can deliver major projects far more reliably and affordably.

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What Must Be Done

Establish a Senior City Service with clear legal authority and incentive aligned compensation. Toronto should formally define a Senior City Service in law so that top leaders are hired, evaluated, and paid on the basis of outcomes, not tenure or process. This means using the existing framework for the City Manager and senior officials in Municipal Code Chapter 169 and the Toronto Public Service By law in Chapter 192 as the legal home for performance linked contracts and authority. Once this structure is in place, Toronto can lawfully align incentive pay with clear targets and give senior leaders the discretion they need to change how the organisation works.

• Amend Chapter 169 (Officials, City) to create a defined Senior City Service group under the City Manager, with authority and responsibilities set out in a new article. 
• Amend Chapter 192 (Public Service) to recognize performance linked contracts and incentive pay for this group, alongside existing ethics and public service obligations. 
• Require that appointments, renewals, and incentive pay for these roles be based on a small set of objective, Council approved outcome targets set out in policy or by law.

Require each major division and agency to operate under one shared and objective scorecard. Toronto already uses performance measurement frameworks and benchmarking reports, but they are largely policy tools rather than binding governance instruments. The city should move to a model where each major division and agency has one legally recognized organisational scorecard with one to three quantifiable targets that leadership is accountable for. This makes performance expectations clear and enforceable, and creates the legal foundation for incentive aligned pay.

•  Direct the City Manager through Chapter 192 to bring forward a citywide performance policy that defines one organisational scorecard for each major division and agency, linked to existing performance frameworks. 
• Adopt this policy as a binding Council decision, so that scorecards become the formal basis for evaluating senior leadership, including incentive pay.
• Require annual public reporting on each scorecard in a standard format, building on existing benchmarking and 311 dashboard reporting work. 

Shift Council away from day to day approvals by using the delegation tools in the City of Toronto Act. Council currently signs off on many routine matters that could legally be delegated to staff, which slows down decisions and blurs accountability. The City of Toronto Act already gives Council broad power to delegate most powers and duties, including legislative powers, subject to a short list of exceptions, and the City has used this in specific areas like real estate and planning. Toronto should use that same authority more systematically and pair it with a negative consent model so that staff decisions stand unless a majority of Council votes to pull them.

• Use sections 20, 21 and 22 of the City of Toronto Act to expand delegated authority by by law for planning, procurement, real property and other routine decisions, building on existing frameworks in Chapters 195 and 213. 
• Amend Council’s procedure rules in Chapter 27 to create a formal negative consent process, where certain staff decisions come into force unless a majority of councillors request a debate. 
• Review and, where appropriate, repeal or consolidate existing bylaws that require routine matters to come back to Council or committees when they could be handled under delegated authority, using recent real estate delegation and development review reports as models.

Create a stable citywide performance regime in law and a simple legal path to update internal rules. Toronto needs a concise set of citywide targets that give long-term direction to the whole system and do not change with every political cycle. The city already reports on dozens of indicators through its performance measurement and benchmarking reports, but these are not anchored in legislation and can be changed or ignored without consequence. A stronger model would adopt a limited set of headline targets by law, make them hard but not impossible to amend, and then allow institutions to adjust their own internal rules through a clear administrative process in order to reach those targets.

• Enact a new performance article in Chapter 192, or a standalone chapter, that sets out a small number of citywide outcome targets approved by Council. 
• Require that any change to these targets receive a two thirds vote of Council and a two thirds vote of the Senior City Service, or a finding from an independent officer that a target has become impossible to meet. 
• Direct the City Manager through Chapter 169 to create a standard process by which divisions and agencies can amend their internal rules and procedures, without returning to Council, where those changes demonstrably support the citywide targets. 

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Common Questions

Why focus so much on incentive based compensation?
Incentives ensure that senior leaders are evaluated on results, not on process or time served. Toronto already has talented people; what has been missing is a structure that rewards clear, measurable outcomes. Cities and institutions that consistently deliver large, complex work align pay with performance because it creates focus, discipline, and accountability.

Does this imply Toronto’s public service is underperforming?
No. The public service is full of dedicated professionals who want to deliver more but are constrained by outdated rules, fragmented authority, and a process heavy governance model. Incentive aligned pay is meant to support staff by giving leaders the tools, authority, and accountability needed to remove barriers that currently slow everyone down.

Will rule based decision making reduce transparency or community voice?
No. Consultation would happen where it belongs: when rules and citywide goals are being set. Once those rules exist, applying them consistently is fairer, more transparent, and more predictable than case by case political decisions. This approach strengthens accountability by ensuring decisions follow clear rules, not shifting political pressures.

Does shifting routine decisions away from Council reduce democratic oversight?
It actually clarifies democracy rather than reducing it. Council retains control over goals, budgets, guardrails, and major strategic decisions. The only change is that routine, rule bound decisions do not get caught in political bottlenecks. Oversight remains in place through a negative consent model, supermajority rules for changing targets, and public reporting.

Is this compatible with a unionized and regulated public sector environment?
Yes. The proposed incentive model applies only to senior leadership roles, not frontline staff. It does not alter collective agreements or staff compensation structures. In fact, by simplifying rules and clarifying authority, it reduces friction for frontline teams and gives them clearer systems to work within.

What prevents this from turning into arbitrary or politicized bonuses?
Performance pay is tied to a small number of objective, transparent, citywide or organizational targets that are set by Council and disclosed publicly. There is no subjective scoring, no individual metrics, and no discretionary awards. Bonuses are paid only when targets are met, and contract renewals depend on the same clear and auditable criteria.

Why require a supermajority to change citywide targets?
Long term targets must remain stable or the system quickly loses focus. A two thirds requirement for both Council and senior leadership ensures goals change only when there is real consensus or when an independent officer determines that a target has become impossible. This prevents political churn from undoing long range planning and protects institutional continuity.

How do we avoid creating a culture of overly cautious or risk averse leaders?
Outcome based incentives encourage leaders to remove bottlenecks and solve problems, not to avoid them. Because performance is tied to objective results rather than compliance with process, the system rewards delivery and innovation instead of box checking. Clear rules and stable targets also reduce political risk, allowing leaders to act with more confidence.

Will this model be expensive for the city?
At the senior level, compensation will increase — but only when measurable results are delivered. The savings from faster approvals, lower capital overruns, and streamlined operations are likely to exceed the cost of incentives many times over. Paying for performance is less expensive than paying for delay.

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Conclusion

Toronto has the people and ambition to deliver more, but it needs an incentive structure built for performance. Clear goals, rule based decision making, and compensation tied to results give leaders the focus and authority they need to act confidently. This model also makes public leadership a top-tier career choice, helping Toronto attract and retain exceptional talent at a time when the city needs it most. By setting targets through Council and empowering institutions to deliver them, Toronto can shift from a process heavy system to one driven by measurable outcomes and professional excellence.

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