Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Results

This section presents the Environmental Assessment Office's goals and outlines how specific objectives, strategies, performance measures and targets are helping to achieve these goals. The diagram below displays government strategic goals, Environmental Assessment Office's mission, goals, objectives and performance measures, and indicates their linkage.

Government Strategic Goals		Ministry Mission Sustainable economic development that reflects the social, cultural and environmental values of British Columbians.
		Ministry Goals		Ministry Objectives		Performance Measures/Indicators
A strong and vibrant provincial economy. Safe, healthy communities and a sustainable environment.		1. Efficient and Effective Delivery of Environmental Assessment.		1. Continual Improvement of Provincial Environmental Assessment.		Duration of review of the application by government.
						Proponent's level of satisfaction with the review process. • EA review is focused on key issues. • Issues and conclusions were fairly reported in the EAO Assessment Report.
						Percentage of EA applications accepted for formal review without significant revisions.
						Deregulation: reducing unnecessary red tape and regulation.
				2. Enhance federal/provincial cooperation to increase timeliness and certainty, and minimize overlap and duplication.		Percentage of harmonized reviews that meet provincial timelines.
		2. Organizational Excellence.		1. Support organizational development to optimize ability to deliver environmental assessment.		Internal policies and procedures are relevant and consistent with new environmental assessment direction.
						Percentage of staff with Employee Performance and Development Plans (EPDP) in place.
				2. Communicate effectively with all stakeholders.		Timely posting of public and agency comments on the EAO's Project Information Centre (ePIC).

Goal 1:

Efficient and Effective Delivery of Environmental Assessment.

This goal will be met through two objectives — continual improvement of provincial environmental assessment and greater procedural certainty when both the provincial and federal review processes are triggered. The objectives and targets outlined in this section are based on planned expenditures and staffing levels. Achievement of the objectives and targets may be affected by unpredictable external factors, such as number of projects which are outside the control of the Environmental Assessment Office. Some will depend on the direct, constructive engagement of proponents, the public and First Nations.

Core Business Area:

Major Project Environmental Assessments.

Objective 1:

Continual Improvement of Provincial Environmental Assessment.

Improvements to environmental assessment are ongoing. Beginning with the implementation of the new Act in December 2002, the Environmental Assessment Office has undertaken major reforms to the environmental assessment process:

• from a prescriptive and standardized process to a flexible and customized process that can be tailored to the specific needs of the project;
• from a process that places a heavy administrative burden on ministries to a process that reduces government's administrative burden and reduces costs;
• from a process that could be quite lengthy to a shorter overall review process that places greater responsibility on proponent deliverables; and
• from a process that provided little flexibility in determining which projects would be reviewed to a process that provides more flexibility in designating projects as reviewable.

Key Strategies include: delivering a timely and cost-efficient provincial environmental assessment process; evaluating the environmental assessment process, and refining it based on implementation experience to deliver a timely and cost-efficient process; aligning environmental assessment and permitting/licensing requirements to achieve greater process certainty; fulfilling government's legal obligations towards First Nations; and applying Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (ERM) to Environmental Assessment Office key strategies by implementing ERM program activities.

Performance Measures¹:

The Environmental Assessment Office is working to ensure the delivery of a timely and cost-efficient environmental assessment process. Four performance measures are used to demonstrate progress in this area.

1

The following Performance Measures have been dropped from the 2005/06-2007/08 Service Plan: Stage of enterprise-wide risk management implementation and average annual cost of project environmental assessment. The Environmental Assessment Office will continue to apply formal risk management strategies to its operations and the measure is no longer needed. Average annual cost of environmental assessment was determined from experience not to be a good measure due to its sensitivity to the project workload and is not under the control of the Environmental Assessment Office.

 

Duration of review of the application by government: One key objective of environmental assessment is timeliness as a measure of process certainty. The British Columbia environmental assessment process has legislated timelines and the Environmental Assessment Office monitors whether these timelines are being met. The Environmental Assessment Office is proactive in anticipating and scheduling activities and encouraging effort, for example, consultation during the pre-application stage, to ensure that projects stay on track to meet schedules and stay within legislated timelines.

Proponents' level of satisfaction with the review process: The Environmental Assessment Office relies on surveys of proponents to provide feedback on the environmental assessment process to determine where improvements are needed. The survey of proponents will be repeated every two years and will apply to all proponents in various stages of the review. The findings of the Environmental Assessment Office Client Survey (2004) are being reviewed to identify areas for improvement that will be reported in the 2004/05 Environmental Assessment Office Annual Service Plan Report.

Percentage of EA Applications accepted for formal review without significant revisions (Effectiveness of EAO's efforts in managing projects during the pre application stage.): The EAO is working with proponents during the pre application stage to ensure issues are being addressed appropriately to facilitate a timely and effective application stage of review. This effort by the EAO should result in a more complete and thorough application document prepared by proponents including attention to environmental protection and other government standards. Having a more complete, higher quality application allows EAO to process applications within 180 days. This measure which focuses on the "screening of the application" stage will demonstrate whether a high percentage of proponents applications are acceptable for formal review without significant revisions. This would reflect a high degree of leadership by the EAO as well as commitment and effort by proponents during the pre application stage to ensure issues have been identified and measures included to address any adverse effects.

Deregulation: reducing unnecessary red tape and regulation: The Government of British Columbia has met and exceeded its target for reducing red tape for the three year period ending June 2004. In 2002/03 the Environmental Assessment Office reduced regulations by 56 per cent from the previous year which more than exceeded the Environmental Assessment Office's target of 33 per cent. The Environmental Assessment Office is committed to maintain or reduce the level of regulation set in 2002/03.

Performance Measures	2004/05 Actual/Base	2005/06 Target	2006/07 Target	2007/08 Target
Duration of government application review.	90% of British Columbia Environmental Assessment process application reviews completed in 180 days.1	Maintain or improve.	Maintain or improve.	Maintain or improve.
Proponents' level of satisfaction with the review process. EA review is focused on key issues Issues and conclusions were fairly reported in the EAO Assessment Report.	Continual process improvement based on feedback from proponents and identification of key issues in the 2003/04 survey results.2	Improve proponents' level of satisfaction with the review process.	Improve proponents' level of satisfaction with the review process. New survey to be conducted to evaluate proponent experiences with improvements in 2005/06.	Improve proponents' level of satisfaction with the review process. Continual process improvement based on feedback from proponents and identification of key issues in the 2005/06 survey to be undertaken.
Percentage of EA Applications accepted for formal review without significant revisions.	Baseline (to be determined).	Improve over baseline.	To be determined.	To be determined.
Deregulation: reducing unnecessary red tape and regulation.	56% reduction in regulatory requirements of provincial environmental assessment.	Zero per cent increase.	Zero per cent increase.	Zero per cent increase.

1	Base data for 2004/05 is incomplete but it is assumed that target will be achieved. Projects included in this measure are reviewed under the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act only and do not include harmonized reviews with the federal government.
2	Survey conducted to evaluate proponents experience in the review process for the 2003/04 period and earlier.

When a project is subject to both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act as well as the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Assessment Office works closely with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and other federal agencies to ensure the requirements of both levels of government are met through a single harmonized process. Under the Canada/British Columbia Agreement for Environmental Assessment Cooperation signed by both governments in March 2004, the requirements of both processes are met through a single coordinated assessment to minimize duplication and overlap. Work plans, signed off by the Environmental Assessment Office and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, are developed for each project requiring a harmonized review. They set out the project-specific procedures for completing a harmonized review, which includes scope of project, scope of assessment and project review schedule.

Performance Measures:

Per cent of harmonized reviews that meet provincial timelines: The purpose of work planning and other measures undertaken as part of harmonization is to increase the likelihood that provincial timelines will be achieved by both levels of government. It is difficult to ensure that all projects undergoing a review under both processes will proceed at the same rate. The federal review process has unique requirements that make it difficult to proceed in tandem in all cases. The Environmental Assessment Office and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency try to anticipate and resolve problems through the Environmental Assessment Office/Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Harmonization Working Group. This performance measure will demonstrate whether the majority of harmonized projects are meeting provincial timelines.

This goal is achieved by ensuring that the Environmental Assessment Office supports organizational development to optimize its ability to provide efficient and effective delivery of environmental assessment. It also entails ensuring effective and efficient communication with all parties involved in environmental assessment.

This objective focuses on creating a healthy, performance-focused environment with proactive leadership and continuous improvement.

Key strategies include: evaluating existing Environmental Assessment Office policies to identify gaps and redundancies; developing innovative approaches to managing the environmental assessment process; continuing learning opportunities for staff to remain current on government's legal obligations to First Nations in order to manage the process and provide advice to proponents on building and maintaining positive relationships with First Nations; reviewing Employee Performance and Development Plans annually with all staff; and providing opportunities for staff training, development, recognition and succession.

Performance Measures:

Internal policies and procedures are relevant and consistent with new environmental assessment direction: The Environmental Assessment Office has established policies and procedures to guide the province's environmental assessment process to ensure consistency and provide process certainty for clients. For example, the Guide to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Process published in March 2003 sets out policies and procedures. With almost two years of experience conducting assessments under the new British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act, policies and procedures need to be re-evaluated and refined to ensure that they enable the most efficient and effective process consistent with the new legislation. This performance measure tracks the progress in ensuring that internal policies and procedures are relevant and consistent with the new environmental assessment direction approved by government.

Per cent of staff with Employee Performance and Development Plans: Achieving the objective of efficient program management, fiscal responsibility and client service requires Environmental Assessment Office staff to develop performance and development goals for themselves that will enable them to contribute to the achievement of organizational objectives. All Environmental Assessment Office staff has Employee Performance and Development Plans (EPDP) in place as of 2004 and plans are reviewed and updated during the year. The Employee Performance and Development Plan identifies employee accountabilities and linkages with the Environmental Assessment Office Service Plan and sets out staff training and other opportunities for staff development.

The British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act establishes an electronic Project Information Centre (ePIC) to facilitate access to general information about the environmental assessment process, as well as specific information on individual project assessments. The principal means of accessing the Project Information Centre is through the Environmental Assessment Office website. The Public Consultation Policy Regulation identifies documentation related to each project environmental assessment that is normally made available to the public through the website. Information on the Project Information Centre is updated on an ongoing basis. The Environmental Assessment Office is committed to improving the access and ease of use of the website since this is the primary mechanism for access to information.

Performance Measure:

The performance measure under this objective assesses the Environmental Assessment Office's effectiveness in communicating with stakeholders.

Timely posting of public and agency comments on the EAO's Project Information Centre (ePIC): It is the policy of the Environmental Assessment Office that the records generated for the purposes of the assessment of a reviewable project are made accessible to the public through the Project Information Centre. The types of records to be posted are listed in the Public Consultation Policy Regulation. This performance measure tracks the Environmental Assessment Office's success in posting records in a timely manner.