Environmental Assessment Office — Continued

Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Results

Environmental Assessment Office Goals and their Linkage to the Five Great Goals

With an ever-expanding economy and the public's demand for environmental accountability, the work of the Environmental Assessment Office is closely aligned to the following Great goals:

• To lead the work in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management — bar none.
• To strive to improve health care and lead the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness.
• To create more jobs per capita than anywhere else in Canada.

The environmental assessment process provides for a thorough and public review of major development projects to ensure they meet the government's environmental, social, economic, health and heritage objectives. In this way, a predictable, timely and cost-effective environmental assessment process leads to greater investor confidence in British Columbia, which in turn yields expanded economic investment and significant employment opportunities.

The diagram below displays the government's strategic goals and the Environmental Assessment Office's mission, goals, and objectives, and indicates their linkage.

Environmental Assessment Office Performance Plan Summary

Performance Plan

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.

Continuous improvement in our process has allowed streamlining and process certainty to be incorporated into the environmental assessment process. Most recently, reforms to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act have streamlined and improved the process by making it less prescriptive and more flexible. The strategies set out below are aimed at addressing areas of the process to focus improvements over the next three years.

Key Strategies:

Key strategies for this objective 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; and fulfilling government's legal obligations toward First Nations.

Performance Measures:⁵

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.

Percentage of application reviews within 180 days: 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 consultation during the pre-application stage to ensure that projects stay on track to meet schedules and stay within legislated timelines once they enter the application stage.

Proponents' overall level of satisfaction with the review process: This measure addresses the level of client satisfaction with the environmental assessment review process by asking clients to rate the EAO on its delivery of a timely and effective environmental assessment process. This is measured through the Client Satisfaction Survey by asking proponents to rate their overall experience with the Environmental Assessment Office (regardless of where they are in the process) on a scale of 1 to 10.

Value of the EAO's advice to the proponent during the pre-application stage: This captures the effectiveness of the Environmental Assessment Office's efforts in managing projects during the pre-application stage. The EAO works with proponents during the pre-application stage to ensure issues are being addressed appropriately in order to facilitate a timely and effective application review stage. The baseline will be determined in 2006 when the next client satisfaction survey is administered.

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 from the previous year, which exceeded the Environmental Assessment Office's target. The Environmental Assessment Office is committed to maintaining or reducing the level of regulations set in 2002/03.

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:

Percentage 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. 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.

The Environmental Assessment Office strives to improve its client-service delivery by ensuring: the culture of the office is client-focused; process improvement opportunities are identified and acted upon; and relevant information is available in a timely manner to all parties interested in the environmental assessment process.

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

Key Strategies:

Key strategies for this objective 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 Environmental Assessment Office developed the Guide to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Process that was published in March 2003. It sets out policies and procedures. As part of the Environmental Assessment Office's ongoing efforts to improve the way environmental assessment is done, the EAO regularly reviews its policies and procedures to ensure their continued relevance. Where policy gaps or opportunities for improvement are identified, the Environmental Assessment Office ensures they are addressed and implemented.

Percentage of staff with an Employee Performance and Development Plan: 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 have 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 electronic Project Information Centre is through the Environmental Assessment Office website (http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca). The Public Consultation Policy Regulation identifies documentation related to each project's 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 timeliness in communicating with stakeholders.

Posting of public and agency comments on the EAO's electronic Project Information Centre (ePIC) within 7 days: 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.