Report on Performance

Overview of Goals and Linkage to Government Strategic Goals

The Environmental Assessment Office Service Plan 2004/05 to 2006/07 supports the Government of British Columbia's long-term goals of:

• a strong and vibrant provincial economy; and
• safe, healthy communities and a sustainable environment.

Linking Government Goals to Environmental Assessment Office Goals

Report on 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.

Synopsis of Environmental Assessment Office Results

Goal 1: Efficient and Effective Delivery of Environmental Assessment

This goal was to 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.

Objective 1: Continual Improvement of Provincial Environmental Assessment

Continuous improvement in our process has allowed streamlining and flexibility 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 were aimed to address areas of the process to focus improvements this past year.

Key Strategies

1. Delivery of a timely and cost-efficient provincial environmental assessment process.
2. Evaluation of the environmental assessment process through client satisfaction surveys, and refine based on implementation experience.
3. Alignment of environmental assessment and permitting/licensing.
4. Fulfillment of government's legal obligations towards First Nations.
5. Apply Enterprise-wide Risk Management (ERM) to Environmental Assessment Office key strategies by implementing ERM program activities.

Performance Measures and Results

One key objective of our environmental assessment process is timeliness and process certainty. The British Columbia process has legislated timelines and the Environmental Assessment Office monitors whether these timelines are being met. The Office has developed a "dash board" tracking system that monitors major milestones and targets for each project review. These milestones and target dates have been incorporated into our performance indicators through the above performance measurements. Using this monitoring system, the Environmental Assessment Office applies formal risk management practices proactively in anticipating and scheduling activities and encouraging cross-team efforts to manage all projects within legislated timelines.

Another important part of ensuring client satisfaction and timeliness in our processes is the use of concurrent permitting decisions, which are made within 60 days of a certificate being issued to a proponent. Concurrent permitting decisions were made within 60 days in all of the projects that requested concurrent permitting decisions in 2004/05.

The Environmental Assessment Office has built upon comments provided by its clients and will use them to better aid future proponents in understanding the environmental assessment process. Our objective is to strive for continuous improvement in the environmental assessment process through the use of the Client Satisfaction Survey.

The Environmental Assessment Office works with First Nations to facilitate their involvement in project reviews to ensure the potential impacts on First Nations' asserted aboriginal rights and title are identified and addressed through meaningful consultation and accommodation (where indicated) in accordance with applicable policy and law requirements. First Nations are invited to comment on key documents from the Environmental Assessment Office and proponents and are invited to participate in technical working group meetings to discuss and resolve issues. First Nations are provided an opportunity to participate early in the process with funding provided by the Environmental Assessment Office.

The Environmental Assessment Office recognizes that there are risks associated with meeting our legislated timelines. Those risks have a low likelihood of occurrence, and may be due to unforeseen external events. Risks are managed through our internal operating procedures.

Objective 2: Enhance federal/provincial cooperation to increase timeliness and certainty, and minimize overlap and duplication

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 (CEA Agency) and other federal agencies to ensure the requirements of both levels of government are met through a harmonized process. The Canada-British Columbia Agreement on Environmental Assessment Cooperation was implemented to reduce overlap and duplication and to ensure that provincial timelines are considered in joint reviews. Work plans, agreed to by the Environmental Assessment Office and CEA 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.

Key Strategies

1. Early consultation with CEA Agency and federal agencies and proponents on projects entering the process.
2. Development of and implementation of operational procedures for work plans to facilitate federal/provincial harmonization.
3. Utilize the CEA Agency/EAO Harmonization Working Group to address federal/provincial coordination issues.

Performance Measures and Results

For the year 2004/05, six of the 10 projects referred to Ministers for decision under the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act were also subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Environmental Assessment Office managed these harmonized reviews on behalf of both governments within provincial timelines. The harmonized review process for all of these projects included early consultations and federal/provincial workplans.

The CEA Agency/EAO Harmonization Working Group met twice in 2004/05 and successfully addressed issues surrounding timelines of joint reviewable projects.

Goal 2: Organizational Excellence

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 assessments.

Objective 1: Support organizational development to optimize ability to deliver environmental assessment

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

Key Strategies

1. Evaluation of existing Environmental Assessment Office policies to identify gaps and redundancies.
2. Update the Human Resource Management Plan that includes strategies for staff training, development, recognition and succession.
3. Managers to review Employee Performance and Development Plans (EPDP) annually with each of their staff members.
4. Provide staff with information and access to development, training and learning opportunities.
5. Provide Environmental Assessment Office employees with trainings (workshops) and tools (tool kit, information, and agreement templates) to effectively carry out the government's legal obligations to First Nations and to provide effective advice to proponents on building and maintaining positive relationships with First Nations.

Performance Measures and Results

The updated Human Resource Management and Information Resource Management Plans were finalized and made available through the website in February 2005. These documents, as well as the continuous access to staff training and development, have helped fulfill requirements for staff EPDPs. Supporting the needs of staff through increased access to training opportunities has also enhanced our ability to ensure client satisfaction and meet our legislated timelines through an improved environmental assessment process.

Gaps in internal policies and procedures were identified through a risk management workshop involving all staff at the Environmental Assessment Office. The Environmental Assessment Office has recognized that there was a risk in not addressing the gaps in our policies and procedures, and by attending to the gaps we will improve the environmental assessment process. The policy and procedures gaps were identified and then ranked based on several criteria including: client service; increased efficiency and relevancy to the new Environmental Assessment Act. After evaluation, the Environmental Assessment Office was left with sixteen high/medium priority action items to be completed by the end of the fiscal year. A few examples of the policy and procedures gaps that were addressed include: a policy for handling late public comments, policies surrounding the posting of documents to ePIC, and several guidelines to aid in a consistent approach to the assessment process. By meeting our target, the Environmental Assessment Office is improving its ability to provide efficient, effective and consistent delivery of environmental assessments.

Objective 2: Communicate effectively with all stakeholders

The Environmental Assessment Act establishes an electronic Project Information Centre 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 electronic 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.

Key Strategies

1. Facilitate access to information about project reviews and the environmental assessment process.
2. Improve web-based access to key review documents.
3. Facilitate the exchange of information with multi-stakeholder groups such as the Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee, to provide advice and feedback on environmental assessment issues.

Performance Measures and Results

The Environmental Assessment Office attempts to communicate effectively through the use of their website, and in particular the Environmental Assessment Office encourages access to documents through the electronic Project Information Centre. During the year 2004/05, a total of 1,628 documents were posted on the electronic Project Information Centre, and we successfully met our timelines for their posting.

Deregulation

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. In 2004/05 our regulations were re-counted and a baseline was set from which there was no net increase in regulations. The Environmental Assessment Office remains committed to maintaining or reducing the level of regulation.