2003/04 – 2005/06 SERVICE PLAN Ministry of Forests

Summary of Related Planning Processes

Information Resource Management Plan

During the upcoming year, the more than fifty major computer applications which now support ministry operations will be replaced with a new suite of applications which conform better to the ministry’s current business needs. Many of these new applications will have electronic commerce capability, and thus have the potential to significantly reduce the cost of doing business, both for the ministry and for the forest industry. It is expected that some of these new applications will allow users access to linked map and tabular data on the same computer screen. This has been a major goal for more than a decade, and will only be achieved with the help of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, which is responsible for the provincial spatial data warehouse.

While this major development effort is ongoing, the ministry will also adopt centralized delivery of computer infrastructure and services. A number of ministry staff have been transferred to the Common Infrastructure Technology Services (CITS) Branch of the Ministry of Management Services, and new administrative arrangements are being developed. The ministry will be depending heavily on CITS for vital information technology services. These new arrangements must accommodate the significant reduction in size and number of the ministry’s distributed offices.

As the ministry adopts new ways of doing business, principally results based forest management practices, there will be a need to train a large number of staff and forest industry participants. This training will be delivered and tracked electronically, thus reducing costs significantly while demonstrably improving effectiveness.

A major effort to conserve records in closing offices will continue through the year, as will efforts to conserve material left by departing employees. The increased number of litigation cases and Freedom of Information requests will make the adoption of new record management practices, including electronic record management, a high priority for the Forest Service.

Human Resource Management Plan

To meet the goal of being effective forest stewards the Forest Service will continue to implement its Human Resources (HR) Strategy.

The primary HR focus over the next year will continue be on Workforce Adjustment and Transition, with the peak period expected to occur and complete in the 2003/2004 fiscal year. While workforce adjustment will see us lose a significant portion of our employee base, we will continue to remain a large organization with demanding HR requirements. Consequently, the following two years will see continued transition and a re-strengthening of our remaining workforce resources. This transition will also come at a time where a significant portion of ministry staff will begin to be eligible for retirement. Balancing these seemingly diametrically opposed priorities will require strong leadership and commitment to managing our human capital.

As the Forest Service continues to redefine its business we will focus on key core competencies and skill-sets that will be required by our employees to move the organization forward. We will complete the implementation of our new organizational structures that are required to support our goals and objectives. Change management training will continue to be a high priority to support managers, supervisors and employees through this time of change.

Creating capacity — looking at both the present and the future employee base continues to be key to our human resources sustainability. This will necessitate a strong emphasis on leadership development, employee learning and development, performance management, as well as utilizing the diversity of our employees to maximize productivity and effective program delivery.

Risk Management Plan

A formal comprehensive Risk Management Plan for the Ministry of Forest will not be developed until 2004/05.

However, Risk management principles have been operational in the ministry for many years in forest fire prevention and detection plans and more recently in the Provincial Bark Beetle Management Strategy. These plans manage risk associated with unforeseen emergencies from fire and bark beetles, and attempt to minimize and mitigate the potential increases to expenditure pressures associated with the emergencies.

The Ministry’s Compliance and Enforcement program has introduced risk management inspection planning to ensure that the highest risk sites and operators receive priority inspections. These inspection plans seek to minimize and mitigate environmental risk, as well as the loss of revenue due to illegal activity. Recognizing that crime is subject to external factors encouraging or deterring crime that can never be eliminated, more focus on loss of revenue will be addressed in the expansion of future risk management plans.

Significant risks identified within MOF to achieving the objectives, strategies and performance measures in this Service Plan include:

• The nature and settlement of the Softwood lumber dispute and its impacts on return on investment, market access and revenues;
• The ability to move the substantial volume of business through the policy and legislative agenda, which will determine when market based pricing can be implemented;
• The ability of forest companies to undertake increased forest management responsibilities for timber supply analysis, which may impact AAC determination;
• The availability of workforce adjustment tools to achieve the required organization transformation; and,
• The successful integration with the governments Shared Services initiative and Human Resources agency.