Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today

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13NO. 13 MAKING CONNECTIONS: MUNICIPAL GOVERNANCE PRIORITIES TODAY

REPORT ON THE “CHOOSING MUNICIPAL PRIORITIES” SYMPOSIUM, OTTAWA, 2003

Edited by

Michael McConkey Researcher

Patrice Dutil Director of Research Institute of Public Administration of Canada

NEW DIRECTIONS – NUMBER 13 ©L’Institut d’administration publique du Canada, 2004 ©The Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2004

The Institute of Public Administration of Canada

The Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) is the leading Canadian organization concerned with the theory and practice of public management. Its scope covers governance from the local to the global level. It is an association with active regional groups across the country. The Institute recognizes and fosters both official languages of Canada

IPAC/IAPC 1075, rue Bay Street Suite/bureau 401 Toronto, Ontario M5S 2B1 CANADA

Tel./tél: (416) 924-8787 Fax: (416) 924-4992 e-mail/courriel: [email protected] Internet : www.ipaciapc.ca

L’Institut d’administration publique du Canada

L’Institut d’administration publique du Canada (IAPC) est la principale institution cana- dienne qui s’intéresse à la théorie et à la pratique de la gestion publique tant au niveau local qu’au niveau mondial. C’est une association composée de groupes régionaux actifs à travers tout le pays. L’Institut reconnaît et promeut les deux langues officielles du Canada. Acknowledgements

This IPAC project was made possible by

And the members of IPAC,

who are dedicated to excellence in public administration.

Thank you

CONTENTS

Part I: Assessing the Current Municipal Landscape

Introduction: Municipal Priorities for Today and Tomorrow 3

Introduction: Priorités municipales d’aujourd’hui et de demain 6

1. The Problem of How “New Public Organizations” Choose their Priorities 10

2. Urban Planning under Globalization 22

Part II: Information, Knowledge and Strategy

3. The Integrated Business-Planning Process: The Case of Oakville, Ontario 33

4. Implementing a Strategic Performance Measurement System at Mississauga Transit: Establishing Operational Priorities 46

5. Managing Sustainable Performance in “Smart Communities”: A Future Priority for Municipalities 56

6. Knowledge-Sharing for Alberta Municipalities: A Catalogue of Practices for Local Government 69

Part III: Municipal Engagements

7. Alberta’s MuniMall: Engagement for Better Governance and Decision-Making 85

8. Citizens’ Input into Priority-Setting: The Evolution of Public Participation in Halton Region 97

9. Public Involvement in Municipal Priority-Setting: The City of Vancouver’s Public Involvement Review 108

10. A Pragmatic Sharing of Power: Rethinking Intergovernmental Practices and Priorities 124

PART I

ASSESSING THE CURRENT MUNICIPAL LANDSCAPE page 2 blank INTRODUCTION: MUNICIPAL PRIORITIES FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

Judy Rogers City Manager City of Vancouver

The Institute of Public Administration of Canada and the Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research (ICURR) organized a two-day symposium in Ottawa in November 2003 entitled “Choosing Municipal Priorities: Purple Zones, Strategic Plans and Intergovernmental Relations.” In naming the conference, the two institutions inten- tionally cast the net widely. The process of choosing priorities at the municipal level in Canada is as mysterious as it is important. The manner in which decisions are made is a complicated process that involves many governments, many decisions, and the unique interplay of political and administrative forces. Priorities can change as suddenly as forest fires and ice storms. Priorities can also come out of failed social policies, failed economies and failed politics.

Remarkably, this important and sensitive topic had never been covered on Canadian terri- tory, and the response to the IPAC-ICURR call for papers was strong. Clearly, we had touched a nerve, and the symposium that ensued saw a stimulating exchange of ideas on what works and what does not work in setting priorities to deliver the public good. How do we set our priorities? The topic is wide, it is complex, and it is a moving target. And yet, this is what we do everyday as public servants: we set priorities. We consciously or uncon- sciously give some matters more attention than others. Is there logic to this process? I would say that there are many logics, and what is interesting is how these logics inter- twine.

Take the “Purple Zone,” a place where I spend a good deal of my working life. The “Pur- ple Zone” is the area where the administrative structure (the blue) meets the political structure (the red) in a vital priority-setting discussion that blends both colours (hence the purple) and it is of vital concern to anyone interested in public-sector management. There is no doubt that the often shifting political structures at the municipal level have a great say in setting priorities. How do we, as public administrators, manage this sometimes con- tradictory process?

This symposium was more than a reflection on past practice. In the process of finding solutions to improve the process of setting priorities, many contributors wrote about the process of “making connections” as an effort to better set priorities, so we decided to give this title to this publication. In some cases, this making of connections might appear more obvious, as the papers in Part III, “Municipal Engagements,” show. New techniques to expand the purview of citizen participation, or looking to pragmatically reinvent intergov-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 3 ernmental practices, may be obvious ways of making new or better connections with the public or with the provincial and federal governments. If municipal civil servants are to succeed in their larger mandate of serving the public, it is imperative that they establish effective connections of trust, respect and responsibility with both council and the citizenry. These performance measurement and enhancement instruments provide a voice for municipal civil servants to express their success in meeting their larger mandate of public service.

The papers in Part II, “Information, Knowledge and Strategy,” are no less concerned with making connections. Here the contributors address connection-making at two levels. At a basic level, between desired ends and the best-calculated means to achieve those ends, discussions of knowledge management and strategic planning aim to identify the most demonstrably effective means to achieve specified ends. Successfully making this connection is the essence of accountability.

The papers in Part I, “Assessing the Current Municipal Landscape,” explore an often over- looked need for better “connections.” They make their own: connecting our present practices with historical and global developments in municipal public administration theory and practice. They demonstrate how our present connections are constantly caught up in these larger, relentless currents of change. The currents of opinion, evidence and politics flow so swiftly today that complacency about present priorities puts one in constant dan- ger of sudden irrelevance. How do we as public administrators stay on top of the priority of the moment and anticipate a certain shift of priorities flowing from around the bend?

As chair of the symposium, I asked some challenging questions in regards to the current focus on performance measurement. I pointed out that while strategic plans and performance measurement have become part of how we do business, they defy the measurement of the larger economic and social vitality of a community. Is there evidence that all these plans actually make for better government, for better service to the community?

I’ll repeat here the questions I asked there: How do our sophisticated strategies, performance evaluations and business plans help us to prepare for the future? Do these tools help us build better communities? Do they give us better tools to be creative? Do they help us in securing meaningful partnerships with organizations that can help municipalities meet their never-ending needs? In short: do we, as cities, have the tools to dream?

I would argue that our current fever for performance measurement will only become a permanent feature in municipal public management priorities if we have the means to apply the lessons described by this collection of papers. Similarly, the energy and ingenuity applied in the efforts described in the papers of Part II can only succeed generally if we cultivate forms of public engagements that will dovetail with our applications of information, knowledge and strategy.

How do we make the connection between the invaluable input of both scholarly experts and the democratic will with our sophisticated systems of knowledge management and strategic planning in such a way that allows for nimble response, continued relevance, and

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 4 the achievement of our mandate to serve the public good? This perhaps is the connection we must explore next.

The value of this fine collection of papers, from scholars and practitioners across the country, is that it serves this dual purpose. They provide an excellent overview of the state of the art and science of setting municipal priorities in Canada today and open the door to tomorrow’s challenges for the municipal future.

Clearly, strategic plans, business plans and performance measurements have become an essential part of how municipalities set – and just as importantly, communicate – their priorities. At the same time, it seems clear to me that there is no single path to success and that the process used to choose priorities is loaded with assumptions about the economic and social vitality of a community that are difficult to measure.

In closing, I want to posit a final concern on the process of setting priorities. I have always believed that the main priority for us working in city administrations was the provision of safe, effective infrastructures: clean streets, traffic lights that work, sewers that flow, good buildings for schools, reliable bridges and tunnels. These are the bone and sinew of our communities. I’m concerned that this mandate is being displaced by underfunded social, medical and community-building priorities. The process of setting priorities must address this imbalance and misalignment of funding and objectives.

There are people I would like to thank for helping IPAC organize this symposium. Our gratitude goes first to the Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research for helping to sponsor this event. In particular, I would like to thank Catherine Marchand, executive director of ICURR and an experienced municipal policy adviser, who quickly saw the potential of this symposium and who worked to support it from the beginning.

I also want to thank the individuals who travelled across Canada to take part in this seminal event and the contributors to this collection. Finally, I’m delighted to acknowledge the contribution of Patrice Dutil, director of research at IPAC, who steered this project from its very beginning, and Michael McConkey, IPAC’s research officer, for putting this collection together.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 5 INTRODUCTION : PRIORITÉS MUNICIPALES D'AUJOURD'HUI ET DE DEMAIN

Judy Rogers Directrice municipale, Vancouver

L’Institut d’administration publique du Canada (IAPC) et le Comité intergouvernemental de recherches urbaines et régionales (CIRUR) ont organisé à Ottawa, au mois de novem- bre 2003, un symposium de deux jours intitulé : «Choisir les priorités municipales : Zones violettes, plans stratégiques et relations intergouvernementales». En optant pour ce titre, les deux institutions ont intentionnellement ratissé large. Au Canada, déterminer quelles sont les priorités municipales amorce un processus aussi insondable qu’essentiel. Dans ce secteur, le processus décisionnel est complexe, fait intervenir plusieurs ordres de gouvernement, donne lieu à de nombreuses prises de décisions et exige une interaction peu commune entre les forces politiques et administratives. Les priorités changent aussi brusquement qu’évoluent les incendies de forêt et les tempêtes de verglas. Elles peuvent aussi résulter d’échecs des politiques sociales, de piètres performances économiques ou de programmes politiques inadéquats.

Étonnamment, cette question à la fois épineuse et importante n’avait auparavant jamais été étudiée sous tous ses angles au Canada. Aussi a-t-on répondu avec empressement lorsque l’IAPC-CIRUR a demandé aux intéressés de lui adresser des communications. Certes, nous avions touché une corde sensible, et le symposium qui a suivi a suscité un échange d’idées fort stimulant sur les méthodes qui sont efficaces et celles qui ne le sont pas lorsqu’il s’agit de fixer des priorités dans le but de répondre aux besoins de la population. Mais comment établit-on un ordre de priorité? Le sujet est vaste et complexe, et ne cesse d’évoluer. Pourtant, à titre de fonctionnaires, c’est ce à quoi nous consacrons nos journées; en d’autres termes, nous déterminons des priorités. Consciemment ou non, nous accordons plus de temps à certaines questions qu’à d’autres. Usons-nous de logique en agissant ainsi? Pour ma part, j’estime qu’il existe plusieurs formes de logique; et la manière dont celles-ci sont reliées est ce qui nous intéresse.

Prenons, par exemple, la «zone violette», dans laquelle je passe une bonne partie de mes heures de travail. Cette «zone violette» est le point de rencontre de la structure administrative (dite «zone bleue») et de la structure politique (dite «zone rouge»); pour quiconque s’intéresse à la gestion du secteur public, toute discussion de quelque importance sur l’établissement des priorités se tient dans cette zone intermédiaire où s’entremêlent le bleu et le rouge, d’où l’expression «zone violette». Il ne fait aucun doute que les structures politiques, en constante évolution à l’échelon municipal, ont beaucoup à apporter à l’étude de cette question. À titre de gestionnaires du secteur public, comment nous accommodons- nous de ce processus décisionnel parfois contradictoire?

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 6 Ce symposium a été beaucoup plus qu’une réflexion sur les pratiques du passé. Après s’être penchés sur les moyens d’améliorer le processus d’établissement des priorités, nombre de participants ont traité des façons de procéder pour Créer des liens en ayant comme objectif de mieux fixer les priorités, d’où le titre que nous avons donné au présent recueil. Dans certains cas, la nécessité de créer des liens est claire, comme vous pourrez en juger en consultant la Troisième partie du document. Trouver de nouveaux moyens d’étendre le champ d’intervention des citoyens ou, de façon pragmatique, chercher à réinventer les pratiques intergouvernementales, voilà deux manières évidentes de créer des liens nouveaux ou meilleurs entre les municipalités et les citoyens, ou entre les municipalités et les gou- vernements provinciaux et le gouvernement fédéral. Dans l’exécution de leur mandat, les fonctionnaires municipaux doivent, dans un climat de confiance, de respect et de respon- sabilité, tisser des liens productifs avec le conseil municipal et avec les citoyens. Les instruments liés à l’évaluation et à l’amélioration du rendement procurent aux fonctionnaires municipaux un moyen d’exprimer leur satisfaction face aux succès obtenus dans l’exercice de leur mandat de service à la population.

Dans la Deuxième partie du document, les textes ont pour objet, tout comme ceux de la Troisième partie, la nécessité de tisser des liens. Ici, les auteurs traitent de l’utilité de créer des liens à deux niveaux. Au niveau de base, soit le lien entre les buts visés et les moyens les plus sûrs de les atteindre, les discussions ont porté sur la gestion des connaissances et la planification stratégique; on a tenté de déterminer, démonstrations à l’appui, les moyens les plus efficaces d’atteindre des objectifs spécifiques. Réussir à établir cette liaison con- stitue l’essence même de la reddition de comptes.

Les auteurs des communications regroupées dans la Première partie, se penchent sur le besoin fréquemment ignoré de créer de meilleurs liens. Ils relient nos pratiques actuelles à l’évolution historique et aux nouvelles tendances à l’échelle mondiale en matière de théorie et de pratique de l’administration publique municipale. Ces auteurs démontrent comment les liens que nous établissons dans le présent s’inscrivent dans ces grands changements. Les courants d’opinion et la réalité politique évoluent si rapidement de nos jours que, en ce qui concerne l’établissement des priorités, si l’on se repose sur ses lauriers, on risque d’être vite dépassé. À titre de gestionnaires de la fonction publique, sommes-nous en mesure de demeurer maîtres des priorités du moment tout en prévoyant les changements que nous devrons apporter?

À titre de présidente de ce symposium, j’ai soulevé des questions difficiles dans le but de susciter des échanges sur la mesure de la performance. J’ai signalé que même si les plans stratégiques et la mesure de la performance sont maintenant intégrés dans la conduite de nos affaires, ces pratiques posent un défi lorsque nous voulons mesurer la vitalité économique et sociale d’une communauté. Existe-t-il des preuves que tous ces plans contribuent vraiment à une meilleure gestion des affaires publiques et à une prestation améliorée des services?

Voici les questions que j’ai soulevées à cette occasion. Nos stratégies, nos évaluations de performance et nos plans d’activités savamment présentés nous préparent-ils vraiment à relever les défis de l’avenir? Ces outils nous aident-ils à construire de meilleures commu-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 7 nautés? Nous rendent-ils aptes à exercer notre créativité? Nous aident-ils à établir des partenariats durables avec des organisations à même d’aider les municipalités à satisfaire leurs besoins constamment renouvelés? Bref, comme administrateurs municipaux, avons- nous les outils qui nous permettent de rêver?

J’estime que notre souci de mesure de la performance ne deviendra, pour les administrations municipales, un trait permanent dans l’établissement de leurs priorités que si nous tirons les leçons décrites dans ce recueil de communications. De même, l’énergie et l’ingéniosité investies dans les expériences dont font état les communications de la Deuxième partie n’auront pas été dépensées en vain si nous parvenons à faire concorder les engagements des pouvoirs publics avec nos pratiques en matière d’information, de connaissance et de stratégie.

Comment pouvons-nous établir un lien entre l’inestimable contribution des experts et la volonté démocratique d’une part, et nos systèmes complexes de gestion de connaissances et de planification stratégique d’autre part, de manière à répondre promptement aux besoins, à demeurer pertinents et à réaliser notre mandat, c’est-à-dire servir les citoyens. Voilà peut-être le lien qu’il nous faut maintenant examiner.

Ce recueil de communications, rédigées par des théoriciens et des praticiens des quatre coins du pays, a une grande valeur car il sert admirablement la poursuite de ce double objectif. Ces textes donnent une excellente vue d’ensemble de l’art d’établir des priorités pour les villes du Canada dans le contexte actuel. Ils laissent aussi entrevoir les défis que pourraient avoir à relever les municipalités dans l’avenir.

De toute évidence, les plans stratégiques, les plans d’activités et les mesures de performance constituent désormais un élément essentiel, aussi bien dans l’établissement que dans la communication des priorités des municipalités. Parallèlement, il me semble clair qu’il n’y a pas de voie unique dans la recherche du succès et que le processus d’établisse- ment des priorités se fonde sur un grand nombre d’hypothèses concernant la vitalité économique et sociale d’une communauté, hypothèses qui sont difficiles à mesurer.

En terminant, je veux exprimer une dernière préoccupation à l’égard du processus d’étab- lissement de priorités. J’ai toujours cru que la priorité entre toutes, pour nous qui travail- lons dans les administrations municipales, était de fournir des infrastructures sécuritaires : des rues propres, des feux de circulation qui fonctionnent bien, un réseau d’égouts bien entretenu, des écoles, des ponts et des tunnels en bon état. Il s’agit là de l’infrastructure essentielle de nos villes. Je m’inquiète de voir ce mandat relégué au second plan avec la mise en oeuvre de projets prioritaires, insuffisamment financés, d’ordre social et médical, ou en matière de développement urbain. Le processus d’établissement des priorités doit tenir compte de ce déséquilibre et du manque de concordance entre le financement et les objectifs.

Je voudrais maintenant remercier plusieurs personnes de l’aide qu’elles ont apportée à l’IAPC dans l’organisation de ce symposium. En premier lieu, nous exprimons notre gratitude au Comité intergouvernemental de recherches urbaines et régionales (CIRUR), qui a

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 8 contribué à la commandite de cet événement. J’aimerais remercier en particulier Catherine Marchand, directrice générale du CIRUR, qui, en raison de son expérience comme con- seillère en politique municipale, a compris très tôt l’intérêt que pouvait susciter ce symposium et nous a dès le début accordé son soutien.

Je tiens aussi à remercier tous ceux qui ont voyagé d’une extrémité à l’autre du Canada pour participer à cet événement, si fécond en échanges de vues, et ceux qui ont collaboré à ce recueil. Enfin, je suis heureuse de souligner la contribution de Patrice Dutil, directeur de recherche à l’IAPC, qui a piloté ce projet depuis le début. Je veux remercier également Michael McConkey, agent de recherche de l’IAPC, qui a colligé les textes en vue de leur publication.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 9 CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM OF HOW “NEW PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS” CHOOSE THEIR PRIORITIES

Edward C. LeSage Professor of Government Studies Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta

Canadian municipal government is under reconstruction and so too, it seems, is local public administration. The sweep of recent provincial reforms bearing on municipal government is arguably as bold and as significant as that of the great era of municipal reform a hundred years ago. Large forces operating in the governmental context, including changing social and economic institutions, new ideas and technologies, and new politics, have fostered the provincial reforms. These same forces have also prompted municipal governments to seek to reframe governance practices and the processes by which they choose priorities – including those of local public administration. All this is clear.

What is less clear is the substantial character and prevalence of new local public administration practices adopted by municipalities either in direct response to provincial reform prescriptions or their own initiative. The evidence on practice innovation abounds. It is readily available through government and consultant reports, conference and symposium presentations (such as those offered in this publication), professional and popular press publications, and through various web services. Yet the evidence is usually of a particular type. It speaks to innovation but not of consequence, and principally focuses on exemplary cases. If taken as a whole, the evidence provides some understanding of the scope of innovation. However, there is little by way of prevalence studies, little discussion of innovation failure, little addressing the relationship between environment and practice in specific and formal terms, or discussion of the contingent effects of practice and administrative or policy success.

All of this was considered in organizing this essay into three sections. The first section addresses “reform drivers” and reform initiatives. Three are identified: competitiveness; new ideation relating to the proper role of the state and citizenry in democratic society; and new information and communications technologies. Reforms, including those promoted by Canadian provincial governments and taken up by municipalities, are discussed in juxtaposition to the most salient reform drivers. These juxtapositions suggest causal relationships between forces and reforms or innovations; however, the essay does not assert strong casual connections nor offers proof of causalities. The first section also briefly explores two new concepts of public administration that are derived from emerging theory addressing the relationship between state and citizenry.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 10 The second section reviews the attributes ascribed to the “new public organization” – a recent construct offered by Kenneth Kernaghan, Brian Marson and Sandford Borins.1 In particular, I highlight how reforms pursued by provincial governments have facilitated the emergence of the new public organization and, as a related matter, how the new public organization (and the priorities it pursues) is likely shaped by the various forces and concepts discussed in the first section.

A third and final section briefly appeals for more research into the current and evolving character of decision-making in municipal public administration. This appeal is made in light of observations that there is relatively little hard evidence on the contemporary character of municipal public administration.

Reform Drivers and Reform Initiatives

Joe Garcea and I coined the phrase “Turn of the New Millennium Reform Era” to depict what we believe is a unique period in Canadian local government reform.2 This period, which runs from the last decade of the 20th century and the first quinquennium of the 21st, will end with important (if not always profound) changes to municipal powers, structures, functions and finances. Provincial reforms of municipal governance have been pursued under pressure from large forces within our society and beyond. The same is true of reforms and innovations to governance and the practice of public administration adopted by Canadian local governments. Pressures on general government that have evolved from a new continental and global economic order have been significant reform stimuli. Domestic and international efforts to liberalize trade and the ideation attending these efforts have broadly affected federal and provincial governmental policies and programs and, in this, provincial government policy involving municipalities.3

A key, if not the key, policy imperative resulting from trade liberalization has been to increase economic competitiveness.4 Fiscal austerity campaigns launched by the federal and all provincial governments sought to eliminate or greatly reduce yearly deficits and debt and thus improve economic competitiveness. Canada’s federal and provincial governments reacted with varying urgency to bring their fiscal administrations into better shape. Still, given the intergovernmental linkages of the public finance system, federal government stringency directly affected provincial governments that were concomitantly pursuing stringency policies to a greater or lesser extent.

In this environment, most provincial governments conscripted the “MUSH” (municipalities, municipal organizations, universities, school boards and colleges, health and social service entities) sector to share the burden. This “sharing” variously resulted in downloaded and off-loaded programs and responsibilities that shifted priorities. However, provinces also moved through more or less complex suites of reforms to reduce the draw of municipal government on provincial treasuries.5

Amalgamations and the elimination or streamlining of two-tier local governance arrangements were among the most controversial and publicly visible reforms initiated in this

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 11 period. Although not always directly linking amalgamation to increasing the economic competitiveness, consolidators often did so, and they also argued that restructuring would promote efficiencies in municipal operations and enhance municipal administrative capacities.6 Central theses to the consolidator arguments included the following. Larger units would eliminate or reduce fractious intra-regional competition for economic resources and business location. Larger units would enhance development control and therefore reduce the costly dysfunctional effects of urban sprawl and strip development such as costs in infrastructure creation and maintenance in particular. Large units would also possess greater capacity to develop and implement local policy through more talented and compe- tent civic-public administrations. Again, capacity, efficiencies and competitiveness would be enhanced with this new strength.

Provinces pursued other reforms to reduce the municipal burden on their treasuries and to bolster capacity and competence. Beyond restructuring, reformers sought to “empower” municipal governments. Empowerment took a variety of forms but broadly involved increasing jurisdictional authority and autonomy and, to a lesser extent, improving management capacities and improved access to financial resources. Several provinces sought to foster more entrepreneurial and self-determining municipal government by loosening the traditional restraints on action and most particularly providing municipalities with considerably more scope for independent action. In the most ambitious cases (Alberta, Ontario, and B.C.), Dillon’s Rule, which stipulates that municipalities can do only what is explicitly prescribed in legislation, was relaxed through the introduction of these novel jurisdictional reforms. A list of the most notable of these, taken from Alberta’s seminal 1994 Municipal Government Act includes natural person powers, broadly defined spheres of jurisdictions, defining the purposes of municipalities, declaration of general local law- making powers within municipal spheres of jurisdiction. Related to these reforms, or separately, municipalities were permitted expanded opportunity to engage one another and organizations in other sectors to fashion new production and delivery systems. Thus, opportunities to find cost efficiencies through collaborative and networked arrangements were promoted and, in some instances, permitted for the first time.

Provincial governments did not offer municipalities many new sources of revenue, and those that were provided were not truly substantial even though they may have been wel- comed. Arguably the boldest financial reforms of the period were those taken up by Ontario involving provincial retreat from a sizeable slice of the property tax in exchange for putatively revenue-neutral reductions in a wide range of provincial supporting grants. This move made Ontario municipalities something more of masters of their own financial houses (although they would still not have the degree of mastery enjoyed by Quebec municipalities). Provincial and municipal governments in Ontario and Nova Scotia actively sought to disentangle who does what by defining who should fund what. Alberta is pursuing the same thrust. Disentanglement and the subsequent clarification of roles and responsibilities would presumably provide for a better functioning governmental system, with economic and political efficiencies (provincial and local) following in train. A different tact at financial reform involved lightened regulatory practices. For example, Manitoba municipalities were permitted to make loans and investments principally to encourage public enterprise and to encourage achieving returns on available municipal funds.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 12 Some provinces sought to reform local public administration as a means to bolster municipal capacity. In Alberta, for example, there was a legislated effort to separate and make clear policy-making and administrative roles and responsibilities. Under legislation, councils are pointedly assigned duties for developing and evaluating the policies and programs of their municipalities, ensuring that the powers, duties and functions of the municipality are carried out, and that legislatively prescribed powers, duties and functions are executed. To bolster the administrative side, reformers mandated the position of chief administrative officer (CAO) and eliminated most other statutory officers that had existed under prior legislation. Reformers invested a significant number of duties and responsibilities in the CAO and, with this, enhanced the flexibility with which the CAO might manage the municipal administration. Perhaps most importantly, Alberta reformers sought to divide politics and administration by the following provision, “a council must not exercise a power or function or perform a duty that is by this or another enactment or bylaw specifically assigned to the chief administrative officer or a designated officer.”7 In Alberta, as well, councils have been given considerable latitude in defining the administrative structures of their public administrations beyond the CAO position (and even powers to divide responsibilities of the CAO among council-defined officialdom). This innovation was adopted in an effort to promote more flexible civic-service organizations and, through this, more efficient local public administration.

Government efforts to bring their budgets and debt under control were not only driven by the spectre of losing out in the global competitiveness contest. Indeed, the reforms cited above were also attributable to other, sometimes related and sometimes quite separate, factors. Apart from the concern over competitiveness, governments had taken notice by the early 1990s that significant portions of the public clearly believed that they were being taxed too highly and believed that taxes were likely to get worse. This popular view was fuelled by an attendant slow but steady diminution of public faith in the positive agency of government. Not only was government broadly seen as profligate, it and its officers were viewed as being ineffectual. And, while this concern seems to have been levelled most particularly at the constitutionally defined orders of government, civic government did not escape the broad indictment.

The popular sentiments that rose during this time both reflected and contributed to the sharpening of a new conservative ideation that, in turn, further promoted these sentiments. The ideation itself had been around for some time and had enjoyed significant play during the 1980s in the United States with the Reagan presidency and in Great Britain with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.8 In its harshest articulation, the new conservatism holds that government created in the era of the liberal welfare state is bloated, inefficient, ineffective and dissolute. Liberal interventionist (welfare state) government has too many politicians, too many bureaucrats, too much regulation and “red tape,” and too many special interests at the trough.9 Indeed, government is captured by special interests of which the most powerful and determining is the self-serving state establishment itself. New conservative ideation holds that other economic and social sectors are better able to produce and deliver many services that government has taken onto itself. Business, with its acumen honed by market competition, can produce many if not most services with greater efficiency and better results than government bureaucracies. The voluntary sector can offer more empa-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 13 thetic and more cost-effective human services than government bureaucracy, which, again, has its own interests not the person’s in mind.

These ideas speak to a reform agenda that seeks to reduce the size of government and dis- engage government from civil society and the enterprise sector. In league with this, the conservative reform agenda strives to effect a proper alignment of governmental, business and third-sector roles and responsibilities, and to sort out proper relations between and among orders of government. These ideas co-join with the narrower concerns over global economic competitiveness, but they also reflect a deeper ideological sentiment concerning the role of the state in society and the proper organization of relationships among social institutions. By example, in Ontario, it seems clear that the Harris government’s efforts to reduce municipal expenditures were cast within a more expansive reform program that included fewer municipalities and few municipal politicians.10

Neo-conservative ideas and the core imperative to realize administrative efficiencies helped promote the emergence and adoption of new ideas of public administration and management. Beyond question, the most significant new formulation of public administration is encapsulated within the broad rubric of the so-called new public management (NPM). The new public management’s broad critique sees traditional public administration – and traditional public-service bureaucracies – immune to market forces, restricting choice in the availability of public goods and services, unaccountable for public-fund expenditures, inflexible and unresponsive to citizen and public-service consumer needs. New public management looks to market and quasi-market mechanisms to enhance responsiveness and accountability and to more flexible and decentralized production and delivery systems.11 Its advocates believe the market (or quasi-market) is far more efficient and responsive to citizen needs than bureaucratic allocation systems that stand no dynamic consumer test other than that of the “political market.” Citizens as consumers can directly voice preferences through purchase of public goods and, within the market or quasi-market setting, can demand and can be rewarded with service options that are simply not available through traditional public administration systems. Public officials within the NPM are, among other things, rewarded for behaviour tied to serving market demands including seeking to provide choice, drive down costs, and innovate to improve goods and services.

Promoting efficiency and effectiveness in government operations are key tenets of this public administration ideation as are those of limiting government and making government more transparent and directly referenced to the citizenry. All of this can be tied to the neo-conservative inspiration of the NPM. However, the NPM is not wholly defined by neo-conservative prescription, since the new politics of the “left” also generally seeks to create more responsive, efficient, effective and accountable government and public administrations. This new politics is populist and defined around lifestyle, gender, moralistic, humanitarian and broad ecological concerns. Although there are collectivist strains, there is also strident individualism. Economic position does not have the same defining effects as with the Old Left. Indeed, political mobilization and action often occur outside the established political and other social institutions without participants holding ambitions to participate in these institutions or to capture them. Inextricably marbled in all of this has

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 14 been a ceaseless march towards greater rights and protections of individuals and groups within Canadian society.

This “new politics” of a redefined “left” has also resulted in new formulations of public administration. So-called “democratic administration” is framed, most particularly, in the light of popular insistence that governments more fully engage the citizenry in policy-fram- ing and that officialdom become more directly accountable to the citizenry. According to Lorne Sossin, “[d]emocratic administration ... raises the same fundamental questions, namely, how to transform the people from the object into the subject of government?”12 Democratic administration aspires to make the citizen the subject of government concern and activity through enhancing the citizen’s status in policy-making and envisions the public administrator as an animator of this vivification. Thus, democratic administration requires something different from the public administrator. This administrator, Janus-like, serves citizens and political officials in equal measure, to the extent that the citizenry becomes a second (direct and balancing) “source of authority, legitimacy, and policy direction.”13 In matters of citizen engagement, the democratic administrator facilitates public deliberation about policy, consults with citizens before reaching decisions, engages vulnerable citizens, fosters relationships of “mutuality and trust with citizens,” and is “directly responsible to those citizens who depend on their decisions.”14 Attention to the dependent is not a key feature of the new public management, with its market-based focus and its secondment of service production to other sectors.

The populist strain of the emerging new politics, the ethereal and highly recombinant character of new political-action organizations, and the general lack of integration of these organizations within the existing political systems have greatly increased imperatives for governments to consult broadly on policy and (more prosaically) service-delivery matters. New groups demand such consultation even as they hold themselves apart from formal political institutions. Similarly, the mobilized individual, who is often unaffiliated with any political-action organization, is enfranchised by new rights granted by the state (such as those providing access to information), demands greater consultation by government and accountability to the citizenry.

During the “New Millennium Reform Era,” reformers paid some attention to the imperatives of the new populism. Provinces selectively and varyingly made municipal government more transparent and enacted provisions making politicians and officials more openly accountable. For example, provincial government reformers sought to foster greater transparency through placing limits on in camera council meetings, requiring mandatory annual ratepayer meetings and by requiring more comprehensible municipal documentation through uniform statements of accounts. Publication of senior official salaries and tighter conflict-of-interest rules (relating to declaration of conflict) also promoted greater transparency. Provinces have either enacted special freedom-of-information legislation or brought municipalities under provincial information access legislation.

Provincial reformers also addressed public participation and engagement matters, although, again, the extent to which they have done so seems to have varied greatly from province to province. In some provinces, citizens have been given opportunities for direct

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 15 participation in local law-making through petitioning and plebiscite provisions. Increased requirements for mandatory citizen consultation have been written into legislation. For example, Quebec amended municipal legislation adding several public-consultation mechanisms, including specifying a process that allows citizens to make their opinions known to governmental officials through referendums on urban planning. Somewhat differently, reformer concerns over creating truly remote municipal government through massive con- solidations resulted in the creation of sub-municipal entities such as the Halifax Regional Municipality’s community committees and the new City of Montreal’s boroughs.

The emergence of the new information communication technologies (ICTs) is a final change-impelling force that merits mention. The Internet may have aided the emergence of the new politics and promoted the “iconization” of the individual. Commentators on the rise of e-democracy argue that the Internet has created “new public space” in which debates within the new politics and political mobilization occur. Information communication technology can be used to skirt traditional media and tradition political channels, and it is possible for politically minded and like-minded citizens to find one another through the new media (especially the Internet) and mobilize new political action organizations. Some argue that with the emergence of the Internet a new relationship is established between the ruled and their rulers that is more direct and communicative.15 This relationship is often referred to as e-governance, and optimists hold hope that it can help reverse a trend towards isolation and irrelevance of our traditional political institutions.

There is an administrative side of this as well. E-government, while a very elastic concept, has come to increasingly mean the practice of public administration through the application of ICTs. On the provision side of things, ICTs offer new opportunities for administrative efficiencies through such things as interface devices like smart cards, electronic turnstile and toll gate ticketing, electronic data transfer, and service-related interface in government to government (G2G), government to business/business to government (G2B/B2G), and government to citizen/citizen to government (G2C/C2G) transactions.16 This efficiency promise presumably drives public administrations towards the adoption of ICTs. The new technologies also promise greater convenience to the public. The asynchronous nature of Internet communications provides it with select advantages over synchronous communications regimes such as those involving the telephone. Organizationally, the new technologies provide public administrations with the possibility of creating virtual service centres that theoretically can approach the seamless service ideal championed by the new public management and, through this, more responsive and accessible governmental services.

Municipal government, of all the orders of Canadian government, may receive the greatest benefit from the new technologies in G2C and C2G transactions, since municipalities are the governments most involved in direct service delivery to the public and municipal institutions are the most open and affected by grassroots political action. This said, the influence of the new ICTs is less evident in reform prescriptions than the other forces discussed above; reforms aside, ICTs do appear to be affecting municipal innovations in public communications and service delivery. This point will be discussed below.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 16 The Emerging New Local Public Organization: Observations and Prospects

The forces briefly described above combine to promote the emergence of what three highly respected Canadian students of public administration have labelled as the “new public organization.”17 The new public organization (NPO) is revealed to be an anti- bureaucratic, transparent, engaging and humanist organizational form that appears to be more ideally suited to operating within the contemporary political, administrative and technological context.

There is a clear stamp of the new public management on the NPO. According to Kerna- ghan, Marson and Borins, the NPO is “citizen-centred,” insofar at it seeks to offer quality service to citizens (and clients/stakeholders) and is responsive to citizen demands for service. It is “competitive,” insofar as it seeks to perform well by the standard of private-sector service delivery, and revenue-driven, with programs financed as far as possible through cost-recovery. Results-orientation is another feature distinguishing the management culture of the organization, and this stands in contrast to the traditional or organization-centred, bureaucratic, public administration model that focuses on accountability for process. In all the above attributes, the NPO is heavily oriented towards the market or quasi-market model favoured by proponents of the new public management.

The NPO is change-oriented, which is to say that innovation, risk-taking and continuous improvement are hallmarks of the organizational culture and are characteristics that are supported by management (and presumably political officials). Most readers will recognize these features as borrowed from private-sector management concepts. Further, the NPO leadership and structure promotes “participative leadership,” establishing an empowering and caring milieu for employees, and collective action through consultation, cooperation and coordination. The structures are flat, with decentralized authority and control. Vertical lines of communication and permission give way to more complicated network relationships. Structures are “non-departmentalized,” insofar as programs are delivered by a wide variety of mechanisms.

Certain provincially mandated or permissive reforms have presumably facilitated the development of municipal NPOs. For example, the thrust of legislation providing greater opportunity for entrepreneurial administration and administrative flexibility relate directly to several of the above-mentioned characteristics. Manitoba’s efforts to encourage public enterprise is an example of provincial encouragement of entrepreneurialism. Alberta’s separation of policy and administration functions is another such innovation, insofar as it provides senior officials with authority to frame their organizations largely as they see fit. Semi-systematic queries by this writer into the effects of Alberta’s efforts to separate these functions have produced some interesting results. Chief administrative officers observe that the reforms have, in fact, been positive not only in strengthening the CAO role in relation to the municipal administrative organization but also in bringing greater discipline to the policy formulation process. Further, those consulted confirm that they possess greater flexibility to define the organization. Whether these observations reflect the broader experience within the Alberta municipal system is an unanswered question, as is the question

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 17 of whether these innovations have been and can be successfully diffused to other provincial jurisdictions. Provincial reforms aside, it is clear that municipalities across Canada have themselves adopted selected elements of service-oriented, results-oriented, and entrepreneurial NPO. This is evident from papers in this presentation, and in the particu- lars of certain practices registered on the Municipal Excellence Net web site.18

A central attribute of the new public organization is its orientation towards consultation. In this, the NPO takes its cue not only from the NPM but also from the putative democratic administration. In any event, as noted in the discussion of the new politics, the contemporary political climate, with its emphasis on greater transparency and accountability, makes it difficult to not engage the public. Provincially mandated or permitted consultative practices have undoubtedly promoted greater consultation and engagement, although hard evidence on the prevalence of these practices is absent and there is little research on the efficacy of mandated or permitted practices. A quick review of the Municipal Excellence Network’s descriptions of public consultation and feedback practices provides some insight into the current state of public engagement by municipal government in Alberta. Research essays included in Katherine Graham and Susan Phillips’ collection of essays on citizen engagement provide a broader Canada-wide perspective, notwithstanding the fact that some of the contributors raise doubts about the openness of consultation initiatives.19

The new public organization is also significantly committed to the use of the new information technologies to achieve its objectives. According to Kernaghan et al., “[information technology] is right at the core of post-bureaucratic public organizations in Canada.”20 A small amount of systematic research has been conducted on municipal web presence and ICT use. The results of these queries are perhaps of particular interest if for no other reason than they are among the few prevalence studies conducted at the municipal level that address a facet of new public organization practices. A 2001 survey of western Canadian municipalities of varying populations reveals that while all municipalities over 100,000 population have a web presence the percentages drop as municipal populations become smaller. Ninety per cent of medium-size municipalities (10,000 to 99,000 population) were on-line, while seventy-one per cent of small municipalities (under 10,000 population) had web sites.21 The same Canada West Foundation survey found that western Cana- dian municipalities offered a variety of common “transactional” services to the public over the Internet. These include the purchases of municipal goods and services or using the Internet to acquire licences, reservations, or to report on various matters. However, while larger authorities were more likely to provide such services, in no instance did over half the larger authorities offer any given service on the CWF’s list of services. Moreover, although small municipalities provided the range of services (save parking ticket pay- ments), in no instance did over seven per cent of the cohort produce any one service on the list. Collectively, these results underscore the still-limited extent to which Canadian municipalities were producing transactional services in 2001.

In matters of administrator ICT use, unpublished survey work produced by researchers at the University of Alberta in 2001 provides additional insight into the state of municipal e- government. Results of a national survey conducted by my Government Studies organization focusing on municipal chief administrative officers employed by authorities with pop-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 18 ulations less than 100,000 reveal that ninety-nine per cent used computers at work and ninety-four per cent had Internet access at work.22 These impressive statistics were significantly diminished, however, with reports that forty-five per cent of the respondents possess low-speed Internet connections that effectively prevent them from accessing the Internet’s full potential. Still, ninety-two per cent use the Internet for business communications. Municipal administrators report heavy use of standard search engines and frequent visits to web sites – ninety per cent in both instances. By contrast, few municipal officials (eighteen per cent) use the Internet to buy or sell services or products.

The use of ICTs to conduct business and to engage the public clearly forms part of contemporary municipal administration practice. Yet, even admitting that the pan-Canadian and regional results cited above as rapidly becoming dated, it would seem that many municipal organizations have not placed these technologies at the core of their operations. What implications these observations have for the larger unfolding of the new public organization is unclear, but, if anything, the findings suggest that while we know something about what practices might define an NPO we know relatively little about the true prevalence of fully realized NPOs in the municipal sector. This lacunae in our scientifi- cally derived understanding of Canadian municipal public administration is part of a larger gulf of ignorance, for, truthfully, there has been little systematic study of the full practice of municipal administration in Canada and little study of institutional developments. My point is underscored by the regrettable fact that Kernaghan et al. provide only one extended case study on NPO innovation in the municipal sector – the Town of Ajax, Ontario – and passing mention of service improvement initiatives in major centres such as Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Oakville and Halifax.

A Call for Additional Research into Innovations and Practice

There is something of an undeclared and gentle hubris found in this paper and I “out” it here. James Iain Gow’s useful survey of how administrative innovations are diffused within Canadian public administration provides convincing evidence that the principal media for promulgating academic scholarship (books and journals) are important but by no means the greatest sources of innovative ideas.23 More important to officials are exchanges among senior officials and senior officials themselves, commissions of inquiry, scientific and professional meetings, and the contribution that interest and advocacy groups make to administrator knowledge. Indeed, Gow characterizes public administrators’ adoption of innovations as “pragmatic” and their regard for theory and broad conceptual schemes as relatively low.

Gow’s data and deductions have given me slight pause in proposing greater investment in systematic research into municipal administration practice. Still, on balance, the investment should be made and more research in local public administration practice should be initiated and concluded. Greater formal inquiry into Canadian local public administration practice is required if for no other reason than there is so little of it. To return to my refrain, while we understand some features (perhaps many features) of new practice innovation and can normatively define key elements of the new public organization, we really

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 19 do not have a grasp on the extent and character of practice innovation. Further, we do not understand many relationships and the casual dynamics of the relationships. For example, it is by no means clear that cohesively conceived and executed new public organizations exist in the real world of municipal administration, notwithstanding the apparent mono- coque-like solidity to the conceptual construct. That is, it may be that there are only parts. The relationships between reform drivers, reform and new practice are also largely uncharted, given the absence of solid social science inquiry into these matters.

Pragmatic men and women in municipal administration may find social science probing the full casual relationships only of passing interest, but even they are certain to wonder about how provincial fiat and permissive reform has influenced municipal practice and performance. In fact, given the hubbub over amalgamation and other provincially implemented reforms, a little social science concentrating on the practical results might be wel- comed by practitioners and reformers alike. Whether the academic enterprise is of immediate burning interest to practitioners is perhaps beside the point, insofar as the value of social science research is often revealed only after publication and debate; it is important to remember that researchers often stumble upon important discoveries quite by accident.

In any event, it is clear that academic work does influence practice even if this influence is often indirect, flowing through a diffusion chain of intermediaries. And, it is likely that the influence on Canadian municipal public administration will be greater if academic inquiry increases. On the one hand, there will simply be more results available, and presumably results that are of relevance. On the other hand, the requirements of a more active campaign will bring greater numbers of academics and practitioners into contact. Presumably, increased contact will result in greater mutual regard and interest among researchers and practitioners.

Notes

1 Kenneth Kernaghan, Brian Marson and Sandford Borins, The New Public Organization. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration – No. 24 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2000). 2 Joseph Garcea and Edward LeSage, Municipal Reforms in Canada (Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press Canada, forthcoming). Unless otherwise indicated, references to municipal reforms made in this chapter are drawn from papers produced by various authors in the forthcoming collection. 3 Donald J. Savoie, Globalization and Governance (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development, 1993). 4 Nancy J. Adler, “Globalization, Government and Competitiveness.” The John L. Manion Lecture, February 1994, Canadian Centre for Management Development, Ottawa; Bryne Purchase and Ronald Hirshhorn, Searching for Good Governance: Government and Competitiveness Project. Final Report (Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, 1994). 5 Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, “The municipal reshuffle: The Canadian search for an

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 20 efficient model of local government – Comparing the reforms of Alberta, Ontario, and British Columbia,” Journal of Canadian Studies (forthcoming). 6 Andrew Sancton, Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government (Montreal and Kingston: Published for the City of Montreal by McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000). 7 Municipal Government Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. M-26, s. 201(2). 8 Donald J. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, and Mulroney: In Search of a New Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). 9 Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980); James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keyes (New York: Academic Press, 1977). 10 David Siegel, “Municipal Reform in Ontario,” in Garcea and LeSage, Municipal Reforms in Canada, Chapter 6. 11 Peter Aucoin, “Beyond the ‘New’ in Public Management Reform in Canada: Catching the Next Wave?,” in Christopher Dunn, ed., The Handbook of Canadian Public Administration (Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press Canada, 2002), pp. 37–52. 12 Lorne Sossin, “Democratic Administration,” in Ibid., p. 79. 13 Ibid., p. 87. 14 Ibid., p. 89. 15 Reg Alcock and Donald G. Lenihan, Opening the E-Government File: Governing in the 21st Century (Ottawa: Centre for Collaborative Government, 2001). 16 Sandford Borins, “On the frontier of electronic governance: A report on the United States and Canada,” International Review of Administrative Sciences 68, no. 2 (June 2002), pp. 199–211. 17 Kernaghan, Marson and Borins, The New Public Organization. 18 See the Municipal Excellence Net web site at http://www.menet.ab.ca. 19 Katherine A. Graham and Susan D. Phillips, eds., Citizen Engagement: Lessons in Participation from Local Government. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration – No. 22 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1998). 20 Kernaghan, Marson and Borins, The New Public Organization, p. 229. 21 Robin Downey and Loleen Berdahl, E-Municipalities in Western Canada (Calgary: Canada West Foundation, 2001). 22 Government Studies, “National Local Government Survey Results” [unpublished paper]. Data available from the Government Studies, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta web site [email protected] (2002). 23 James Iain Gow, Learning from Others: Administrative Innovations Among Canadian Governments. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration – No. 16 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1994).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 21 CHAPTER 2

URBAN PLANNING UNDER GLOBALIZATION

David Amborski Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning Ryerson University

In trying to identify what is new in urban planning several perspectives may be used. Some might argue that very little is new and that planning tends to repeat itself in cycles that have exhibited themselves in themes such as neo-traditional planning, which was popularized by Andres Duany in Seaside, Florida, and which has been followed in North America in a number of American and Canadian jurisdictions. Ontario examples include Oak Park in Oakville and Cornell in Markham. Other arguments along these lines would be attempts to decentralize growth in a form that might reflect the British New Town movements, of the use of open space or greenbelts that are reminiscent of the older British approach. Examples of this would include the Ottawa greenbelt, more recently the protection of the Oakridges Moraine in the Toronto area and the new provincial Liberal government’s greenbelt policy initiative.

On the other hand, some would argue that there are new influences, approaches and trends that must be considered and addressed in thinking about how to plan and in undertaking planning applications. This can be identified both in how we go about planning in our schools of urban and regional planning and in terms of the planning that is actually undertaken. Before addressing specifically what some might consider to be “new” in theory and practice, it is necessary to consider one pervasive trend that has influenced how we view, analyse, and ultimately undertake planning for urban areas. This trend is “globalization.”

The Context: Globalism and Cities

Michael Fenn suggests that there are a number of aspects of globalization that have an impact on municipal government. He suggests the following ways in which global trends have manifested themselves at the local government level:

é The global economy puts a premium on efficient markets. é Globalization affects communication and is radically altering the world of print and broadcast media. é Globalization alters the patterns of social interaction and breaks down traditional affiliations. é Globalization ignores provincial and state boundaries and transcends geographical and community isolation.1

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 22 The most important themes articulated in this context relate to the need for efficient markets to compete in a global economy, the impacts on communication on a broad basis, and aspects that relate to interaction, affiliation and the mobility of people into Canada via immigration. Efficient markets have led to the creation of large government units via amalgamation, which has been a trend across Canada. The creation of new, large organizations has helped cities compete for economic development in the global marketplace. An example of this would be the efforts of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance to promote economic development. Part of the recruitment for new firms and industries is the attraction of a high quality of life that company executives will find desirable. This requires efficient and sustainable residential development and the presence of good cultural facilities and activities that provide recreation and educational pursuits. As will be discussed below, this is not only important for the executives who make the location decision but also for the attraction of “knowledge workers” who may be necessary for certain types of firms.

Communication globalization – easy access to the means of communication and the growth of worldwide organizations that interact easily on these bases – is also important for sharing ideas related to cities and potential solutions to urban problems. We are all aware of the ease of access to information via the Internet and the fact that almost any government and their departments have information and reports available on their web sites. Municipalities interact with each other through international organizations, conferences and meetings. An example is Proyecto Cities based in Madrid, in which over twenty cities from all continents participate in information exchanges via written documents, “Learning from Cities” lectures, and a “City Conference” for the exchange of information. There has also been increased intercontinental interaction in academic urban planning. The Associa- tion of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the Association of European Schools of Plan- ning held their first joint conference in Oxford, England, in 1991, followed by Toronto in 1996, and Leuven, Belgium, in 2003. In addition, there was a world congress of planning academics in Shanghai in 2002, with another planned for Mexico City in 2006.

In addition to increased international capital flows across borders, there has also been a labour flow via immigration into a number of countries. Immigrants coming to Canada have tended to locate in large centres, especially the multicultural cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Consequently, planning must address multicultural issues; this affects not only how we undertake planning itself but also the way in which citizen engagement is undertaken.

Having commented on the context within which planning occurs as well as the trend in globalism, the question must still be addressed: “Is anything new in planning?” To answer this question it is necessary to look separately at the context within which planning occurs and then, secondly, to look within planning itself as an activity of government. The trend of globalism has been an important exogenous force affecting cities and has consequently required a response in planning. If we examine planning as an activity we should examine both the theory that informs planning and the actual activities of planning practice. How- ever, to the extent that theory informs practice, these two aspects of planning are con- nected.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 23 Planning Theory: Recent Trends

A few relatively recent trends in planning theory can be identified. Yet it is debatable if these theories really are new or if they simply reflect renewed emphases. One focus of planning theory is learning from practice and modelling practice. Another is the focus on alternative dispute resolution as a way of resolving planning issues.

Learning from practice was first popularized by Donald Schön in his classic 1983 book The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. A number of eminent academic specialists in planning theory have focused on learning and applying planning theory based on practice. One of the leading writers in this area is John Forester, who, in addition to his well-known work Planning in the Face of Power, published Learning from Practice: Democratic Deliberations and the Promise of Planning Practice and The Delib- erate Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Processes. He has been a leader in making the connection between planning practice and theory. Other colleagues such as Howell Baum and Charles Hoch have also built on these themes and approaches.2

A recent body of literature has been directed at current practitioners and those about to enter practice. This literature includes articles on planning practice written by practitioners and articles on theory directed at practitioners. An example of the former is the book entitled Planners on Planning, in which the contributors convey their experience in terms of lessons from practice and provide keys and principles for success and overcoming various types of difficulties encountered in practice. An example of the latter issue is a book by long-time author on planning theory, Michael Brooks, entitled Planning Theory for Prac- titioners. Brooks’ audiences are professionals working in planning and students in applied professional planning programs.3

A final area in the theory of practice is the concept of alternative dispute resolution. This in planning practice has focused on facilitation, mediation and negotiation. The use of alternative dispute resolution techniques to address planning issues was first extensively developed and used in planning by educator Lawrence Suskind at the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology. In addition to teaching, he has applied his skills in practice. Suskind’s initial focus in writing and practice was on environmental disputes; this, however, has been expanded to address the full range of planning disputes. His interest in this field has led to the development of the Consensus Building Institute and the Center for Dispute Resolution, which undertakes training and consulting regarding dispute resolution. These skills are now recognized to be an important asset for professional planners. Professional development seminars now address these skills, and most planning schools offer courses or modules on this topic.4

This approach has been applied in a number of areas in the Ontario government. In the early 1990s, the newly elected NDP government created the Office of the Provincial Facil- itator to address local planning issues. Other examples include the use of this process to resolve annexation issues for local governments, pre-hearing mediation for the Ontario Municipal Board, and, more recently, in resolving differences in property-tax assessment appeals.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 24 This discussion demonstrates how recent trends in teaching, research and writing in planning theory have focused on and have become closely integrated with planning practice.

Planning Practice

Three areas of planning practice are either considered new or have recently evolved to have a new or stronger focus. These include the general topic of sustainability, a focus on health-related issues in planning decisions, and the notion of how culture and planning might influence them, both in terms of how to plan for and/or support cultural facilities, programs and ideals and how to plan for and with a multicultural population.

Sustainability (Environmental and Fiscal)

The concept of sustainability or, more specifically, sustainable development has over a number of years, evolved out of the environmental movement. It includes the application of applied ecology to ensure that urban growth is sustainable. While this movement has been embraced by academics, planning schools and professional planners, several organizations, such as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) and the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy (NTREE), have also strongly supported this approach through research and policy development. The NTREE has extended the concept of sustainability in its research and policy development to include fiscal sustainability in terms of tax subsidy and expenditure policy that may be undertaken by all three levels of government.5 Despite having its roots in the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the sustainability movement was popularized and supported by the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

The CMHC has not only supported research in the area of sustainability but has also established the Sustainable Development Working Group. The Federation of Canadian Munici- palities has also supported the sustainable development initiative and held a conference addressing the topic in February 2004.

One of the early results of the concept of sustainable development were programs and policies in growth management that emerged in the United State in the early 1990s.6 This took the form of state policies and initiatives in a number of jurisdictions including New Jersey, Florida and Oregon. Oregon’s urban containment policy is well known as being that state’s major central policy. In the Canadian context, a number of Ontario municipalities undertook growth management studies to determine where growth should occur, at what densities, and how the urban boundaries should be adjusted in their official plans. The difference in the Canadian and American approaches to growth management is that the latter approach to studies and policies was generally state-initiated, while the former was initiated by municipalities.

In the later 1990s in the U.S., “Growth Management” evolved into “Smart Growth.” As with growth management, Smart Growth was undertaken at the state level and espoused sustainable development principles, goals and objectives. Smart Growth was a term origi-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 25 nally coined in the State of Maryland to encompass legislation that addressed a range of issues related to sprawl, protection of farmland and the environment, support for public transit, the provision of affordable housing, and a range of related issues. As Smart Growth policies were adopted in other state jurisdictions, it became clear that the initiatives were generally headed by some form of champion, either the governor or specified state agency, and that the policies tended to move away from the more traditional regulatory approach to a more incentive-based system.

In the Canadian context, Smart Growth was embraced in the provinces of British Colum- bia and Ontario. The Progressive Conservative government billed theirs a “made in Ontario” approach when they established the Smart Growth Secretariat as a lead agency in 2001. It is important to note that as all provincial parties embraced some version of Smart Growth policies as part of their platforms in the last election, the victorious Liberal Party in Ontario has maintained the Smart Growth Secretariat. When the PC government began this initiative, many people questioned their sincerity towards trying to achieve the objectives of Smart Growth principles that have been adopted in North American jurisdictions. The reason for this doubt was that, in the previous several years, the government had adopted a number of policies and initiatives that appeared contrary to Smart Growth principles. These included cutting provincial funding to affordable housing and public transit via their local services realignment policy. Currently, Smart Growth documents have been prepared for all five of the Smart Growth councils that were established throughout the Province of Ontario, with the Central Ontario panel addressing Smart Growth issues for the GTA.7

When Ontario announced its intent to pursue Smart Growth, a number of municipalities, both local and regional, began a bottom-up approach to Smart Growth by preparing their own Smart Growth initiative plans and policies. This occurred, for example, in the regional municipalities of Niagara, Peel and York.

Health Issues

There has been increasing literature and research regarding land-use planning, sprawl and “built form” in relation to health. Although some may view this as a new application for research and planning, health considerations have long been a concern of urban planning. The rationale for early zoning by-laws was in part based on health objectives, including protection against the spread of disease and fires, as well as ensuring that dwelling units had adequate air flow/ventilation and natural light.

Recent health concerns are tied to the sustainable development movement and to environmental and pollution issues discussed at the 1992 World Earth Summit in Rio and the Kyoto Protocol. However, there has also been a growing concern and related research into the impact of “built form” and current development patterns on people’s health. An article in the American Journal of Public Health sets out a research agenda for the impacts of land use and community design on health.8 Furthermore, there has been an increasing focus in the fields of urban planning and public administration. An example of the litera-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 26 ture in this field is the book by Lawrence Frank et al, Health and Community Design: The Impact of Built Environment on Physical Activity.9 Within the field of public administration, there has been concern regarding health in a broader sense, which has also manifested itself in using health measures to determine “quality of life” for cities. A recent example of health as a focus of discussion in public administration is the seminar held by IPAC in 2003 entitled “Competitive Cities, Healthy Communities: Charting Collabora- tion.”10 Health has also been identified as a priority for research funding on the agenda of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Consequently, the CMHC plans to start funding and initiating research in this area.

Culture and Planning

Under the title of culture and planning, two issues on the policy agenda have emerged in recent years. The first addresses the issues of multiculturalism and diversity, as a result of immigration, in a number of our municipal jurisdictions. The second issue relates to the need to ensure that the facilities and institutions present in municipalities continue to attract dynamic people who will enhance the knowledge base and creativity of the jurisdiction.

Because of the significant volume of immigration in recent years, a number of Canada’s cities are very multicultural by world standards. It is imperative that multicultural needs in terms of both planning processes and outcomes be addressed. Not only has this occurred in actual planning practice in many jurisdictions but there is also a growing body of literature analysing this issue. One of the first such articles in planning was “Pluralism planning for multicultural societies,” by Canadian Mohammed Qadeer, published in the Journal of the American Planning Association. In the U.S., Michael Burayidi edited Urban Planning in a Multicultural Society, but more recent work has been funded and published by the Joint Center for Excellence on Immigration and Human Settlements. In the Toronto area, Beth Moore Milroy and Marcia Wallace have written “Ethnoracial Diversity and Planning Practices in the GTA.”11 This literature addresses process and how to provide services and facilities for minority groups.

Recently, there has also been a focus on the necessity of having cultural facilities and amenities if urban areas are to be successful from an economic development and other perspectives. Richard Florida has put this theme forward as the “talent model,” which argues that knowledge workers, who comprise the creative class, pursue employment opportunities based on the quality of place. These people seek amenities for arts and culture in the urban areas where culture is characterized by vitality, diversity and tolerance. Florida’s research has the potential to inform political decisions regarding education, culture, arts, immigration and settlement, as well as local cultural planning. In the Canadian context, his work and application has been advanced through work jointly undertaken with Meric Gertler, as well as with several other Canadian writers.12

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 27 Conclusions

It is clear that nothing is actually new in planning. Rather, new emphases and foci on different planning issues and approaches come to the top of the planning/policy agenda at various times. This leads to new studies, applications and approaches. Having said this, conclusions can be drawn regarding the urban/planning context, planning theory, and planning practice.

With regard to the urban context, the focus on globalization is sustaining and here to stay as communication is shrinking the world in a number of ways. Furthermore, immigration and trade arrangements such as NAFTA and the EU are encouraging the flow of capital and goods. Consequently, planning approaches and policies, especially those that relate to economic development, business locations and associated transportation movements, as well as planning for multiculturalism and further immigration, must consider this trend.

Future teaching and writing in planning theory will depend on the writings and approaches undertaken by academics in planning schools. As there has been significant support for interconnecting theory and practice by a number of the leaders in this field, who are also educating future academics, one might expect this interconnection to continue to hold a central place in planning theory. Furthermore, professional planning schools today wish to be relevant in terms of real-world practice, where most of their graduates seek employment. Schools also provide coveted professional accreditation and/or recognition.

One might expect that planning practice will continue to respond to the globalism in its varied forms of economic (development), social and institutional structures. This will include the above-noted areas of multiculturalism, health and sustainable development. Sustainable development will continue to be an important concept, either in terms of environmental issues based on sustainable development or the more complex issues related to management of Smart Growth. However, few approaches are really new. In most cases, they may be recycled from previous eras or they may be variations on previous approaches.

Notes

1 Michael Fenn, “The changing role of the municipal sector,” The Canadian Tax Journal 50, no. 1 (2002), pp. 147–55. 2 Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983); John Forester, Planning in the Face of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); John Forester, Learning from Practice: Democractic Deliberations and the Promise of Planning Practice (College Park, Md.: University of Maryland Press, 1997); John Forester, The Deliberate Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Processes (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999); Howell S. Baum, “Social science, social work, and surgery: Teaching what students need to practice planning,” Journal of the American Planning Association 63, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 179–89; and Charles Hoch, What Planners Do: Power,

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 28 Politics, and Persuasion (Chicago: Planners Press – American Planning Association Press, 1994). 3 Bruce McClendon and Anthony Catanese, eds., Planners on Planning: Leading Planners Offer Real Life Lessons on What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why (San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers, 1996); Michael P. Brooks, Planning Theory for Practitioners (Chicago: Planners Press, 2002). 4 Lawrence Suskind, “Using Assisted Negotiation to Settle Land Use Disputes: A Guidebook for Public Officials” [unpublished document]. Cambridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1999. 5 David Amborski and Steven Webber, “Ecological Fiscal Reform and Urban Sustainability: Case Study of the Ontario Provincial Government and GTA Municipalities.” Paper prepared for the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, Ottawa, 2003. 6 Jay Stein, Classic Readings in Urban Planning (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995). 7 Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel, Shape the Future, Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel: Final Report (Toronto: Queen’s Printer, 2003). 8 Andrew L. Dannenberg et al., “The impact of community design and land use choices on public health: A scientific research agenda,” American Journal of Public Health 93 (September 2003), pp. 1500–1508. 9 Lawrence Frank et al., Health and Community Design: The Impact of Built Environment on Physical Activity (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003). 10 Patrice A. Dutil [rapporteur], Competitive Cities, Healthy Communities: Charting Collaboration: Report on a Symposium in Western Canada. New Directions – Number 12 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2003). 11 Mohammed A. Qadeer, “Pluralistic planning for multicultural cities,” Journal of the American Planning Association 63, no. 4 (Autumn 1997), pp. 481–94; Michael A. Burayidi, ed., Planning in a Multicultural Society (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000); Beth Moore Milroy and Marcia Wallace, “Ethnoracial Diversity and Planning Practices in the Greater Toronto Area.” CERIS Working Paper No. 18, Toronto, 2002. 12 Richard L. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class and how it is Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002); Meric Gertler and Richard Florida et al., “Competing on Creativity: Placing Ontario’s Cities in North American Context.” Paper prepared for the Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation and the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, 2002.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 29 page 30 blank PART II

INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND STRATEGY page 32 blank CHAPTER 3

THE INTEGRATED BUSINESS-PLANNING PROCESS: THE CASE OF OAKVILLE, ONTARIO

M. Joann Chechalk Chief Administrative Officer, Town of Oakville

Ian Smith Partner, Mercer Delta Consulting

The challenge faced by many municipalities is to link their overall strategic direction and priorities, usually developed through extensive consultation with the public and staff, to specific business plans and budget allocations that will support the achievement of targeted outcomes. The Town of Oakville is no exception. Our challenge was to develop a process that provides the necessary linkages and produces the required outcomes while building the commitment and support of council and staff for the overall strategic direction. This chapter summarizes our experience and some of the lessons we have learned in developing what came to be known as the “Integrated Business Planning Process,” or IBP for short.

Background

The Town of Oakville is strategically located between Toronto and Hamilton on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Canada’s economic heartland of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). It is part of the Regional Municipality of Halton, along with the communities of Milton, Halton Hills, and Burlington.

Oakville provides all the advantages of a well-serviced urban community yet retains a small-town ambiance. This historic town, founded in 1827, has preserved its rich heritage while experiencing significant growth over the past twenty years. With an average three per cent annual growth rate, Oakville’s current population is 146,300, which is expected to grow to 215,000 by 2016. Its average household income is estimated at $89,000, which is about $25,000 more than the GTA average. Oakville’s full-time staff complement of approximately 800 serves over 50,000 households and 4,000 businesses throughout the community.

Mercer Delta, a global consulting firm that focuses on the planning, design and leadership of organizational change, has been working with Oakville on various initiatives, including the development of its strategic direction. The firm’s work includes strategic/business planning, organizational effectiveness, and change management. It has worked extensively with all levels of government, including, at the municipal level, the

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 33 • cities of Brampton, Burlington, Hamilton, Ottawa, Toronto and Windsor; the • towns of Markham and Oakville; and the • regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel and York.

Overview of Integrated Business Planning

The council and senior management of the Town of Oakville have been working over the last two years to set its strategic direction and priorities. As with most municipalities, reaching agreement on the strategic priorities for the municipality, given the multitude of stakeholders and special-interest groups, has not been easily achieved. However, having reached this consensus, the greater challenge has been to align the town’s strategic direction and priorities with the business priorities and budget allocations of each department.

The departments within the town are responsible for the delivery of a variety of programs and services. Ultimately, that is what the public sees. It is critical that these programs and services be aligned with Oakville’s strategic direction and priorities.

Oakville had existing processes for business-planning, budgeting and performance management. This initiative began with an assessment of these processes, and there were a number of strengths on which to build. For example, the town had received the Distin- guished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Financial Officers Association (GFOA) of the United States and Canada in the previous year. Not being complacent with its successes, Oakville recognized that there were a number of opportunities to improve the existing processes.

Concurrent with the internal assessment, the practices of organizations that have received recognition for the quality of their business-planning and/or budgeting process were examined. The organizations reviewed included

Canada United States • Calgary, Alberta • Charlotte, North Carolina • Edmonton, Alberta • Fairfax County, Virginia • Region of Halton, Ontario • Jacksonville, Florida • Maple Ridge, British Columbia • Phoenix, Arizona • Regina, Saskatchewan • Scottsdale, Arizona • Region of Waterloo, Ontario International • Region of York, Ontario • Christchurch, New Zealand

Our analysis of these organizations identified several key themes:

• The explicit linkage of goals throughout the organization and in the performance management system ensures alignment in strategy implementation. For example, Jacksonville’s business-planning process cascades the mayor’s “Priority Initiatives” to ensure that all parts of the city government are moving in the same direction. The business plan to achieve these “Priority Initiatives” drives budget decision-making.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 34 • Many of the municipalities we reviewed set their business plans, budgets, and even their committee structure by program or focus area. For example, Charlotte has structured its committee system around the council’s focus areas. Focus-area cabi- nets, composed of department heads whose business units directly affect or influence a particular focus area, meet to establish and review plans to achieve council’s goals in the focus area. • All of the American cities reviewed have established strong performance measurement systems. Approaches that are particularly worth noting are the Phoenix city manager’s executive report and the “balanced scorecard” approach used in Charlotte. Of the Canadian municipalities reviewed, Edmonton and Maple Ridge are leaders. • The leaders in performance measurement drive their efforts based on a sound understanding of citizen and community needs. Scottsdale uses a Citizens Budget Review Committee to help council set the budget and program priorities.

The Integrated Business Planning Process has been designed to cascade Oakville’s corporate goals, objectives and strategic priorities into departmental business plans and individual performance plans in order to successfully achieve targeted outcomes (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cascading the Corporate Goals, Objectives and Strategic Priorities

CorporateCorporate GoalsGoals StrategicStrategic PrioritiesPriorities CorporateCorporate ObjectivesObjectives

CommissionCommission AreasAreas ofof FocusFocus

Department 1 Department 2 Department x Objectives Objectives Objectives

DepartmentDepartment Department 1 Department 2 Department x BusinessBusiness Action Plan Action Plan Action Plan PlansPlans Department 1 Department 2 Department x Budget Budget Budget

Commission Individual Business Plans Performance Plans Town Business Plan

Business Results

The following are the key elements of the process:

• It seamlessly links the key elements of the strategy, business-planning, budgeting and performance management processes. • It confirms the strategic priorities at the beginning of the process. • It involves and promotes effective communication with all stakeholders. • It covers a rolling three-year planning horizon focused on targeted outcomes. • There is regular feedback on performance against plans.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 35 • It links business priorities to individual performance management. • It ensures that departments own the content of their business plans and budgets, including the achievement of the results. • It establishes a single point of accountability to manage the process and provide ongoing support.

And, perhaps most importantly, under the IBP, decision-making and resource allocation is driven by the corporate direction and priorities of the town, rather than by the budget process.

The IBP follows an annual cycle, as shown in Figure 2. The inner ring outlines the four key components and the deliverables in the process, while the outer ring shows how the public is actively and consistently engaged. Consultation with the public will be governed by, and conform to, the town’s stakeholder engagement strategy.

Figure 2. Overview of the Integrated Business Planning and Consultation Process

Set Strategic Direction Citizen Survey Jun 200x + 1/Jun 200x Community Dialogue Sessions & Feedback LongLong-Term Term Financial Forecast Goals & Priorities Objectives & Measures Environmental Scan Corp. & DeptDept. Results

Review & Develop & Monitor Approve Business/ Performance Plans Dec. 200x + 1 Jul 200x – Dec 200x

Town Bus. Plan Implement Against DeptDept. BusinessBusiness PlansPlans Agreed Plan - Corp,Corp., Dept. Dept. & & Ind. Ind. Individual Performance Plans Community Dialogue Sessions, Business Plan & Councillors’ Ward Newsletters: Budget Sessions Implement Business Plans & Budgets Jan 200x+1 / Dec 200x Public Involvement & Communications

Each of the four key components of IBP is described in more detail below.

1. Set strategic direction.

There are several key steps in setting strategic direction for the town. This component of the process involves senior staff working together and with council to understand Oakville’s operating environment, specifically trends and pressures, and its performance over the past year. This work culminates in the development of the corporate strategic direction, which guides the development of commission and department business plans

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 36 (see Figure 3). The major sections in the corporate strategic direction document are outlined in Appendix A at the end of this chapter.

Figure 3. Key Steps and Accountabilities in Setting the Strategic Direction

Lead Accountabilities Steps

4 Council 6 IssueIssue 7 ConductConduct ReviewReview withwith Corporate Community Corporate 2 BusinessBusiness Community StrategicStrategic PlanningPlanning StakeholdersStakeholders CAO/Town Manager DirectionDirection ConductConduct Workshop:Workshop: BusinessBusiness CouncilCouncil PlanningPlanning Commissioners Workshop:Workshop: SeniorSenior StaffStaff

Directors

1 3 5 DevelopDevelop IssueIssue SynthesizeSynthesize DraftDraft Strategic BackgroundBackground resultsresults StrategicStrategic Services/Finance ReportsReports DirectionDirection

Target Timeline May June

2. Develop and approve business / performance plans.

In this component of the IBP, the business plans (including budgets) and performance plans are developed. Council’s corporate goals and strategic priorities are cascaded into commission strategic directions, departmental business plans, and individual performance plans. The departmental business plans are summarized into commission business plans, which are consolidated into the town business plan. At the conclusion of this component, council reviews, makes changes and approves the town’s business plan (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Key Steps and Accountabilities in Developing Business Plans

Lead Accountabilities Steps 15 CouncilCouncil ApprovalApproval ofof Council 8 BusinessBusiness PlansPlans UpdateUpdate BudgetBudget Committee/ • Council Committee/ 14 CouncilCouncil • Budget Comm. BudgetBudget CommitteeCommittee Corporate ReviewReview Strategic 13 Direction 7 Review & ConfirmConfirm Review & CAO/Town Manager Priorities RecommendRecommend Priorities Plans ExecutiveExecutive Plans 1 CommitteeCommittee DetermineDetermine 3 Commissioners AreasAreas ofof FocusFocus 6 10 ConductConduct ConfirmConfirm Develop Business Develop Business PrioritiesPriorities ConsolidatedConsolidated PlanningPlanning SettingSetting Commission Workshop - Commission Workshop - WorkshopWorkshop -- PlansPlans Directors/ CommissionCommission DeptDept Managers Prepare for 2 Prepare for 12 BusinessBusiness 4 9 16 PlanningPlanning PreparePrepare DraftDraft DraftDraft FinalizeFinalize Individual Individual WorkshopWorkshop Dept/SectionDept/Section FinalizeFinalize DraftDraft Individual Individual Performance Performance BusinessBusiness BusinessBusiness PlansPlans Performance Performance PlansPlans PlansPlans PlansPlans

5 11 Prepare Finalize Plan Finance/ Prepare Finalize Plan ConsolidatedConsolidated forfor ReviewReview andand Strategic Services FinancialsFinancials ApprovalApproval Target Timeline July – Aug.Sept. Oct. Nov. – Dec.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 37 The commission strategic direction is the output of step 1 in Figure 4, “determine areas of focus.” The commissioner discusses it with the department directors during the commission business-planning workshop. The major sections in the commission strategic direction document are outlined in Appendix B at the end of this chapter.

There are three different levels of detail in the business plans / budgets produced during IBP. The level of detail is consolidated as the plans move up the organization. This can be seen from the contents of the plan documents, which are also outlined in Appendix B.

3. Implement business plans.

Once business plans have been approved, the commissions and departments proceed to implement their approved business plans.

If council requests change in the approved business plans, which necessitates a realloca- tion of resources, the plans will potentially be modified and performance measures adjusted. The impacts of these changes, including the postponement of work previously approved by council, will be reported to council.

4. Review and monitor business plans.

Reviewing performance is more than just comparing financial results to the budget. It must focus on the goals and objectives established in the corporate strategic direction.

Plan-review meetings (town, commission, department, section) should be held at least once every quarter, using existing meetings/forums where possible.

Plan-review can lead to amendments being made to plans and issues being flagged for further action.

Since the Town of Oakville’s Performance Strategy and Compensation Program (TOPS) is tied to these business-plan outcomes, it is essential that changes in expectations are incorporated and reviewed so that annual compensation reviews have no surprises.

Demonstration of Cascading of Corporate Goals

To illustrate the cascading of corporate goals down to departmental business plans and to individual performance plans, an example (an extraction from an actual document) has been developed in Figure 5 that cascades the corporate goal of “Service Delivery Excel- lence” within the building services department. “Service Delivery Excellence” is defined as follows: “To be a leader in the planning and delivery of municipal services which meet the needs and expectations of the community.” One of the corporate objectives for this goal is “To increase the quality of service provided by all functions/areas within the Town over the next three years.”

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 38 The commission strategic direction sets the commission mission and vision and identifies the corporate goals, objectives and strategic priorities on which the commission will focus (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Linking Corporate and Commission Goals and Objectives – An Example

Corporate objectives: Commission objectives: service-delivery service-delivery excellence excellence 4. To increase the quality of service Same 4a. To increase the quality of service provided by all functions/areas 4a. provided by all functions/areas within the town over the next three 4a. within the commission over the next years. 4a. three years. Commission- 4b. To evaluate and implement mecha- specific 4b. nisms to achieve greater integration 4b. of service delivery across planning 4b. and development

The departmental business plan identifies the commission goals, objectives and strategic priorities on which the department will focus.

Figure 6. Linking Commission and Departmental Objectives – An Example

Commission objectives: Building services objectives: service- service-delivery excellence delivery excellence 4a. To increase the quality of service Tailor 4iii to accelerate permit issuance to provided by all functions/areas department meet the mandated targets in Bill

within the commission over the 124 by 2004 next three years. 4iii to implement IT to improve customer service and reduce manual effort Some of these departmental objectives 4iii to ensure all staff are fully qualified may apply to multiple commission to apply revised building code objectives

The departmental action plan describes how the objectives will be achieved (Figure 7).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 39 Figure 7. Developing Departmental Action Plans – An Example

Department objective Performance measures To accelerate permit issuance to meet the % decisions within mandated time-frames mandated targets in Bill 124 by 2004 (per permit type) Action plan Key milestones and dates Develop process improvement approach – Recommendations and action plan developed – building services, other town staff and other first quarter 2003 stakeholders involved in issuing permits Using process analysis, design process Process improvements designed – starting in improvements – building services, process second quarter 2003, continuing through fourth mapping consultant, IT staff, other town staff quarter 2003 Implement process improvements – building Starting in second quarter 2003, continuing services, other town staff (finance, planning, through fourth quarter 2003 public works)

Should the department determine that it needs additional staff and financial resources to meet the mandated reduced time-frames for permit issuance in Bill 124, a budget change form is prepared to justify the request. This form

• describes the request; • relates the request back to the corporate goals and objectives; • gives the department’s ranking for this request against their other requests; • provides information to assist in prioritizing requests; • describes the impact on service levels if the request is approved and the impact, should it be deferred; and • details the three-year operating and capital funding required, along with any staff requirements.

The individual performance plan describes individual accountability for actions in the town’s performance management system. Figure 8 continues the permit issuance example for a manager in the permit and zoning administration section.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 40 Figure 8. Connecting Departmental Objectives to Individual Performance Plans – An Example

Objective Annual personal objectives specifics Success measure statements Objective 1: Target: 09/30/04 Type: Dept Project team, including other town staff Accelerate low-rise residential u SMART and community stakeholders, mobilized permit issuance to meet the Priority: 40% Potential improvements evaluated mandated targets in Bill 124 Implementation plan developed Meet mandated time-frames by permit type Objective 2: Target: 06/30/04 Type: Individual Training needs identified Complete Bill 124 examination u SMART Training completed requirements Priority: 25% Examinations passed Objective 3

Lessons Learned

A number of lessons have been learned during the design and implementation of IBP. These lessons fall into several categories:

• critical elements of success; • process development; and • required support.

Critical Elements of Success

1. Combine top-down thinking with bottom-up experience to set strategic direction. Council, working with senior management, sets the strategic direction and priorities for the municipality, based on the current situation analysis and stakeholder input. The strategic direction and priorities are then cascaded into the departments during the process. The departments, in turn, identify the issues, gaps and opportunities in their operations based on their assessment of internal strengths and weaknesses and the environmental issues and opportunities. Based on this bottom-up review, the departments identify those initiatives that they want to propose as priorities to address the issues and gaps in their current and future operation.

2. Ensure that council is meaningfully engaged during the process. In order to expedite the final approval of the business plan and budget, keep council informed and involved throughout the planning cycle. For example, there is a step to confirm priorities with council in September, once the initial draft of the business plan(s) has been prepared.

3. IBP may change the role of council committees. In most municipalities, there is a committee of council that focuses on the budget. The IBP will potentially expand the role of this committee to include review of the broader strategic

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 41 and business context before considering the detailed budget numbers. The role of this committee could potentially be expanded to include definition of potential priorities as an input to council’s initial business-planning workshop where the draft corporate strategic direction is developed.

4. Senior management needs to lead the IBP process. Successful implementation of the process cannot be accomplished without the commitment, involvement and leadership of senior management. As the organization transitions from an “old way” of doing business to the “new way” of doing business, leadership becomes the glue that will hold it all together.

5. Actively consult with stakeholders during the plan development and throughout the year. The town’s business plan is developed with extensive public participation and consultation. A communication plan is developed to inform stakeholders about the town’s business plan and progress towards achieving the goals within it. Stakeholder input and engagement comes throughout the year from various consultation mechanisms, including a comprehensive citizen survey, satisfaction surveys, and community dialogue sessions. In doing so, the quality of the business plan is increased, as is the stakeholder commitment to it. Furthermore, the risks arising from stakeholder reaction are identified and potentially mitigated.

6. Corporate direction and priorities drive decisions on resource allocation. The design of IBP results in the corporate goals, objectives and strategic priorities driving resource allocation, rather than the budget process driving decision-making. It needs to be reinforced in the departmental training for managers that they should not let budget concerns constrain their thinking too early in the process.

7. Accountability and ownership for the IBP process need to be clearly defined. The IBP links and integrates strategic planning, budgeting and performance management. Ownership of these processes typically resides in different parts of the organization. In the case of Oakville, the CAO office led business-planning, Finance led the budgeting process, and human resources led the individual performance management process. Account- ability and ownership needs to be determined as the integrated process is being designed so that roles and responsibilities are clear.

Process Development

1. Strong visible CAO leadership is required to make the IBP a reality. For the IBP to succeed, the CAO needs to embrace it as an important corporate priority and provide strong, consistent and visible support. This support includes ensuring the project has the necessary resources (staff and budget) to successfully complete the work, as well as promoting the benefits of the IBP to the senior management team and, more broadly, to the organization.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 42 2. The IBP may take several cycles to fully develop. Undertaking the IBP was a multiyear process for Oakville, given that it took several years for council to establish strategic direction and priorities. It also requires training and development, and the accumulation of experience, for the departments to effectively utilize the process and realize its full benefits.

3. A balanced design team is required to consider all perspectives. The IBP design team should include

• a team lead who understands the broader vision and potential for the IBP and how it may affect the organization; • representatives from each of the major operating departments; • representatives from the staff areas responsible for business-planning, budgeting and performance management; and • an HR professional who is knowledgeable and capable in change management.

We found it helpful to have director-level managers participate on the design team, given their generally broader organizational understanding and appreciation of the planning process. Such a team considers all perspectives, not just that of senior management, in designing and implementing the IBP.

4. Testing needs to be carefully designed to maximize its value. Testing of the process, before full implementation, can potentially increase the value, and chances of successful implementation, of the IBP. However, it is essential to be realistic about what can and cannot be achieved during a test. The test is intended to determine if the process, in terms of flow, content and required input, can work within the subject organization. A test, by definition, is only considering a part of the organization and is being conducted outside of the “real” process. Therefore, it is critical that the roles, responsibilities, outcomes and timelines be clearly defined and agreed to by the test participants, their managers and the IBP team members who are leading the test, if the test is to be of any value in assessing the full potential, or limitations, of the proposed process.

Required Support

1. Develop departmental leads to provide first-tier support on the IBP. We found it helpful to identify department leads for first-tier support and to provide advice and help to department managers during the development of the business plans. This builds expertise among the departments. Furthermore, these department leads participate in a debriefing process in order to improve the IBP process for each subsequent planning cycle.

2. Line managers, not the IBP process owner, own their business plans. Accountability must be clearly defined and distinguished between the process owner and line managers, who prepare business plans for their departments. The ownership of a departmental business plan must ultimately rest with the department head, not the IBP process owner.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 43 Conclusion

Reaching agreement on the strategic priorities for a municipality, given the multitude of stakeholders and special-interest groups, is not easily achieved. Having reached a consensus, the greater challenge is to align the corporate strategic direction and priorities with the business priorities and budget allocations of each department, and ultimately, with individual performance plans.

Integrated Business Planning seamlessly links the strategic direction and priorities of the municipality with the detailed business plans and budgets and individual performance plans. This integrated process enables a municipality to first define, and then achieve, the target outcomes set by council and senior management while building the commitment and support of staff.

Appendix A – Major Sections in the Key Documents Produced in Component 1 of the IBP Set Strategic Direction

The corporate strategic direction (Figure 3) is drafted in step 5 and finalized in step 7 after consultation with community stakeholders. The major sections in the corporate strategic direction include

• community vision; • corporate mission; • current situation analysis; • corporate goals, objectives, and performance measures; • strategic priorities and performance measures; and • budget guidelines.

Appendix B – Major Sections in the Key Documents Produced in Component 2 of the IBP Develop and Approve Business / Performance Plans

Commission Strategic Direction The commission strategic direction (Figure 4) is the output of step 1, “determine areas of focus.” The major sections in the commission strategic direction document are

• commission vision; • commission mission; • commission objectives; and • strategic priorities (that belong to the commission).

Department Business Plan The department business plan is produced in step 9 in Figure 4. The major sections in this plan are

• context: vision, mission, policy guidelines that drive service levels, key customers;

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 44 • current situation analysis: service mapping, internal and external assessment, significant achievements; • key issues and planning assumptions; • objectives and action plans; • risk and implementation considerations; and • resource requirements.

Budget changes, new capital requests, base budget

Commission Business Plan The commission business plan is produced in step 10 in Figure 4. The major sections in this plan are

• commission vision and mission; • current situation analysis; • commission objectives, performance measures and summary of action plans; • risk and implementation considerations; and • resource requirements.

Base budget, budget changes, total commission budget Summary of commission capital resource requirements

• The department business plans are included in the appendix of the commission business plan for easy reference.

Town Business Plan The town business plan is produced in step 11 in Figure 4. The major sections in this plan are

• community vision and town mission; • corporate goals and performance measures; • corporate objectives and performance measures; • strategic priorities and performance measures; • risk and contingency plans; and • consolidated resource requirements.

Base budget, budget changes, total budget Summary of capital resource requirements

• The commission business plans are included in the appendix of the town business plan, again for easy reference.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 45 CHAPTER 4

IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM AT MISSISSAUGA TRANSIT: ESTABLISHING OPERATIONAL PRIORITIES

Thomas E. Plant Manager, Business Development Mississauga Transit

In this era of heighten fiscal responsibility and increased scrutiny of public organizations, local government is being put under increased pressure to improve the efficiency of its operations and focus its priority options while becoming more responsive to the needs of its constituency. In Ontario, the provincial government has amplified financial constraints by downloading services while correspondingly increasing accountability by mandating the reporting of comparable performance measures for all municipalities.

However, in establishing performance measurement systems, governmental organizations have to focus on improving performance through the assessment of statistics, which are collected in order to generate the anticipated improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, and identify operational priorities. This chapter will examine the measurement system established at Mississauga Transit as an example of an organization that has utilized measurement information for performance improvement by establishing formalized feedback mechanisms that are aligned with divisional strategic goals.

Mississauga Transit is an operating division within the transportation and works department at the City of Mississauga. A pilot project established in the division’s vehicle-repair business unit involved employees in the creation of performance measures. In this way the system could be tested and proven in a real working environment before it was applied to the entire division. Further, employee participation in the process insured that valuable insights would help create buy-in for the system.

Also involved in system development, senior management defined the goals and priorities of Mississauga Transit, which insured that the system was properly focused on key areas that would generate significant results. The development of a performance measurement dashboard framework also helped provide the link between objectives and measures and gave management a tool with which to monitor progress and identify any necessary improvements.

The format of this chapter will be to, first, review the key components of a high-perform-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 46 ance measurement system, second, examine the measurement system implemented at Mis- sissauga Transit. The conclusion will focus on a number of lessons learned from the Mississauga experience as well as future direction Mississauga Transit is taking in system development.

Performance Measurement Framework

Much has been written about performance measurement systems and many studies have been done on their use in government. With all of this available information, the question remains, why are there so few examples of successful implementations of performance measurement systems? In order to answer this question, it is important to understand the key components of such a system.

Figure 1. Performance Management and Measurement System

How do all the systems fit together and How does the strategy translate into quantifiable goals? what are the Key Indicators that must be frequently monitored? Measures that allows the organization to communicate and System that aligns and combines all these evaluate the successful measures. The most critical measures are selected and monitored on a frequent implementation of its strategy. Strategic basis. Related measures can be consulted Performance on an as-need basis. Measures

What external factors could affect our What key information do performance? we need to monitor Monitors changes in the Interactive Diagnostic operations and execution of strategy? environment that may Performance Performance affect the organization’s PM&MS Dashboard that allows the ability to implement Measures Measures organization to monitor the strategy or repeat past implementation of strategy performance and highlight any problems affecting operations Evaluation Performance System of Use Measures What are the final results of A system of use is critical for generating our programs and strategy? results. Performance must be reviewed High-level measures that allow and analysed on a timely basis and it the organization to assess must prompt corrective action. outcomes and results associated with program inputs and outputs.

Source: Janine Douglas, City of Mississauga, 2002

As can be seen in Figure 1, a comprehensive performance management and measurement system includes a strategic, measurement and monitoring component. These three dimensions together provide a framework that allows organizational strategy to be communicated to all levels of the organization, performance to be evaluated, and corrective action taken if necessary. Further, in viewing the organization as a holistic system, it is important when establishing performance measures that they be created at the organizational, process, and the job and performer levels of the organization. Capturing measurement information in this way focuses on those business processes that cut across functional boundaries and that are not confined to a particular organizational silo and encourages performance improvement.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 47 Traits of a Successful Performance Measurement and Management System

A successful performance measurement framework consists of certain common traits that exist in organizations that have consistently used their performance measurement and management system to help achieve results. One of the most important is that management recognizes that performance measures are really part of a larger managerial system that supports their use and provides an organizational context. The bottom line in successful governmental organizations is that they not just use their performance measurement and management system to assess performance but that they use it as a tool to help achieve a desired level of performance.

The following are common system traits:

1. System supports the review of the measures, analysis of results, and corrective actions.

Key components are

• systematic, timely follow-up achieved through regular meetings that involve all levels of the organization; • creating accountability for results through timely review and discussion with senior management that specifically focuses on the measures, variances to plan, analysis of problems, and plans for corrective action; and • tools and assistance are provided to help improve performance.

2. System traits that improve its usefulness as a management tool.

Key components are

• business plans or some other mechanism to plan specific actions to realize the strategy; • tight alignment between the strategy, business plan, and performance measures; and • cascading measures that meet the needs of each level of the organization and that roll back up to the strategy.

In seeking to achieve a comprehensive organizational performance measurement system, a popular approach has been the establishment of a “balanced scorecard.” As proposed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, this methodology seeks to establish a mix of financial and non-financial measures that are then linked to a single strategy that has been formu- lated at a higher level of the organization.1 This creates a working hypothesis that can be communicated to all areas of the organization, thereby clarifying what must be achieved in the various business units in order to realize the organization’s strategic goal. Overall, the success of the balanced scorecard approach is attributable to its ability to help communicate the strategy of the organization and to create focus and alignment in the various business units.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 48 However, a caveat is that measurement focused on the past does not necessarily help in predicting future success. Therefore, it becomes critical in order to achieve organizational success that key factors that will drive performance improvement are identified. Once strategic goals have been set they can then be aligned with performance measures, and the result is a powerful tool to communicate and operationalize strategy while also providing a mechanism to monitor and evaluate its success.

The challenge in applying this to a governmental organization is not in the acceptance of the idea of strategy alignment but rather it is in the communication of strategy to front-line employees. High-performing governmental organizations are able to accomplish this by having measures at the work team and employee level rather than only at higher levels of the organization. In this way, performance measures can provide a line of sight for employees that allows them to understand what they must contribute to meet the organization’s strategic goals.

Strategic Performance Measurement at Mississauga Transit

A Canadian municipal example of a successful performance measurement implementation can be found at the City of Mississauga. During the year 2000-01 Mississauga Transit implemented a comprehensive performance measurement system in its vehicle-repair business unit. Within the city corporation, this system was viewed as being a prototype for full-scale roll-out throughout the organization. Its demonstrated success reflects many of the attributes previously mentioned in successful system implementations and provides an instructive example of the issues surrounding performance measurement implementation.

The impetus for developing this system was the need to improve productivity in transit as well as comply with the 2001 Ontario provincial government’s provincial Municipal Per- formance Measurement Program. These organizational pressures pushed the municipality to assess its organizational efficiency and effectiveness more closely. As a result, tough questions had to be asked as to how prepared Mississauga was as an organization to address organizational improvements. The challenge was to ensure that the organization was not only measuring performance and improving but that the measures acted as a business driver that would enhance strategic planning, organizational communication, team work, and continuous improvement.

In this way, the development of a Strategic Performance Measurement System would capture the knowledge and experience of employees both in the development of measures and in the utilization of measurement information for the continuous improvement of operations. The risk associated with only involving senior management was that the performance measurement system would end up being perceived as nothing more than a futile top- down exercise in information collection rather than as a method to drive true performance improvement. Thus, the challenge was to take a holistic approach to performance measurement. This involved establishing effective strategic goals as well as aligning the measures with these goals.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 49 Figure 2. Simplified Vehicle Repair Strategic Performance Measurement Map

PERFORMANCE PROVINCIAL BUSINESS STRATEGIC MEASURES MEASURE VISION GOALS

Average P.M. inspection time Drive process per bus improvements in maintenance that will allow for additional To provide quality work to be brought Number of road calls transit services to in house per 100,000 kilometers the travelling public Operating costs for in a safe, reliable, conventional transit clean and cost per regular service effective manner passenger trip Average kilometers while positioning past due for service itself to be the provider of choice Decrease spare bus ratio by 10% Average number of buses available for daily service

Key visions department can Visions are translated in Key initiatives that reflect the Measures business plan address actionable goals Answers the guestion: Are we having a good or bad day, week, month or year?

KEY INITIATIVES OPERATIONALIZE CORPORATE & DEPARTMENT LEVEL STRATEGY.

As can be seen in Figure 2, strategic initiatives were developed and then aligned with the performance measures. This provided management with a tool that allowed them to monitor progress towards a common organizational goal. Without such a process, it was difficult to evaluate how successful the organization had been. Further, it established a system that helped to drive organizational improvement with the involvement of all employees.

Performance Measurement Framework

The Strategic Performance Measurement System, which was implemented in Mississauga Transit’s vehicle-repair business unit, affected the work of over fifty employees in two different garage locations and over three different shifts. To date, implementation of this system has resulted in numerous improvements on the shop floor, such as creation of brake tool carts to improve brake work efficiency and brake part kits to improve workflow efficiency. Further, the system has helped focus management on establishing key strategic goals, such as driving process improvements in maintenance that will allow for additional work to be brought in house, and decreasing the spare bus ratio by ten per cent.

Bill Cunningham, director of transit, summed up the objectives of the system:

The establishment of a performance measurement system in the Vehicle Repair area has resulted in a communication mechanism being forged which allows management and the union to work together to continuously improve the work process. The mechanics on the shop floor have direct and meaningful input into how work is done and how barriers to productivity can be removed. From man-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 50 agement’s perspective it sets up an ongoing framework for the collective resolution of issues and the alignment of objectives between mechanic, supervisor and senior management.

Development of this system was accomplished in four phases. In the first phase, mechanics worked with management in developing the performance measurement system. In the second phase, senior management established strategic goals and aligned the measures towards these goals. The third phase involved establishing continuous improvement teams. The fourth phase established a “performance measurement dashboard” system to manage business-unit performance.

Phase 1 – Developing Measures

The first phase involved developing the actual performance measures. This was initiated through a number of information sessions with employees, where they were given a formal presentation of the proposed performance measurement system envisioned for the vehicle-repair area and allowed an opportunity to ask questions. The information gathered at these sessions was useful in creating the measures and it also helped to prepare employees for any future changes.

Traditionally, auto mechanics have been evaluated based on meeting predetermined time- standards for work. The measures that were used in the new system were represented by a statistical score that calculated the amount of time taken to complete an activity divided by the number of jobs completed. The activities that were measured represented the most pre- dominant work activity, such as preventative maintenance. The measurement scores were tailed and grouped by bus type and shift. The scores were then charted on a graph, which was posted on the shop-floor wall. In this way, group performance was tracked by shift over time and visible for all employees to see.

Phase 2 – Strategic Goals

The second phase involved establishing strategic goals to be accomplished over the next year and aligning the measures towards these goals. The provincial Municipal Perform- ance Measurement Program, which was introduced by the Province of Ontario in 2001, established two measures for public transit: 1) an effectiveness measure – the number of conventional transit passenger trips per person in the service area; and 2) an efficiency measure – the cost of operating conventional transit per regular-service passenger trip. These were used as the starting point for the Mississauga Transit program.

From the provincial measures, a number of strategic goals were established. The first goal was to drive process improvements in maintenance that would allow for additional work to be brought in-house. The second strategic goal was to decrease the spare-bus ratio by ten per cent. The performance measures were then aligned with these strategic goals and cascaded throughout all levels of the organization. This allowed management to monitor their success in achieving the goals that they had set for the organization.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 51 Figure 3. Performance Measurement Dashboard

Phase 3 – Continuous Improvement

Once the goals and measures were established, the final phase of the process was creating continuous improvement teams. Representation for these teams consisted of selected mechanics and members of management. Each shift had its own continuous improvement meeting. This was important in order to capture the issues indigenous to each shift. One member of the team, mechanic Brent Seaward, remarked, “The meetings are a beneficial process to bring issues to the table. There is a joint discussion of issues and consensus is reached. In setting goals the meetings help to get things done.”

The groups used quantitative information, which was collected in phase one and then pri- oritized and categorized into various operational categories. The tone of the meetings was objective and neutral, which helped to facilitate a productive and cohesive environment for problem-solving, with the focus being put on the nature of the problem rather than on who was to be blamed for it.

Phase 4 – Performance Measurement Dashboard

As can be seen in Figure 3, the performance measurement dashboard system provides a collection of key operational and strategic measures. An example of some measures for

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 52 the vehicle-repair business unit included the average number of kilometres past due for service; the average number of buses available; and the average p.m. inspection-time per bus. These measures are collected monthly, and the graphs display variation around an established target. This statistical information identifies decision-makers’ performance that is above, or below, average and determines whether strategic goals are on target.

Results

The performance measurement system implemented at Mississauga Transit has generated results to date of a reduction of a half-hour on average for completion of a B inspection, which is a regularly scheduled maintenance check-up, and a reduction of 1.5 hours on average for completion of the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) inspection, which is a provincially mandated biannual maintenance inspection. This has resulted in an annual saving of $100,000 to date. To actualize these savings, we are currently looking at contracting work back in-house.

Other results include developing brake-parts kits, purchasing a new service truck, building a brake tool cart, developing a procedure book for mechanical work, and organizing the brass and electrical connector inventory. All of these projects were identified by the work team and implemented over the course of the year. As a result of these successes, the strategic performance management framework was awarded the 2001 corporate award of excellence in continuous improvement. This is an annual award given by the mayor and city manager for excellence in public administration.

Lessons Learned

Other organizations may benefit from some of the insights gained from the experience at Mississauga Transit in determining its operational priorities. First, an obvious but often forgotten point about measurement systems is that they come alive when the employees are able to work with them everyday. This does not happen if employees end up collecting information for targets that are discussed only at the senior management level. Employees have knowledge and experience of the operations on a day-to-day basis. Thus, employees have to feel that they can affect the measures for which they are being held accountable.

Second, appropriate information systems must be in place to gather the information that will feed the continuous improvement process. These systems do not have to be sophisticated but they have to be able to provide basic information. Also, trade-offs must be made between the time needed to gather the information and its ultimate usefulness. A good rule of thumb is never collect information for information’s sake. Early involvement of operational people and employees will help to ensure that the data collected is useful.

Third, decision-makers need to establish strategic goals or initiatives, which can be aligned with the established measures. In this way, a “line of sight” will be created whereby every employee will be able to see his or her contribution to the organization’s

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 53 results. Measurement without a goal soon becomes an exercise in frustration. Thus, senior management has to take the time to establish clear strategic goals that are ultimately measurable. In creating an integrated approach where strategy is aligned with measurement, a comprehensive system is created that can drive continuous improvement.

Conclusion

All performance measurement systems share some common elements, but there are other elements that are particular only to high-performing organizations. Below is a description of each category and how Mississauga Transit fits into this typology.

1. Common system elements:

• attempt to have a “balanced” set of measures; • lagging and leading indicators (output measures and result measures); • limited number of measures; and • departments closely involved in developing the measures.

Mississauga Transit has these basic elements in its performance measurement system.

2. High-performer system elements:

• alignment between the strategy, business plans, and performance measures; • divisional leaders and supervisors link assigned programs and activities to the department’s intended results; • documented root-cause analysis; • formal mechanism in place to facilitate action; • tools/assistance provided to improve performance; • timely reporting on variances and responses; • targets guide operational decisions; • action requirement when targets are not being reached; • responsibility and authority to act on results at management level; • cascading structure – different measures for each level; and • measure at the employee work-team level.

Mississauga Transit has integrated most of these elements into its system. The elements that it is currently working on include developing appropriate operational targets and aligning them with the appropriate performance measures.

Overall, the one key in implementing a successful system at Mississauga Transit was that not only was performance measured but it also provided a framework that facilitated the interpretation and use of the data by the employees in improving their work process. As a result, greater organizational efficiency and effectiveness was achieved, clarifying the choosing of operation priorities, since employees were held accountable for business results and have input into the way their business processes are established and evolve

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 54 over time. Thus, the implementation of a strategic performance measurement system will position Mississauga Transit to effectively deal with the business challenges it is currently facing.

Note

1 Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1996).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 55 CHAPTER 5

MANAGING SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE IN “SMART COMMUNITIES”: A FUTURE PRIORITY FOR MUNICIPALITIES

Robert Randall Senior Consultant, The Intoinfo Consulting Inc.

With increasing frequency, priorities in municipal initiatives are based in part on their sustainability. Many community leaders recognize the importance of “economy jump-start- ers” such as community network (CN) infrastructures as potentially sustainable ventures. These community networks are the backbones of what have become known as “smart communities” (SCs).1 While not necessarily following the mantra of “build it and they will come,” municipalities across Canada, and in other countries, have adopted the SC concept to leverage information and communications technologies to achieve a high degree of innovation and, in turn, social cohesion and economic sustainability. These SCs tend to focus on two requirements: the sustainable broadband community network required to provide schools, hospitals, local government and citizens with high-speed Internet access and networking opportunities; and the services and systems needed to leverage the community network and allow the geographical community to grow. In the future, it seems likely that the establishment of such communities will become an increasing priority for municipalities across the country. If that does turn out to be the case, such municipalities will have another set of priorities to address if they want to establish strong, sustainable SCs.

A “smart community” must begin with a sustainability plan for its infrastructure. More- over, “smart community” initiatives should be assessed on a continuous basis using performance measurement tools. Clearly demonstrating that performance goals are met and/ or exceeded will ensure the sustainability of the community network and thus the SC built on it. This chapter explores the relationship between the performance measurement and sustainability of SC investments and concludes with a proposed model for sustainable SCs that carefully defines how success should be measured and how the community would thrive.

In understanding what a “smart community” is, it is important to begin with understanding what it isn’t. Smart communities are not, specifically, web portals, virtual communities, Extranets, or electronic marketplaces – in fact, these are many of the opportunities that SCs provide. “Smart community” was coined during the late 1990s to differentiate the old from the new, the community and the smart community. Within the social discourse on SCs, two perspectives have emerged. One stresses partnership first and relegates the tech-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 56 nical infrastructure (network) as merely a secondary enabler from which “leaders and stakeholders have formed alliances and partnerships to develop innovative ways to extract new economic and social value.”2 The other stresses the transformative nature of information technology and the conscious effort made by the community to use this technology for significant and fundamental change.3

Components

Regardless of the perspective taken in establishing a definition, the prototypical SC represents an aggregation of components that includes

• community network broadband infrastructure at its heart; • local, regional, national, and transnational (e.g., European Union) government presence; • owners of the infrastructure assets, including community network corporations, local ISPs, cable companies, large institutions with their own fibre optic network; • businesses engaged in e-commerce as a result of the existence of the community networks; • community members such as citizens/clients/customers; • conditions that are favourable to the development of SCs, including local universities and other institutions, large businesses that provide a healthy tax base and potential market; and • champions to ensure that initial development grants are received and that partnerships are developed and maintained and to drive the smart community through the initial stages of development.

Drivers, Goals and Missions

Commonalities, originating both within the local and global communities, drive the development of Smart Communities:

Economic Development Need

Smart communities are often intended to provide a level playing field with the outside world because they facilitate the economic development of communities through e-commerce and e-transactions, activities that do not necessarily require geographic proximity to marketplaces. Area businesses see the benefit of broadband as an important marketing and transaction channel. Local governments recognize that the SC has an infrastructure that allows more services to be put on-line. Local governments also know that SCs can attract outside businesses.

Community Engagement Need

Smart communities literally connect citizens to central authorities and to each other via

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 57 Internet portals and other Web-based interfaces. In this sense, SCs are driven by the need to provide avenues for citizens to interact, engage politicians, connect with local educational institutions, and receive services from local authorities. With such a level of engagement, citizens are able to make informed decisions.

Fiscal Need

Smart communities afford municipal governments with opportunities to put many information- and transaction-based services on-line for free or a nominal fee. This business process transformation results in greater efficiencies, less dependence on client-service employees and greater opportunities to recover other operating costs through fee-based service delivery. Similarly, other non-profit institutions and businesses can also save.

Benefits

Smart communities are intended to improve the existence of many different types of stakeholders including

• citizens, by empowering them with information, services and transactions via the Internet that allows them to make more intelligent decisions and to save money; • businesses, which are provided with affordable access to the web marketing and ful- filment channel without geographical barriers; • municipalities, whose tax bases benefit from the collection of land-use taxes from new businesses; • educational and health-care systems, by providing stakeholders – clients and professionals – with the capacity to utilize technology to the greatest benefit for the community at large; and • large and small businesses, by promoting an inclusive digital society and providing economic opportunities.

Vulnerabilities and Inherent Risks

The viability of smart communities is vulnerable to a number of risks. Some of these risks are not easily controllable, many are difficult to predict, and others are difficult to mitigate. For example, downturns in global, national, regional and local economies all threaten the ability of partners to contribute to the long-term sustainability of smart communities. Moreover, SCs are developed through initial seed funding, with often no proviso for maintenance funding. Further, in cases where the SC encourages innovation among stakeholders, the level of risk of failure increases exponentially with the level of innovation nurtured. In order to provide an innovative environment, the SC needs to be able to keep pace with evolving technology – a challenge where development funding is not easily obtained.

Fortunately, many risks can be mitigated. Those due to poor project planning that lead to

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 58 problems of time and resource allocation, cost overruns, postponements, and, ultimately, stakeholder disenchantment can be mitigated through proper project management, the development of strong governance structures, and the presence of champions. Moreover, continued dependency on government funding can be mitigated by the specific inclusion of sustainability plans that identify alternative means of support such as revenue-generating ventures, fee-based services, and broader contributory partnerships.

Sustainability

According to research by Industry Canada and the University of Toronto, organizations that govern SCs in Canada all recognize that sustainability is important. Most view sustainability in terms of their ability to generate enough revenue to cover operating costs. However, such a view precludes careful consideration of future sustainability requirements due to evolving technology and business models. In fact there may be several different, but interrelated, sustainability drivers including economic, technological, social and political sustainability. In Figure 1, each sustainability driver is categorized in terms of its outcomes, both micro, which refers to the impact on the structure that manages the SC, and macro, which refers the greater community (virtual and geographical). Finally, in the third column, are the various aspects or “elements” of the SC that need to be sustained.

Figure 1. Sustainability Drivers within the Smart Community Context

Driver Micro / Macro Outcome Sustained Element

Economic Micro Recovery of operating costs - Core service staff

Macro Economic growth of the local community - Spin-off Investment through the initiatives created as a result of - Businesses and ventures the SC - Job creation - Tax base

Technological Micro Keeping pace with evolving technology in - Infrastructure components support of the community-based network - Applications and other software

Macro Development of technological expertise - Human capital within the community - Base of suppliers

Social Micro Cohesion of immediate stakeholders and - Presence of volunteer staff and partners contributing partners

Macro Sustainability and cohesion of community - Dialogue support and engagement - Consultations - Involvement - Usage of resources and services - Social benefit from service-delivery innovation

Political Micro Sustainability of key support from within - Involvement of champions the greater community

Macro Sustainability and commitment of political - Interest from decision-making bodies and decision-making authorities

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 59 Performance Measurement and Smart Communities

Performance measurement, originally a private-sector concept, focuses on a variety of methodologies and approaches that result in business excellence, that is, increased profits, increased market share, improved quality, increased internal efficiencies, satisfied customers, etc. Various performance measurement and management methodologies, including benchmarking, “balanced scorecard,” results-driven models, continuous improvement, and others, fall in and out of vogue.

Within the past decade, public-sector organizations have also embraced performance management techniques by adopting the basic principles developed for commercial enter- prises. The challenge has been to determine what types of metrics are most appropriate for non-commercial initiatives and what constitutes business excellence in this context.

The challenge with developing an effective performance measurement regime for smart community initiatives is more complicated because excellence in this context is actually a hybrid of private- and public-sector performance results. Smart communities are virtual places that are intended to facilitate the delivery of innovative projects, many of which are commercial ventures. In this case, elements of private-sector indicators apply. However, smart communities also facilitate engagement of citizens and provide delivery channels for services and information. In this respect, public-sector indicators apply.

As in the case of other public-sector initiatives, there are indications that performance measurement is not often practised among SC initiatives. This appears to be true among the high- profile initiatives in California, Virginia and Europe. Indeed, performance measurement is seldom incorporated into project plans, in part because it is a difficult process that must be specifically funded. Project managers need to plan performance measurement programs and integrate them into the project plan. Such programs require budgets and resources, and, as a result, they are often considered impractical and less of a priority than tangible project deliverables. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons why performance measurement should be a part of the planning and monitoring processes for smart community initiatives:

• Smart communities involve many stakeholders who are accustomed to measuring the performance of their own organizations and expect the same degree of diligence from the community. • Smart communities require significant investment at various stages from various sources, many of whom expect to see measurable results. • Federal and provincial governments are beginning to insist on demonstration of performance measurement planning in grant applications. • Smart communities need to self-correct and grow from experience in order to remain viable over the long term, and only performance measurement can identify where mistakes have been made, what was not accomplished, and what did not work.

Methods and Approaches

Performance measurement is often thought of as a function of an overall continuous

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 60 improvement or total quality management (TQM) program. Such programs have various methods for measuring, such as benchmarking, attaining strategic objectives (logic model, balanced scorecard), incremental improvements (incrementalism), and results (results- based measurement). Within a broad performance measurement framework, all of these methods could be deployed as required. The three below are arguably most appropriate for ensuring the sustainability of smart communities when used together.

1. Benchmarking: a systematic process of continuously measuring and comparing an organization’s business process against business leaders anywhere in the world to gain information that will help the organization take action to improve its performance (see Figure 1).4 The activity of benchmarking can be deconstructed into five basic steps:

• identify the object of study; • select the superior performer (benchmarking partner); • collect and analyse data; • set performance goals for improvement; and • implement plans and monitor results.

Figure 1. Benchmarking: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages • enables new smart communities to identify best practices and expectations • provides evidence of performance of “the other guys” • allows planners to test assumptions based on the experiences of other communities Disadvantages • based on the principle of catching-up • does not enable smart communities to measure performance according to its own objectives • limited overall use for the purpose of this exercise • information is often scarce Transferable Aspects • best practices and best processes • goal-setting approach

2. The Logic Model: a system for integrating strategic management and performance measurement designed for government. It is essentially a program-based measurement tool that forces planners to define inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. The logic model essentially tells a story of how a project or program will transpire. It describes who will do what, with what, and why. Popularized in the United States, the logic model is gaining prominence within the Government of Canada at such organizations as the Treasury Board and Trans- port Canada. The components of the generic logic model are defined in Figure 2.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 61 Figure 2. Logic Model

Input Activities & Outputs Immediate Outcomes Long-term Outcomes

Resources, Specific actions taken Defines and tracks strat- Measurable results skills and and services/products egies staff re- offered by the initiative quired to to implement strategies carry out program

Track fund- Track workload and Identify changes in or- Ultimate indication of success ing request tasks der to achieve final outcome Indicators

Measurement Methodology

Logic Model: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

• designed specifically for government

• integrates strategic and tactical planning and performance measurement

Disadvantages

• cumbersome and linear model that demands sustained attention, rather than an iterative and • cyclical where inputs, outputs and metrics can be revisited regularly

• inappropriate in its generic formation since smart communities exist not only in a government • environment and but also in a commercial environment where return on investment is important

Transferable Aspects

• measurement of strategic process flow from inputs to output

• story approach layout that is easy to communicate once each element has been determined

3. Balanced Scorecard (BSC): created by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in the early 1990s, it is essentially a comprehensive, top-down management measurement system that focuses heavily on vision and strategy.5 The BSC uses a balanced array of objective performance measurement perspectives to provide managers with a system for developing best-value services, including an innovation and learning perspective, a business-process perspective, an end-user perspective, and a financial perspective.

The BSC process begins with an examination of the corporate vision or mission. Then managers determine what strategies will enable the organization to reach its goals. The strategies are deciphered as tactical activities. Finally, measures are established for each of these activities to be used to gauge performance. The BSC works only where an alignment of all functional areas of the enterprise has occurred. Thus instead of emanating from each business unit, vision and strategy need to be ingrained across all business functions, as should the supporting system of metrics (see Figure 3).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 62 Figure 3. Balanced Scorecard: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages • integrates all strategic and visionary aspects of the organization of the smart community • works well as a means for translating vision and strategy into objectives and measures Disadvantages • BSC is primarily a conceptual model • the model is too top-down and may not work with all smart community governance structures Transferable Aspects • integrated organizational perspective approach • strategic orientation

Model for a Sustainable Smart Community

The purpose of this section is not to present a practical guide to developing a model for a sustainable smart community but instead to present a conceptual model for further development. The challenge with developing this model is that while there are many similarities among smart communities, there are differences that are so definite that a practical model is not possible.

Conceptual Framework

At the heart of the sustainability framework is the application of a tool kit of the methodologies outlined above (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Conceptual Planning Model 7hyhprqÃTp rÃ Strategic Planning Activity 8h q Priority Areas

Learning & Growth Business Process Customer Finance Hrh rrÃ Goals Goals Goals Goals 7rpuh xvtÃrpÃ

Measures GtvpÃHqryÃ IMMEDIATE LONG TERM INPUTS ACTIVITIES OUTPUTS OUTCOMES OUTCOMES

Re-Evaluation of Goals and Priorities

Personal Performance Evaluation

Risk Mitigation Plan

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 63 Description of the Model

At the centre of the model is the strategic planning activity. It is in this realm that a business model is defined (or refined, depending when in the lifecycle of the smart community initiative that this model would be implemented). Within the planning activity, goals are set for each of the priority areas, as highlighted in differentiated boxes bleeding out of the planning activity area of the illustration. These goals and priority areas are in keeping with BSC principles. The goals feed into the determination of the logic model for the course of the initiative, including the inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes that are envisioned. Using benchmarking and other evaluation tools, metrics and indicators are set (in keeping with the BSC). The results of the measurement process feed into a re-evaluative process whereupon the business model is re-examined; the personal performance accords of those responsible for executing the activities are assessed; and any risks that come up in the course of the initiative are mitigated and managed.

Integration of BSC and the Logic Model

The “balanced scorecard” can be applied to a SC initiative, particularly where organizational structures are in place for guidance and governance. The possible application of BSC is described as the following:

1. Learning and Growth Perspective: • continuously improving by learning from past performance; • information available and shared for strategic decision-making: the extent of reliable information management; • quality workforce: the percentage of qualified employees; and • stakeholder satisfaction.

2. Business Process Perspective: • project-planning approach; • fulfilling public policy objectives; • continual improvement; and • transformation.

3. Customer (end-user) Perspective: • client satisfaction with quality and level services facilitated by initiative; and • usability and effectiveness of interface design (e.g., web site).

4. Financial Perspective: • minimizing administrative costs; • maximizing contract cost avoidance; and • identifying partners to share infrastructure maintenance and upgrade.

The logic model can be used as a methodology to bridge goal and measurement activities of the BSC. Results-based measurement techniques can then be used to measure outputs, medium-term and long-term outcomes. This process can be adapted for use in all four perspectives described above and modelled in Figure 5.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 64 Figure 5. Hybrid Sustainability Model

Learning and Growth

Goals Measures

Input Activities Output Immediate Long-term outcome outcome

Business Process Customer

Goals Measures Goals Measures

Input Activities Output Immediate Long-term Input Activities Output Immediate Long-term outcome outcome outcome outcome

Financial

Goals Measures

Input Activities Output Immediate Long-term outcome outcome

Sustainability Metrics

With a model in place, suitable metrics that are specific to the smart community need to be established. As the model is results-driven, a direction needs to be established between the goals that are set and long-term outcomes.

Results/Goals Met This measures how well goals were met, as well as how well they were set in the first place. Goals can be short, medium, or long term:

1. Short-term goals: align with available funding cycles (appropriate during development years). Develop metrics that are tied to near- and medium-term outcomes related to project delivery and budget – satisfying stakeholders’ immediate requirements such as profitability, usability, web trends, service delivery, infrastructure development, and innovation. 2. Medium-term goals: align with long-term viability strategies such as revenue genera- tion, self-sufficiency, partnership goals, use of the web as a communication and revenue-generating channel. 3. Long-term goals: pertain to how the SC adapts and morphs into a new entity that re- sponds to the community requirements of the future.

Indicators of Sustainability

Smart communities are often as multifaceted as their physical cousins. As a result, it is difficult to determine if, overall, the SC is actually sustaining. The key to meeting this chal-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 65 lenge is to determine indicators of sustainability that matter the most to the community as a whole. For example, an indication that the community network infrastructure is able to evolve with changing technologies is more important than indications that certain business-to-consumer commercial ventures have failed. After all, it is more important that an infrastructure remain in place to provide other ventures with the opportunity to develop innovative uses of the technology this infrastructure makes available. Figure 6 shows key indications of sustainability and their relative ranking of importance (in terms of their impact and the likelihood of them occurring in the first place).

Figure 6. Key Indications of Sustainability

Indicator Impact Relative Importance

Macro-Sustainability Perspective

Use of services Take-up of on-line transactions by community in- High dicates return on investment by profit and non- profit service providers

Cost-recovering public programs Lessens funding requirement High

Profitability of business in general Provides opportunities for more private-sector in- High volvement in maintain infrastructure

Local employment statistics Job growth particularly associated with SC indi- High cates high return on government investment

Profitability of individual businesses Indicates that SC is a viable place for business Medium

Social services funding levels The SC could provide cheaper alternatives to the Medium delivery of certain services

Web trends Large number of visitors could indicate that SC Medium web sites are reaching their intended audience

Municipal operating costs SC may be enabling local governments to save Medium costs by bringing services on-line

Polls of local citizens SC may be facilitating more citizen engagement Medium

Failed innovation experiments Sunk cost Low

Micro-Sustainability Perspective

Target delineation Project management problems High – they tend to aggregate with time

Number of partners Decrease indicates loss of interest High

Age of technology Aging infrastructure not able to meet future re- Medium-high quirements

Budget control Recurrent cost overruns may jeopardize future Medium funding

Human capital Loss of skilled staff and visionaries could jeop- Medium ardize the SC both operationally and strategically

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 66 Benefits

There are many benefits to the approach proposed in the conceptual model. The model demonstrates whether the SC is sustainable, viable, and whether investments and funding are properly managed. Further, investments are made only in projects with clearly defined goals and objectives. Finally, the model affords a degree of flexibility whereupon innovation is encouraged.

Limitations and Risks

The conceptual model contains many limitations and risks. Foremost of the limitations is that, ideally, the model should be implemented at the outset of strategic planning. Mid- stream introduction would significantly affect business processes already established. Adequate resources must be provided to performance management and sustainability- planning in order to ensure that such planning is worthwhile. Moreover, the model may not work well for all smart communities where requirements may be radically different from one community to the next.

Conclusion

The model above represents a clear formula for sustainability: prove you can achieve objectives and tie the appropriate performance measures to tangible returns that demonstrate the continuity of the initiative beyond initial funding. It is important that a causal link be maintained between sustainability and performance measurement, because it is a link that cannot be necessarily assumed. Very often, sustainable development is not clearly understood and not clearly defined in measurable terms. Smart communities are entities that require significant initial investment and stakeholder engagement, which leads to an intricate network of interdependent goals and other quantifiable outcomes. The application of performance measures is vital in ensuring that goals are met.

Smart communities are an option that municipalities will increasingly be considering in their future priority-setting endeavours. In that light, it’s important to ask, are smart communities sustainable? The answer is yes and no. The SC concept has been in development for about ten years. Five years ago, community leaders viewed the World Wide Web as an information superhighway, which, once built, would spawn the development of community nodes much like municipalities grew and thrived once transportation links – CN and CP railways and roadways – were established. The lessons learned since the economic recession and the technology-sector downturn are that long-term sustainability is a false assumption. Moreover, smart community infrastructures that are propped up by continued government funding are clearly unsustainable. The key is to establish a sustainability strategy whose goals, objectives and outcomes are measurable.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 67 Notes

1 Canada, through Industry Canada’s national Smart Communities Demonstration Projects program, is a world leader in the development of community networks that resulted in the selection of Smart Community initiatives in every Canadian province and one within the aboriginal community. The seed funding of $60 million provided by Industry Canada for these initiatives will end this year. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Industry Canada Smart Communities web site at http://smartcommunities.ic.gc.ca for more information on this program. 2 [n.a.], “What is a Smart Community,” Industry Canada [web site] ([Ottawa]: [Crown Copyright], [2004]), at http://smart communities.ic.gc.ca/documents/whatis_e.asp. 3 [n.a.], “Ten Steps to Becoming a Smart Community,” California Institute for Smart Communities [web site] ([La Jolla]: [California Institute for Smart Communities], [2004]), at http://www.smartcommunities.org/library_10steps.htm. 4 N.M. Lema and A.D.F. Price, “Benchmarking: Performance Improvement Toward Competitive Advantage,” Journal of Management in Engineering 11, no. 1 (January / 19 February 1995), pp. 28–37. 5 Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The balanced scorecard – Measures that drive performance,” Harvard Business Review 70, no. 1 (January/February 1992), pp. 71–9; Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system,” Harvard Business Review 74, no. 1 (January/February 1996), pp. 75–85.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 68 CHAPTER 6

KNOWLEDGE-SHARING FOR ALBERTA MUNICIPALITIES: A CATALOGUE OF PRACTICES FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Mina Montroy Director, Municipal Advisory Services Alberta Municipal Affairs

Michael Stansberry Municipal Adviser Alberta Municipal Excellence Team

This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the Municipal Excellence Network in Alberta and the needs that it was designed to address. It also reviews some applicable knowledge management principles that have been key in the development of the project. Then, we explore how the development of the network was driven by a strong need for – and contributed to effective priority-setting in – municipal succession planning and increased efficiency and effectiveness. This project also helps support municipalities in shifting from current performance levels towards a culture of continuous improvement of business processes and of organizational change and helps them in making difficult prioritizing choices.

Alberta’s 359 municipalities have a widely diverse range of assets. They vary in size, from the smallest summer village, with minimal permanent population, to the City of Calgary, with a population of almost one million. Municipalities achieve different levels of performance and have different capacities and requirements to manage effectively; however, they are all in the same line of business and have similar objectives. The Municipal Excel- lence program was created to assist municipalities in developing and sharing expertise, knowledge and improved business practices.

The Municipal Excellence Network is starting to help Alberta’s municipalities attain human resource and organizational efficiencies through the sharing of municipal practice information. This kind of knowledge transfer is invaluable in the design and implementation of present and future municipal practices and will help to mitigate the “reinventing the wheel” syndrome.

The approach is unique. A “bottom-up” self-identification of effective municipal practices by councillors, administrators and service providers has not been attempted before in Can- ada. Other programs have focused on various aspects of municipal government, but none

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 69 has tried to cover all the elements of the governance, management and operations of a municipality, including program and service delivery. The benefits of the program will accrue gradually, as the knowledge base grows and use of the tool is integrated into municipal operations.

Program Development

During the mid-1990s, the Government of Alberta passed a new Municipal Government Act that changed many existing procedures and gave more autonomy to municipalities. This led to more demands from municipalities for advice. Unfortunately, the 1990s was also a period of massive staff and funding cuts in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. With limited resources, the ministry had to greatly reduce its advisory services to municipalities that were not facing organizational or financial failure. As a result, the ministry needed to find a different approach to help more municipalities, particularly those that wanted to do the following:

• improve effectiveness and efficiency; • explore new opportunities; and/or • learn from the successes of other municipalities.

In response to these stakeholder needs, Municipal Affairs staff and some municipal officials agreed informally to explore the notion of a knowledge resource network for local governments.

The actual concept for the Municipal Excellence (ME) Network took formal shape in 1999 and 2000, when the ministry collaboratively developed a project charter with stakeholders from both the administrative and governing sides of local governments. As stated in the charter, the ME Network was “to promote superior performance in local government management practices, and to sustain an environment for continuous improvement and shared learning within a supporting municipal peer network, by providing tools and resources that facilitate knowledge and skills development, networking and communication.”1 As a “tool kit” for knowledge management and continuous improvement, the ME network would become Alberta Municipal Affairs’ most ambitious extra-organizational knowledge management project.

The team’s definition of its stakeholder group was clear at the outset, thanks to the project charter’s vision statement: “Alberta municipalities working together, with the department as a facilitating and supporting partner, in a shared commitment to the ongoing pursuit of excellence.”2

The ultimate product of the project was a knowledge management “tool kit” to help municipalities work towards continuous improvement through shared learning. The end- users of this tool kit (and its single largest resource, the municipal practices database) would be the elected and non-elected officials who operate Alberta’s municipalities. Of the primary issues confronting the team at the outset, the most important were the “new-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 70 ness” of knowledge management as a concept and the difficulties faced by a government organization attempting to build an external knowledge management resource to serve an entire community of user organizations.

The stakeholders agreed that the end-result would also include basic business processes that made up the framework for collecting municipal practices (planning, communicating, organizing, implementing, and managing performance); descriptions of the corporate functions of municipal government (council, administration, human resources, finance, and municipal services); and the desired format and process for practice collection.

The Municipal Excellence Program is aimed at providing the information and resources needed by any municipality to enhance its practice of local government. Although the primary target group consists of small to mid-sized municipalities (i.e., towns, villages, and rural municipalities), cities and summer villages will also benefit from the resources. In any instance, it is clear that the shared practices must be adapted to local conditions and priorities. The ME resources are expected to be most beneficial to municipalities that are finding it difficult to resolve local issues and strengthen their organizations. Simply put, the ME Network is to collect, catalogue and disseminate municipal precedents in governance, management, human resources, finance and service-delivery practices.

Key stakeholder groups for the project were identified and invited to provide direction through participation on the Municipal Excellence Advisory Committee. These included the municipal associations that have a strong influence on the member municipalities they represent. Their support was important to ensure that potential users adopted the knowledge management principles of the network and made use of its tools. There are four major associations: the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, the Local Government Administration Association, and the Alberta Rural Municipal Administrators Association. As well, the Society of Local Government Managers and the University of Alberta’s School of Business and its Faculty of Extension (Government Studies Program) are external stakeholder groups that participate on the advisory committee.

The Municipal Excellence Advisory Committee is the basis for the team’s healthy ongoing relationship with key stakeholders. This committee’s mandate is “to provide input and feedback on the project at various stages of program development and to give guidance on major issues. As well, the Advisory Committee members are asked to provide feed back to and from their organization constituents’ perspective.”3 It requires substantial stakeholder input to help ensure that the municipal associations maintain a sense of ownership and responsibility for the project. The advisory committee also affords stakeholders the opportunity to be “thought leaders” and “change agents” within Alberta’s local government community. The Municipal Excellence team uses a “by the user, for the user, with the user” approach, thus placing ownership and responsibility in the hands of stakeholders. It also uses a blended community and product development methodology.

Such a strong user focus requires lots of user input from the conceptual stage onward. For example, the market was tested in early 2001 through a survey of municipal administrators

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 71 that indicated that “[i]nterest in comparative information was widespread across all municipality types as well as size and wealth of municipalities. This interest in the activities and experiences of others translates into significant interest in an Internet tool that could provide comparative information and facilitate communications between similar municipalities. [...] These [survey] results show significant interest in the concept with minimal negativity.”4

An evaluation of the stakeholder consultation sessions in the early stages of the project (April to August 2001) provided the first indicator of high stakeholder satisfaction: “the Municipal Excellence program was heartily endorsed as a useful and much needed program for all municipalities by the officials participating in the workshop sessions.”5

Further into the project, stakeholder comments regarding the practice collection forms showed a continuing high level of satisfaction with the process and the product. A City of Calgary manager said, “We support and appreciate the leadership of Alberta Municipal Affairs in creating this opportunity for municipalities to share best practices and receive recognition for behind-the-scenes efforts.” The mayor of the Town of Didsbury said, “I can see the Municipal Excellence Network becoming a real asset and inspiration to improve in all areas.” The former administrator for the Village of Forestburg praised the web site by saying, “I really feel those of us who had the opportunity to participate were listened to and you cared about what we said.”

Other evidence of stakeholder support and interest lies in their contributions to the database of practices (more than 180 practices in October 2003); their use of the web site (191 hits during the first month of monitoring, and up to over 2,900 hits in July 2003); and their level of involvement in the ME Awards (37 submissions in 2002 and 47 submissions in 2003).

The Municipal Excellence Network is being developed in several phases. The first phase focused on governance and management practices. The second phase focused on the collection of practices and lines of service related to human resource management and financial management. The third phase of the program, currently in progress, focuses on the collection of practices regarding the delivery of municipal services. The municipal services were broken up into four areas: infrastructure services, community services, protec- tive services, and development services. This was done principally because the Municipal Excellence team wanted to support “communities of practice” within the stakeholder groups where they exist and to generate them where they do not. Stakeholder sessions were designed to enhance the quality of knowledge exchanged during the sessions.

As the collection of practices continues to grow, so does the number of municipalities that are logging onto the web site to access this body of knowledge, seeking solutions to issues in their own communities by learning how others have dealt with the same or similar issues. Each practice in the database has supporting documentation, information about the development process, lessons learned, and, most importantly, contact information so a municipal official can establish a personal connection and access knowledge through direct communication.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 72 Other stakeholders should benefit as well. For example, the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension anticipates using the database as a practical resource for its local government studies students. As well, it is expected that some Municipal Excellence data will be shared with other divisions and units in Alberta Municipal Affairs to inform them of information gaps.

Knowledge Management

Municipalities have knowledge and experience that, if shared, will strengthen the practice of local government. In essence, the benefit of the Municipal Excellence Network is the development and dissemination of a body of knowledge not currently cap- “Sharing knowledge is not about giving people tured in a structured system. something, or getting something from them. That is only valid for information sharing. Understanding that knowledge man- Sharing knowledge occurs when people are agement was the driving motivation genuinely interested in helping one another behind the project, the Municipal develop new capacities for action; it is about 6 Excellence team established a special creating learning processes.” knowledge management committee to Peter Senge provide up-front guidance and advice on the project’s broad knowledge management strategies. The mandate of the committee included such elements as knowledge capture (practice collection), knowledge transfer (training and networking resources), and knowledge “warehousing” (web site function and design).

“Knowledge is the most sought In her book, Common Knowledge, Nancy Dixon 7 said that the most profound change that she has after remedy to uncertainty.” Thomas Davenport and observed “is a shift away from the idea that Laurence Prusak knowledge is found only in a select group of experts or ‘best’ practitioners and towards the idea that the useful knowledge is distributed throughout the whole of an organization.”8 The Municipal Excellence Network is attempting to expand the operational definition of “organization” to cover the entire community of municipal officials in the province, thereby expanding upon traditional knowledge management projects to establish a very exceptional knowledge management project.

Ms. Dixon goes on to describe two knowledge transfer models: the Expert Model (Figure 1), where the flow of knowledge “would move from the experts to those who were less expert [...] [that] are expected to emulate the expert group;”9 and the Distributed Model, where “knowledge transfer systems are designed to facilitate a give-and-take among peers [...] to indicate that knowledge is located in a multitude of diverse people and places across the organization.”10 She goes on to say that “most of the transfer practices described in this book did not start by trying to identify who was doing some critical practice ‘the best.’ They started from the assumption that nearly every team was doing something that others

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 73 in the organization could make use of, and likewise could use what others knew.”11 “With knowledge transfer systems based on the Expert Model, the knowledge activity is limited to a one-way dissemination in which the intent is to identify the best ideas and then disseminate them – a useful but much less vigorous knowledge exchange.”12 The Municipal Excellence Network uses the Distributed Model (Figure 2), whereby all are able to contribute and all are able to receive. Because no one is declaring the knowledge as the “best” or as the “answer,” the criterion for choosing what knowledge to incorporate in a given municipality becomes the usefulness of the knowledge to a specific situation – the fit.

Figure 1. The Expert Model

EXPERT TEAM

Receiving Receiving Municipality Municipality A Receiving Receiving D Municipality Municipality B C

Adapted from Nancy Dixon, Common Knowledge (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

Figure 2. The Distributed Model

Municipality Municipality F E

.12:/('*( Municipality Municipality A D

Municipality Municipality B C

Adapted from Nancy Dixon, Common Knowledge (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

One of the great things about municipalities in Alberta is their high level of innovation in their approach to municipal operations and program delivery. A distributed knowledge management model supports this approach. Standardizing approaches to municipal service delivery, which is the ultimate outcome of an Expert Model, has the potential to stifle innovation.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 74 The key challenge to any knowledge man- “KM is a discipline that promotes an agement project is encouraging the par- integrated and collaborative approach to ticipation of stakeholders. Historically, the creation, capture, organization, access organizations have tackled this dilemma and use of an enterprise’s information with a “carrot and stick” approach. Desired assets. This includes databases, docu- behaviour is rewarded, often financially. ments and, most importantly, the un- Undesirable behaviour is punished through captured, tacit expertise and experience 13 vehicles such as performance appraisal, of individual workers.” peer pressure, and a lack of remuneration. Gartner Group Municipal Excellence staff were, over time, able to encourage participation without “the stick” by basing the program around stakeholder group needs and preferences.

While networking and sharing of information already occurs, strengthening these relationships as well as creating new ones is important. This is particularly the case for people new to a municipality or to the field of municipal government itself.

E.L. Lesser and J. Storck define a “In real life most communities are formed though community of practice as “a geographical proximity, but online communities are group whose members regularly mostly formed around a shared interest or need, engage in sharing and learning, and are a powerful tool for building trust and based on their common inter- relationships, word of mouth marketing, and 14 ests. One might think of a com- knowledge acquisition and exchange.” munity of practice as a group of Helen Baxter people [...] with a sense of iden- tity – both in the individual sense and in a contextual sense; that is, how the individual relates to the community as a whole.”15 They go on to argue that “by developing connections among practitioners, who may or may not be co-located, fostering relationships that build a sense of trust and mutual obligation, and creating a common language and context that can be shared by “We are all storytellers. We spend most of community members, communities of our lives, wittingly or unwittingly, telling practice serve as generators for social stories. In fact, it’s not something we have capital. This social capital, in return, cre- to learn, it’s something we do, day in and 17 ates an environment in which business day out, every day.” performance is positively impacted.”16 Stephen Denning Figure 3 illustrates this process.

The sharing of practices is accomplished through the use of a standardized case-study template called the “Practice Collection Form.” Practice authors are encouraged to use their own words and share their practice in a story format. As opposed to typical business cases, the practices are particularly useful “At its most fundamental level, knowledge because they are intended to be informa- can only be volunteered; it cannot be tive to municipal peers – showing them 18 conscripted.” the processes and outcomes of their prac- Dave Snowden tices. They focus on what the author

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 75 Figure 3. Communities of Practice are Linked to Organizational Performance through the Dimensions of Social Capital

ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

IMPROVE SOCIAL CAPITAL

CONNECTIONS

RELATIONSHIPS

COMMON CONTEXT

CREATE DECREASE LEARNING CURVE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE REDUCE REWORK AND PREVENT REINVENTION

INCREASE INNOVATION

Source: Adapted from E.L. Lesser and J. Storck, “Communities of practice and organizational performance,” IBM Systems Journal, 40, no. 4 (2001), p. 833. learned so that it is helpful to the reader. David Snowden describes storytelling as “a unit- ing and defining component of all communities. ... Managed and purposeful story telling provides a powerful mechanism for the disclosure of intellectual or knowledge assets in companies; it can also provide a non-intrusive, organic means of producing sustainable cultural change; conveying brands and values; transferring complex tacit knowledge.”19 By facilitating storytelling, the Practice Collection Form is a powerful way to convey knowledge.

Succession Planning

There are significant human resource retention and recruitment concerns for the fields of local government administration. As outlined in a 2001 survey of municipal administrators, “the need for succession planning within municipalities and within the province in general is perhaps best demonstrated by [Figure 4]. This [figure] clearly indicates that about 1/3 of all CAOs in the province expect to no longer be CAOs within the next six years.”20

Like the projections for the Government of Alberta, current human resources scenarios for Alberta’s municipal administrators estimate a fifty-per-cent-plus retirement/attrition outcome over the next six to ten years. Despite recruitment and retention efforts to retain skilled administrators within the field, in Alberta the numbers are declining. The practitioners, the University of Alberta and Alberta Municipal Affairs, all believe that the Municipal Excellence Network can capture much of the current knowledge of our greying municipal

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 76 Figure 4. Expected Number of Remaining Years as a CAO of an Alberta Municipality

Cumulative Years remaining Number Percentage Percentage < 1 yr 6 2 2 1 to 3 yrs 30 11 13 3 to 6 yrs 56 21 34 6 to 10 yrs 68 25 59 10 to 15 yrs 61 23 82 15+ yrs 48 18 100 Total Responding 269

Source: Nichols Applied Management, Municipal Administrators Survey (Edmonton: Nichols Applied Management, 2001).

workforce. This is critical because as new candidates emerge to fill vacancies, the capacity to mentor them is limited by reduced numbers of experienced local staff. The capacity of Alberta’s local governments to transition new staff effectively into senior administrative positions is compromised as the experienced workforce continues to diminish.

Most succession-planning strategies look at knowledge management as one component of a comprehensive plan. The MEnet database is a place to record the practices perfected over the years. The ME Network facilitates sharing across municipal and professional lines. By contributing to the network, municipal staff leverages both municipal and professional knowledge acquisition and transfer.

The severity of the retention situation should not be underestimated. During the past year, the City of Edmonton has had several key senior administrative positions posted nationally and has spent thousands of dollars in executive search activities. In many cases, the positions were open for more than six months. In Edmonton’s case, the organization is large and sophisticated enough to operate with an acting city manager or an acting manager of disaster services, but a town of 5,000 may not be. In most cases, it is much easier to attract qualified and experienced staff to a large city than to rural Alberta. Incumbent administrators and leaders need resources to assist them in their professional and legislated responsibilities to the municipality and the Municipal Excellence Network is one such resource.

Municipal savings should come from the following: • reduced time to mentor and train new senior and leadership personnel, by providing access to tried practices and lessons learned; • reduced consulting costs (access to practices in municipalities should reduce the

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 77 need for “one-off” consulting projects, and the database may also indicate areas for shared consulting services); • reduced research time for process design approaches through the consistent application of business process improvement approaches and through reducing the “re-in- venting of the wheel” syndrome; and • improved knowledge retention (the database permits longitudinal input and analysis of municipal practice design and outcome).

Business Process Improvement and Organizational Change

This entire initiative is centred around business process improvement. The objective is to provide Alberta municipalities with business process improvement tools and knowledge. The theme of the database is continuous improvement in the five content areas of the business process cycle – planning, communicating, organizing, implementing and performance measurement. Checklists, templates, case studies and links will all contribute to both the design and execution of process improvement initiatives.

When consulted in the design of the practice collection form, the stakeholders suggested that they were prepared to spend five to ten minutes looking for information. Therefore, the information needs to be specific and brief and the tools must be relevant. The stakeholders also agreed that checklists would be a good way for a municipality to self-assess its current situation.

While the database is the most tangible innovation of the project, the aforementioned organization of municipal business processes into categories and functions – called the “practice matrix” by ME networkers – is perhaps more important. The practice matrix has provided a classification framework for describing the work of local government. As such, it is an extremely valuable tool, not just for knowledge capture, but also for evaluation and performance measurement. This summary list of all the work involved in running a municipality comprises a good foundation for the knowledge management and continuous improvement activities of Alberta municipalities – it reinforces their commitment to excellence.

Support for excellence must be considered another important innovation promoted by the ME Network. While many municipalities have chosen to work for continuous improvement and excellence in their operations, the network has formalized this as a general objective for local governments in Alberta. The ME Network’s well-communicated mandate reinforces commitment to this objective, and much of its promotional and marketing material calls attention to and celebrates best practices and performance excellence.

Presentations at municipal association conferences, training and networking opportunities, and a self-assessment tool all support this objective, but most noteworthy are the minister’s awards for municipal excellence. Presented each fall by the minister of municipal affairs, these awards honour leading practices by local governments in the areas of innovation, partnership and outstanding achievement.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 78 Figure 5. Municipal Effectiveness and Capacity – Before MEnet / Current State

Alberta Municipalities High Alberta Municipalities are in varying stages of development, all Performance/ with different Effectiveness Mun A capacities to realize higher performance levels Mun B Mun D

Mun C Low

Low High Organizational Capability/Capacity Source: Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, “Municipal Excellence Program Proposal” [unpublished internal document], Edmonton, 1999.

Figures 5 and 6 represent the expected municipal organizational capacity and capability scenarios results using the ME Network. They present before-and-after perspectives.

The Municipal Excellence program is designed to help municipalities increase their own capacity to manage effectively and improve their performances. Not all municipalities, however, can or should aspire to the same objectives. The network is intended to help municipalities of different capabilities to realize higher levels of performance, with goals relevant to their environment, resources and capacity, since what is effective and efficient for a one municipality may not be for another, due to differences in size, geographical region, or interests and priorities of local residents.

The final piece to support municipalities in their pursuit of continuous improvement is stakeholder training. Training sessions have been designed so that municipalities may better understand how to implement the benefits of the Municipal Excellence Network in their own municipality. The training, which was, at the time of writing, planned for Febru- ary and March of 2004, will cover how to

• apply methods for identifying opportunities created by change in their municipality; • search for leading practices to support the development of opportunities; • assess the “fit” of opportunities within their municipality; and • use a structured approach to facilitate implementation and manage transition.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 79 Figure 6. Improved Capacity and Capability – After MEnet / Projected State

Alberta Municipalities Municipalities High will have different Mun D expectations, capacity and Mun C potential Performance/ Effectiveness Mun A Mun B There will be natural groupings with shared interests and needs

Low

Low High Organizational Capability/Capacity

Source: Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, “Municipal Excellence Program Proposal” [unpublished internal document], Edmonton, 1999.

Where change is desired, it is often hard to initiate; where not wanted, it often flourishes. Municipalities will be better able to recognize approaching change and to identify opportunities to enhance or mitigate its effects. The training sessions will cover the use of leading practices, what they are, and where to find them. The sessions will also talk about how to use the MEnet web site to support these types of searches.

A good practice in one municipality does not always transfer well into another. The training component will provide a basic framework to assess the practices found on the web site. Will it meet their challenge? Will it work in their environment? Can they just use parts of a practice? Can they mix and match ideas? Once municipal officials have some practices (or elements of practices) they want to implement in their organization, the training will provide them with a process, supported by some leading practices in project and change management, that can be used as a guide and a checklist. It will provide them with some questions they should be asking and can help them save some time later as the process rolls out.

The training will help munici- “Knowledge management will never work, […] until pal officials to make better use corporations realize it's not about how you capture of the Municipal Excellence knowledge but how you create and leverage it.” 21 Network within municipalities Etienne Wenger to improve organizational performance. Stakeholders will be guided through the five components of the business- planning cycle (planning, communicating, organizing, implementing, and managing per-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 80 formance). This structure will provide a framework for the identification of improvement opportunities and specific tips for managing a successful implementation.

Conclusion

This is a comprehensive initiative. The success of the Municipal Excellence Network has relied heavily on the participation, support and interest of the municipal officials whom it was designed to serve. This network provides an opportunity for municipal officials to learn in some areas and to assist and lead colleagues in other areas. By capturing their knowledge and making it accessible through the network, the officials’ time and expertise can be used more effectively and efficiently, and the setting of municipal priorities can be made on a far better informed basis.

All Albertans benefit from municipal governments that understand their own strengths and weaknesses and that are able to access information on practices to help them improve their performance for their residents. A key ongoing role for the ministry is to support municipalities that seek to improve their performance, enhance priority-setting, and find innovative approaches that can be shared.

All these strategies are aimed at helping to build a new culture of local government in Alberta, where learning organizations and their characteristics – knowledge management, collaboration, continuous improvement, and commitment to excellence – become the norm.

Notes

1 Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, “Municipal Excellence Program Project Charter” [unpublished internal document], Edmonton, 2000, p. 7. 2 Ibid. 3 Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, “Municipal Excellence Advisory Committee Meeting Summary” [unpublished internal document], Edmonton, 2001, p. 2. 4 Nichols Applied Management, Municipal Administrators Survey (Edmonton: Nichols Applied Management, 2001), p. 22. 5 Alberta, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, “Municipal Excellence Project Summary of Workshops” [unpublished internal document], Edmonton, 2001, p. 5. 6 Peter Senge, “Through the Eye of the Needle,” in R. Gibson, ed., Rethinking the Future (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1997), pp. 122–46. 7 Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak, Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1997), Chapter 22. 8 Nancy Dixon, Common Knowledge (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), p. 149. 9 Ibid., p. 150. 10 Ibid., p. 151.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 81 11 Ibid., pp. 151–52. 12 Ibid., p. 153. 13 Gartner Group, The Knowledge Management Scenario: Trends and Directions for 1998–2003 (Stanford, Conn.: Gartner Group, 1999). 14 Helen Baxter, “An Introduction to Online Communities,” Knowledge Board: The European KM Community [web site] ([Bristol, U.K.]: Knowledge Board, 2004), p. 1. 15 E.L. Lesser and J. Storck, “Communities of practice and organizational performance,” IBM Systems Journal 40, no. 4 (2001), p. 831. 16 Ibid., p. 833. 17 Stephen Denning, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge- Era Organization (London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000), Chapter 18. 18 David Snowden, “Storytelling and other Organic Tools of Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers,” in Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner, eds., In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning (Alexandria, Va.: American Society for Training and Development, 2000), p. 237. 19 David Snowden, “Storytelling: An old skill in a new context,” Business Information Review vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1999), p. 30. 20 Nichols Applied Management, Municipal Administrators Survey, p. 14. 21 Etienne Wenger, “Knowledge management takes community spirit,” CIO Insight 1, no. 13 (1 May 2002), p. 13.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 82 PART III

MUNICIPAL ENGAGEMENTS page 84 blank CHAPTER 7

ALBERTA’S MUNIMALL: ENGAGEMENT FOR BETTER GOVERNANCE AND DECISION-MAKING

Lorna Stefanick Assistant Professor Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta

In days gone by, public input in Canadian political processes was limited to participation in political parties, elections, and other state-sanctioned institutions. Those who were elected were given a mandate to govern for a specified term; public feedback on their performance was provided through elections. Administrators were typically career public servants who brought to their positions many years of experience and expertise. While the notion that the elected, highly visible politician was actually the “master” of the appointed, anonymous civil servant was a subject for debate among students of public administration, the system was structured to be very hierarchical and the lines of accountability were clear. The result was a stable, albeit closed, policy process whereby decision- makers operated with a large degree of autonomy from those they governed. This closed system was generally perceived favourably by students of public administration because the consensus was that those who advocated positions from outside this closed circle did not advance a larger public purpose but rather “almost inevitably promote particularistic causes and partial interests which includes at times the most indefensible advancement of human greed.”1

The dawn of the new millennium saw globalization, decreasing administrative capacity, and rising expectations dramatically change the context of governance. New economic conditions such as the emergence of global markets and businesses, the acceleration of technological innovation, the internationalization of research and development, the concern with intellectual property and the changing role of government intervention are characteristics of the new political economy.2 States find that they are being asked to do more despite the fact that they often have less ability to affect change given the trans-border nature of many of the issues with which they deal. Hiring freezes and lay-offs in the public sector have raised concern that capacity within the civil service is being systematically diminished, a concern that will be exacerbated when the “Baby Boom” cohort of administrators begins to retire. A related challenge is the changing relationship of citizens to the political process. Turnouts in elections are dropping; citizens are less trusting of politicians and apathetic towards the political process. Despite their seeming indifference, citizens are demanding more access to both decision-makers and to the decision making process on specific issues. The 2003 recall of the governor of California demonstrates the trend towards providing possibilities for an immediate “quick fix” to a perceived problem.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 85 In this case, citizens were not required to wait until the end of the governor’s term in office to express their discontent but instead had the ability to change leadership mid-term. Bun- dled together, these trends make governing in the new millennium a challenging task.

The changing context of governance and the challenges it presents are particularly notice- able at the local level. While electoral participation rates in the neighbourhood of two- thirds of the electorate at the federal and provincial levels is nothing to brag about, the problem is much worse in many municipalities where rates below forty per cent are not uncommon. The emphasis of leadership at this level has traditionally been on the management of services, and, with the exception of Canada’s largest cities, the capability for policy analysis and advice is very limited.3 This lack of capacity is particularly problematic as the issues that demand the attention of local officials are becoming increasingly complex and some problems appear intractable. To make matters worse, the downloading of services coupled with decreasing fiscal resources requires municipalities to do more with less. As a consequence of this confluence of forces, municipalities find themselves facing extremely difficult decisions on choosing priorities. Yet, despite these challenges, local politics has long been perceived as the place where representatives and citizens become familiar with the institutions and processes of democracy and the level of government where democracy in its purest form is most likely realized.4

As a result of this changing context, governments are seeking creative ways to increase their policy and administrative capacity and to think strategically about how decisions are made and priorities set. There is a growing literature that argues that the best policies spring from constant exchange between decision-makers and constituents, and much effort has been put into a variety of consultation processes to integrate key stakeholders and interested members of the public into decision-making processes in an ongoing and meaningful way. But while considerable effort has been put into looking at new ways of doing things, new consultation processes generally have received less than favourable reviews, and alternative approaches have been sought.5 Participation, it is argued, cannot be limited to an event, or a series of events, but rather it must be an ongoing process.6

“Citizen Engagement” is held up as a new method by which government can interact with the public, and other forms of “engagement” are becoming popularized in other quarters.7 Through engagement, affected stakeholders can be brought into decision-making and priority-setting processes in a continuous and deliberative manner for the purpose of making policy or setting strategic directions. Whether it be with stakeholders or with the general public more broadly defined, “engagement” is offered as a means by which different perspectives can be considered, trade-offs can be discussed, and the possibility for consensus on a shared direction can be contemplated.

While the concept of engagement is the premise that underpins many new initiatives, the tool for this engagement is often on-line technologies. As Katherine Graham and Susan Phillips note, technology is re-shaping the medium for participation.8 Whether it is providing government services via the Internet or undertaking other so called “e-government” initiatives to improve communication efforts, technologies have been held out as the wave of the future.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 86 But does technology really foster citizen engagement? Graham and Phillips observe that the “critical question of the Internet is whether it will be used primarily as an information source or whether it will empower citizens.”9 Studies that address this issue exist10; however, their numbers are limited and the jury is still out. This chapter seeks to supplement the literature on this topic. While it does not address itself specifically to the matter of “citizen engagement,” it does address itself to the concept of “engagement” more broadly defined. What follows is a case study of the MuniMall, an Alberta Municipal Affairs and a University of Alberta Faculty of Extension project that encourages municipal engagement using electronic media. The project seeks to connect municipal and provincial officials to the Internet, improve the facility of local government administrators with on-line technologies, improve access to professional development opportunities through on-line learning, and facilitate communication among a wide variety of municipal actors through its web site. MuniMall.net was conceived as the platform for a vibrant virtual community where municipal business, learning and communication would occur. Ultimately, the overriding goal was to build capacity within the local government community and to create a new, more accessible place through which municipal officials and others interested in municipal governance can engage one another.11

The chapter begins with a brief tour of the engagement literature, followed by a description of the MuniMall project and an analysis of how well MuniMall achieved its dual ambitions of fostering engagement and facilitating communication using electronic technologies. On-line technologies that provide a means of engagement, either for citizens or for other stakeholders more generally, provide an invaluable tool for increasing administrative and policy-making capacity by providing a range of valuable perspectives for decision-makers when addressing a variety of issues. Technologies that serve primarily as a disseminator of information also have utility, but this will be limited to improving communication. This is not to suggest that this function is unimportant, only that engagement as a concept is elusive, and true engagement may be much more difficult to achieve in practice than its advocates might be willing to admit.

The benefits of engagement are manifold. When used in reference to governance, citizen engagement is described as a method by which the public has ongoing representation in policy processes through dialogue with public officials. This dialogue not only gives the participants a method by which to “have their say” in policy debates,12 it also assists in illu- minating the complexities of the issues.13 The debate and deliberations that ensue during the engagement process can fundamentally change participants’ perceptions and approaches to issues once they are confronted with a variety of perspectives.14 As F. Abele et al. argue, “Equipped with an understanding of issues, relationships among issues, policy options and tradeoffs, as well as divergent and convergent perspectives, participants are able to form a considered or enlightened judgment about an issue or set of issues, and in some instances a consensus about the future.”15 Thus, not only will engagement serve to enhance the public’s ability to influence policy-making on an continuous basis, it also serves to increase the public’s awareness of how complicated policy issues can be and why compromise might be necessary. Of equal importance, the involvement of citizens on an ongoing basis decreases the ability of bureaucratic structures to guard information at the top of the organizational pyramid, leading to more transparent and equitable decision-making processes.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 87 The concept of “citizen engagement” is not as new as it might appear at first glance; it is inextricably linked to the traditions of adult education that historically sought to create vibrant and dynamic democratic communities by giving voice to disenfranchised groups.16 Civic education, in particular, seeks to assist in the creation of a well-informed and active citizenry by raising awareness of issues. As Daniel Schugurensky observes, “[T]he development of an enlightened and engaged citizenry has long been an important part of the adult education tradition. It can be stated that these two goals should be simultaneously sought through programs in which ‘enlightenment’ and ‘engagement’ complement each other.”17

Schugurensky goes on to argue that pedagogical strategies must assist citizens, particularly those who have little experience in democratic deliberation, in how to engage. In this, “e-learning” is a particularly useful tool, as on-line learning decreases the “privilege” of any particular individual participating in the learning process. E-learning within on-line courses uses a fundamentally different pedagogy than do traditional modalities. Rather than being the “sage on the stage” who is acknowledged as the keeper of specialized expertise, the instructor becomes a facilitator for sharing of knowledge among participants in the exchange. Other kinds of knowledge that are generated from the on-line environment reinforce the tendency to a more egalitarian learning process. That is, posting information on an accessible web site allows the information to be disseminated quickly, and to whoever wishes to access it. The poster functions initially as the gatekeeper of what is posted, but once the information appears on the web site, anyone with Internet access can reach and use it. Properly designed, on-line pedagogy prevents the passive consumption of information, but, as with citizen engagement, provides opportunities and incentives for the learner to actively participate in the discovery of new understandings.

The Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta is uniquely placed to operationalize projects seeking to enhance “engagement,” and in particular those projects that facilitate adult learning, disseminate expert knowledge to the larger community, and use on-line pedagogy. Since its inception in 1912, the faculty has had a mandate of “carrying the Univer- sity to the People” and continues to use new technologies to provide learning opportunities to as broad a community as possible, no matter how remote the location.18 Thus, the faculty has almost a century of experience “extending” to a diverse population of adult learners to engage them in lifelong learning. Engagement in this sense is not a one-way street; it is the process of developing comprehensive networks and collaborative partnerships with university faculties, stakeholders, diverse groups of learners, clients, funders, and production and delivery providers to define learner needs and to respond appropriately to them.

With respect to Alberta’s local government community, the Faculty of Extension has provided programming to local government administrators since 1938. The unit provided dis- tance education courses using a correspondence-based model until a Municipal Affairs grant provided funds to develop on-line courses in 1999. This grant sought to develop capacity and readiness within the municipal sector to take advantage of the promise of emerging Internet technologies and to provide a web-based platform for dynamic municipal community discourse. The three-part strategy comprised conditional grants to

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 88 • 213 municipalities to purchase computer equipment, Internet access and software training; • the Faculty of Extension to develop a portal web site or “virtual community” dedicated to municipalities and municipal issues that became known as MuniMall.net; and • the Faculty of Extension to develop interactive, on-line courses for its Local Gov- ernment Certificate Program.

The first component of the grant is straightforward, and the objective of bringing Alberta municipalities onto the Information Highway was achieved fairly quickly. The achievement of the second and third components of the grant was considerably more ambitious, as no templates existed. Moreover, the two components support one another, so the two had to be designed in tandem, and adjustments to one had to be done with a close eye to the impact on the other.

The original conception of the MuniMall web site was that of a one-stop on-line resource for all aspects of municipal affairs; its slogan was “Many Communities, One Meeting Place.” As a web portal for the Alberta municipal sector, the site was to encompass, among other things, a “Mall Tenant Services” component – a virtual trading floor where individual municipalities and suppliers of goods and services to those municipalities would be able to meet and conduct business transactions on-line. It was also envisioned that the site would include a host of other features such as events and conferences listings, on-line forms, collections of useful links, community fora (that is, on-line discussions), municipal profiles maps, on-line courses, the “Minister’s Chat Room,” the on-line Muni- cipal Administrators’ handbook, the MuniMall business plan, and the on-line MuniMall Magazine. The original MuniMall was to be analogous to the classical agora – a place of social and economic commerce.19 As a central “meeting place,” the MuniMall was conceived as a tool for facilitating municipal-sector interaction and learning. As such, it was hoped it would become a medium for increasing engagement among and between stakeholders (broadly defined) as well as municipal administrators.

In the early stages, a major municipal stakeholder expressed concerns that the site might compete with the production and delivery of its own Internet services. The result was that the project underwent significant changes as the limits of what was practical and politically expedient became apparent. By August 1999, the focus of MuniMall had significantly narrowed, and much of the service-delivery component was dropped. The ideal of a virtual municipal community engaged within a cyberspace forum was retained and became more sharply focused on educative and demonstrative purposes relating to the use of the Internet as a tool for e-government. The reconfigured MuniMall concept evolved into an aid to the municipal sector for adopting and using the Internet as a tool for achieving good government; this included more tightly integrating on-line course construction with the development of MuniMall.net. The primary clientele focus shifted to include municipal administrators foremost, and municipal elected officials, students and other local and senior government officials second. The project has continually experimented, reflected, adjusted and moved in an incremental fashion to achieve the narrower yet still ambitious goal of providing information to and animating discourse among officials working in a variety of capacities within the municipal government sector. The MuniMall con-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 89 tinues to be on the cutting edge, and it is still an exemplar of engagement, albeit with a smaller, more sharply defined community.

Central to MuniMall’s function as an information resource for the municipal stakeholders is its web site. The web site contains topically arranged static links including those to all Alberta municipalities that have web pages. Links to municipal sites are supplemented by links to news articles pertaining to the jurisdiction. The MuniMall contains an events page, where practitioners can browse a continually updated calendar of municipal conferences, workshops and networking opportunities. Government Studies’ on-line courses can also be accessed from the MuniMall web site (including those developed as part of the on-line course component of the Alberta Municipal Affairs grant). MuniMall currently hosts a collection of support material for on-line students and instructors, while the Government Studies web site provides information related to specific courses and programs offered. A link to the MuniMall “Discussion Forum” is also featured on the site’s home page. The forum features asynchronous on-line discussions organized topically by event and by Government Studies course title; these will be discussed later in the chapter. In addition to recognition among municipal administrators for its utility as an information resource,20 MuniMall.net was recognized at the North American Net Conference for its elegant design; it was awarded the “Best Educational Portal” prize.

Another feature of MuniMall that continues to grow in importance is the weekly newsletter. The “Newsletter” is an Internet publication designed specifically for local government practitioners, students and instructors across Canada. It is produced by conducting a comprehensive scan of weekly and daily newspapers across Canada that have web-based electronic files, as well as other relevant material that is available on the Internet, such as press and document releases issued by provincial governments on important policy issues and initiatives. Using newspaper style headlines and short descriptions, the “Newsletter” provides links to articles of interest to the municipal community on other web sites, with a special emphasis on newspapers. For example, the 30 October 2003 “Newsletter” featured articles on transportation, recreation, economic development, smoking by-laws, demo- graphic shifts, and the appointment and departure of both political and administrative personnel. Some original articles are produced in-house; in the past, these have been written as part of “special edition newsletters” that were produced on-site at major municipal conferences and events. More recently, the original articles have been written as a promotional tool for the on-line courses. The broad national perspective of the “Newsletter” benefits all practitioners by emphasizing the universality of certain municipal issues while at the same time highlighting regional differences.

The “Newsletter” utilizes “push” technology; it is e-mailed out to subscribers every Thurs- day evening. In October 2001, a twenty-year veteran of the news industry took over editor- ship and immediately increased the publication’s municipal news content and gave it a punchy tabloid personality. While news is the “Newsletter” ’s dominant content, it also publicizes a wide variety of other items of interest, including practitioner-submitted articles, guest columns, professional development opportunities, and electronic resources submitted by Government Studies students and instructors.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 90 The progressive editorial changes have been a hit, and the number of municipal practitioners subscribing to the “Newsletter” has increased steadily. The “Newsletter” is especially popular in rural areas, perhaps because many stories featured in the publication are drawn from small town and regional publications. By the autumn of 2003, the “Newsletter” subscriber base had climbed over the 2,000 mark; this base has doubled annually for the last two years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the actual readership of this newsletter is far higher; many municipalities have only one subscriber who forwards it to everyone in the office. While a newsletter is not a particularly novel idea, the MuniMall newsletter has been very successful in using new Internet technologies to bring timely, relevant news on a weekly basis to a large and varied audience across Canada by acting as the clearinghouse of news produced by others.

Another example of the MuniMall’s utility as a tool for disseminating information to the municipal community is its experiments with the streaming of presentations onto the web site. The vision behind the experiments is to create virtual symposia, featuring leaders in the municipal government field. Sessions are hosted on the web site; events are captured and broadcast live, while others are archived and integrated into local government courses as well as made available to the general public. The prospect of real-time linkage for those who are located in remote areas to events that might otherwise be inaccessible is seduc- tive, particularly if the central goal is to encourage the engagement of a wide spectrum of the local government community in the debate and discussion of a timely issue. Govern- ment Studies continues to experiment with this technology; however, access to these clips is limited by the technology that some use to access its site (e.g., dial-up modems and computers that lack processing speed and memory).

In contrast to both the newsletter and the mounting of audio and video presentations, the MuniMall “Discussion Forum” is an example of a completely new medium for two-way communication. As engagement must by definition be characterized by two-way communication, these discussions were conceived to be the heart of the MuniMall virtual community. MuniMall staff developed software that would support live and asynchronous discussion on the MuniMall web site. Supported by this custom-built bulletin board software, it was envisaged that the forum would promote lively municipal community discourse and would be a means of stimulating interaction and resource-sharing among members of the municipal community throughout Alberta.

The forum concept was operationalized through the use of “guest speakers” who provide live, or “real-time,” commentary on issues of concern to the local government community. The standard format of these sessions involves the guest providing a brief introductory written statement to session participants, then inviting responses and discussion. To date, most of the fora have been held on Tuesdays during the noon hour; the success of these sessions has varied with their subject-matter and their topicality. A session addressing Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy legislation, which was just then being introduced to the municipal sector, was extremely successful. Other topics that were addressed in the half-dozen or so forum sessions include the City of Airdie’s virtual city hall, Alberta Municipal Affairs’ new electronic land-titles registry, the intensive livestock operation controversy, and the Peace River Region dissolution study debate. Government

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 91 Studies also staged fora that counted towards grades for two of its on-line course offerings; these were quite active. Asynchronous exchanges are encouraged after the noon session, and on more than one occasion the discussion carried on for several days. The university continues to invest in the production of on-line fora using audio-spooling technology, and transcripts of the asynchronous exchanges that follow the audio feeds are available on-line.

Another initiative within the MuniMall grant that sought to facilitate two-way communication was the migration of existing correspondence courses in local government to an on- line environment that features discussion fora. End-of-course evaluations demonstrate that the response of students to the new on-line format is overwhelmingly positive. Students in Local Government programs across Canada are typically mid-career, working professionals who do courses part-time.21 While they enthusiastically embrace the opportunities for engagement with both their peers and their instructors in the on-line environment, it is likely that the changed role of the instructor in an on-line learning is well suited to the older learner with life experience and professional competencies.

In September 2002, Alberta learners in the Local Government Program became part of a new national program in Local Government: the National Advanced Certificate in Local Authority Administration. Participation in this program expands the professional networks of local government administrators, as learners are routinely exposed to professionals who work in other parts of the country. The specifics may differ, but learners find that they face many of the same issues, irrespective of their province of residence.

While the migration of the local government courses on-line and the MuniMall web site are two separate components of the grant, they are mutually reinforcing. The web site acts as a kind of “virtual reading room” for students. It contains a wide range of resources that can be accessed with a simple mouse click. Learners are required to use resources housed on this web site as part of their course work, and, once the habit of going to the MuniMall for reference materials is in place, it is hoped that they will continue to use on-line resources generally, and MuniMall specifically, once they graduate. A recent Government Studies course assignment provides anecdotal evidence that this is in fact the case: a class of mid-career administrators was asked to map information sources they used regularly in the conduct of their work. Their response confirmed that on-line resources, and, in particular, the MuniMall, have become an important resource for decision-making. Most cited the Internet as a source of information, and many of these indicated that MuniMall was one of the Internet sites they used to acquire job-related information. In one account, a CAO described using Internet-linked projection equipment in council chambers in order to take council for a tour of selected databases. While this may be an isolated case, it suggests that officials are not adversely disposed to using the site as an information or policy development tool. Web-based courses expose officials to on-line technologies and the MuniMall provides a relevant municipal resource.

More concrete evidence of the success of the MuniMall as a resource for municipal officials can be gleaned through the analysis of the data collected daily by the web site administrator. In the most recent one-month period analysed (ending 26 October 2003), the web site recorded 22,081 visits from some 7,236 unique visitors for an average of 736 visits per

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 92 day. MuniMall served 22,806 pages, 1,951 downloads, 272 streaming media files, and recorded a total of 254,335 hits. While the aspirations of the MuniMall authors to create a “meeting place” may not have been completely satisfied, the resources on the site have been and continue to be used by municipal officials.

Returning to the question posed at the outset of this chapter: Does technology foster citizen engagement? It is clear that MuniMall has demonstrated considerable success with respect to using on-line technologies to disseminate information to and among local government administrators in Alberta and beyond. The MuniMall provides a venue for the mounting of video and audio presentations; interested administrators can access speeches and presentations by leaders in their field with a simple click of the mouse. The MuniMall “Newsletter” is a popular and highly effective purveyor of municipal news; this medium is reaching a national audience. On-line courses that now have a national reach use resources found on the MuniMall web site. Where the MuniMall has been less successful has been in its ability to encourage engagement among municipal stakeholders in an on-line environment. The reasons for this are complex.

An important impediment to government using web-based technologies to affect improved communications is the expense of mounting and maintaining the web site. Municipal Affairs provided the University of Alberta with a substantial grant to create the MuniMall; it subsequently funded a “second round” to hire personnel to keep the MuniMall going. But clearly, grant money is not infinite, and university officials have had to think creatively about how to maintain the web site after the grant monies run out. It was determined that the provincial orientation would not attract sufficient revenue streams to sustain the project and thus a national orientation was sought. This national focus increases awareness of issues beyond provincial boundaries, assisting local government decision-makers in understanding the complexities of issues. This is particularly true with respect to issues that are not neatly contained within provincial boundaries. But at the same time, more global orientation (that to some degree is a given within an “open” virtual environment), decreases the relevance of the MuniMall for those who seek a provincially focused network. This is of particular relevance in the field of local government administration, as, by definition, many of the issues are local in orientation and the legislative apparatus that determines the structure of municipalities is provincial.

One of the biggest disappointments of the project was that the anticipated dynamism of the discussion fora did not materialize after the initial hosted session. Faculty of Extension researchers concluded that the lack of vitality might be due to the fact that public administrators by nature are reluctant to engage in public discussions of issues. Specifically, equality and openness are two notable characteristics of the web environment. In contrast, public servants have traditionally worked in structures that are hierarchical and where information is a closely guarded asset. The on-line environment is the antithesis of this. One of its greatest assets is its ability to disseminate information quickly to a huge audience. While the advantages of on-line technology democratizes access to information, the very openness and transparency of the fora run counter to the traditional bureaucratic culture. Public servants who have in the past been conditioned to work “behind the scenes” may find it very uncomfortable to engage in discussions that are public. Moreover, the tra-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 93 ditional role of the public servant, that of being the keeper of privileged knowledge who is hidden from public view, serves to inhibit the use of on-line technologies that disseminate knowledge and facilitate transparent communication among many players.

The characteristics of the administrative culture notwithstanding, it is interesting to note that Monica Gattinger’s study of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and the City of Ottawa’s experience of forging electronic connections between councillors and constituents revealed much the same reluctance on the part of municipal politicians. She concluded that “[c]ouncillors tend to perceive the technology as a tool they have to use rather than a tool they want to use.” Gattinger also speculated that even among politicians who are used to being in the spotlight, the medium was perceived to be too public. That is, unlike a phone call or a meeting, a text-based medium leaves a permanent record.22

Another factor that likely contributed to the fora’s lack of vitality is the other opportunities that leaders of the municipal community have to participate in discussions and debate of municipal issues and priorities by virtue of their membership in professional organizations and through attendance at municipal conferences hosted by a variety of organizations. In Alberta alone, there are five municipal professional organizations; this number does not include municipal organizations that operate at the regional and national level. Member- ship in professional bodies and participation in conferences, policy fora, seminars, and other “group” activities often lead to the creation of robust personal networks that can be accessed on an “as needed” basis. The opportunities to engage in these networking activities increase with an individual’s professional stature. For those with robust networks, the opportunity to make connections via a new medium is not particularly appealing, especially if it requires the acquisition or refinement of a new skill set. This is borne out by Government Studies survey work that indicates that when confronted with a vexing time- sensitive issue, ninety-three per cent of Alberta’s CAO first action is to use the telephone to seek advice from a colleague in another municipality.23 Those who are the most inclined to embrace new opportunities to network on-line are likely those in more junior positions, whose opportunity for networking is limited. Moreover, the junior administrators are already on a steep learning curve with respect to their professions, so learning a new skill set is taken in stride. But the absence of leaders is a disincentive for those who otherwise might be inclined to join the discussion.

It is likely among these “juniors” where the future of MuniMall as a platform for dynamic municipal discourse lies. Currently, a concerted effort is being made to integrate the Muni- Mall into the courses that are taken by students in the recently launched on-line national advanced certificate in local government administration. Students are directed to access resources housed on MuniMall and have contributed links to the database. It is hoped that the MuniMall resource will become a truly vital component of the new program and that, once graduating students have used it in the course of their studies, they will continue to use it as an integral part of their daily professional routine. Students in this new program are currently developing virtual networks by working on assignments and having moder- ated class discussions with fellow students from other parts of Canada. Continuing these discussions through a medium like the MuniMall is a natural progression as they move from being students to fully “engaged” professionals.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 94 While the MuniMall project has not been an unequivocal success with respect to creating a vibrant virtual on-line municipal community, it has and continues to contribute to bringing many municipalities (and the administrators that work within them) into the web-based world, and it has facilitated various degrees of engagement through the dissemination of information to the municipal community through a number of different avenues. While at first blush it may seem that these successes are modest, it is important not to underestimate their significance. At its inception, the MuniMall was without precedent in Canada with respect to its initial ambitions. While not all of its objectives have been achieved, in a period where the challenge of effective and legitimate priority-setting has become a major concern for governance, the lessons learned serve as a guiding light to its authors and others who venture down the cyber path of engagement, cyber-community construction, and e-learning.

Notes

1 Vladimer Orlando Key, Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, 5th edition (New York: Crowell, [1964]). 2 Richard W. Morris, “Economic Development, Technology Transfer, and Venture Financing in the Global Economy,” in David V. Bison, George Kozmetsky and Raymon W. Smilor, eds., The Technopolis Phenomenon: Smart Cities, Fast Systems, Global Networks (New York: Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 1992). 3 Edmund P. Fowler and David Siegel, Urban Policy Issues: Canadian Perspectives, 2nd edition (Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press Canada, 2002). 4 C. Richard Tindal, Local Government in Canada, 5th edition (Scarborough, Ont.: Nelson, 2000). 5 M. Mendelsohn and J. McLean, “Getting engaged: the Social Union Framework Agreement and Citizen Engagement,” in T. McIntosh, ed., Building the Social Union: Perspectives, Directions and Challenges (Regina: Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy, 2002) pp. 42–7; F. Abele, K. Graham, A. Ker, A. Maioni and S. Phillips, “Talking with Canadians: Citizen Engagement and the Social Union” [unpublished document], Canadian Council on Social Development, Ottawa, 1998; L. Stefanick and K. Wells, “Alberta's Special Places 2000: Conservation, Conflict, and the Castle- Crown Wilderness,” in S. Bocking, eds., Biodiversity in Canada: Ecology, Ideas, and Action (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2000) pp. 367–90. 6 Katherine A. Graham and Susan D. Phillips, “Making Public Participation More Effective: Issues for Local Government,” in Katherine A. Graham and Susan D. Phillips, eds., Citizen Engagement: Lessons in Participation from Local Government. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration – No. 22 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1998), pp. 1–24. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., p. 16. 9 Ibid. 10 Monica Gattinger, “Local Government On-Line: How are They Doing it and What Does it Mean?,” in Ibid., pp. 200–22. 11 Government Studies, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, “MuniMall Final Report,” produced for Alberta Municipal Affairs, 2002.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 95 12 Graham and Phillips, “Making Public Participation More Effective,” in Graham and Phillips, Citizen Engagement; Abele et al., “Talking with Canadians” [unpublished]; Mendelsohn and McLean, “Getting Engaged,” in McIntosh, Building the Social Union; Susan Phillips and Michael Orsini, “Mapping the Links: Citizen Involvement in Policy Processes” [unpublished document], Canadian Policy Research Network, Ottawa, 2002. 13 D. Prior, J. Stewart and K. Walsh, Citizenship: Rights, Community and Participation (London: Pitman Publishing, 1995). 14 I. Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 15 Abele et al., “Talking with Canadians” [unpublished], p. 9. 16 Parila Aggarwal, Bill Fallis and Bob Luker, “Toward Building a Culture of Engagement in Adult Education.” Round table discussion, proceedings of the National Conference of Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, 2003. 17 Daniel Schugurensky, “Enlightenment and Engagement in Adult Education for Democratic Citizenship: Lessons from the Citizens’ Forum and the Participatory Budget.” Paper presented at the proceedings of the Twentieth Anniversary National Conference of the Canadian Association for Studies in Adult Education, 2001, p. 1. 18 See the Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta web site at http:// www.extension.ualberta.ca. 19 Government Studies, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, “MuniMall Final Report,” produced for Alberta Municipal Affairs. 20 In a telephone survey of chief administrative officers in Alberta conducted by Government Studies in 1999 – the early years of the project – almost all of the respondents had heard of MuniMall and most had also visited the web site. Regarding impression, most of the comments were positive, with a number indicated that the site provided good information. A majority of those visiting the site had visited within two months of the survey. Most respondents found the site useful and interesting. 21 Government Studies, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, “MuniMall Needs Assessment Phone Survey Report,” 1999. 22 Gattinger, “Local Government On-Line,” in Graham and Phillips, Citizen Engagement, p. 209 (emphasis in the original). 23 Government Studies, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, “MuniMall Needs Assessment Phone Survey Report.”

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 96 CHAPTER 8

CITIZENS’ INPUT INTO PRIORITY-SETTING: THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN HALTON REGION

Carleen Carroll Director, Community Relations Halton Regional Municipality

Karen Maxwell Director, Strategic Planning Halton Regional Municipality

Public participation is an integral part of our business at Halton Region. It not only provides opportunities for our citizens to have an imprint on the future of their community, but it can also generate innovative solutions to outstanding issues or challenges, guide government in the identification of its priorities, and enable members of government and the public to arrive at agreed-upon courses of action. By ensuring that citizens’ needs are directly reflected in the design of a regional program or service, we are also building our customers’ trust, support and confidence in our ability to deliver value for their tax dollars.

The Changing Landscape

Engaging citizens in the life of their local government is not new for Halton. We have always been committed to the open flow of information between government and the community and ensuring that Halton remains a government that is transparent, accessible and meaningful to its residents. But the landscape has changed over the years. Today’s citizens are well educated and well informed about local government issues. The public is ques- tioning the decisions of authorities more often. Furthermore, today’s citizens use sophisticated technology for information and expect active and appropriate responses to their requests. In order to continue to engage the public in issues of regional government and ensure the most representative priority-setting processes, we need to evolve with these changes. Our success depends in part on our ability to go beyond the traditional means of citizen involvement – public meetings, delegations to council – in order to maintain a successful and enduring relationship with the members of this community.

The Evolution

For many years Halton has successfully consulted and engaged the public on a wide array

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 97 of topics. We have held countless public meetings on various issues of importance to the community and continue to establish advisory committees on a range of subjects: development charges, ecological and environmental matters, elderly services, diversity concerns, Halton Region accessibility, water conservation, and youth, to name a few.

At Halton we also recognize that our ability to effectively engage our citizens in local government issues depends on their understanding of how the region operates. There is a need to continually build awareness of our programs and services in order to ensure that the public truly understands our business.

Halton Region: Who are we?

Halton Region is located between Toronto and Hamilton and is considered part of the Greater Toronto Area. Incorporated in 1974, Halton Region comprises four municipalities: the City of Burlington, and the towns of Halton Hills, Milton, and Oakville. Halton covers more than 967 kilometres of land, with Oakville and Burlington forming the urban area in the south, and Halton Hills and Milton comprising the largely rural area in the north. With its current population of 375,200 projected to reach 445,000 by 2007, Halton Region is one of Canada’s fastest-growing areas.

Halton is home to a diverse range of industries (more than 14,000 businesses) and boasts a strong, resilient and stable economy. Urban areas are home to several manufacturing companies, accounting for almost half of Halton’s total workforce of 180,000 people. Much of the region’s rural areas are devoted to farming and land conservation. Halton features one of the most beautiful environments in southern Ontario. Endless nature trails along the Niagara Escarpment and an abundance of waterfront parks along Lake Ontario provide residents with the opportunity to explore and experience a healthy, vibrant and enjoyable lifestyle.

Halton Region provides a number of cost-effective quality programs and services including the treatment, supply and distribution of water, sewage treatment and disposal, waste management, land-use planning, public health, ambulance services, income and employment services, children’s services, seniors services including long-term care facilities, housing, and business development.

In 2000, Halton Region made a corporate commitment to citizen-centred service. Citizen- centred service is a move by governments to join together and provide seamless, coordinated access to their services. The idea is that a citizen can find information, services and programs offered by different levels of government from a single point of contact, such as a phone call or visit to a government location or web site – regardless if that service is delivered by the federal, provincial, regional or local level. This is of particular importance in Halton, where our citizens are served by a two-tiered system: the regional government, or upper-tier (Halton Region), and the four area municipalities, or lower-tier – Halton Hills, Milton, Oakville, and Burlington. Flowing directly from this initiative is Halton’s customer-service strategy, developed three years ago under the direction of the region’s chief administrative officer. While we’ve always been committed to customer service, this strategy provides the opportunity to enhance our current practices by optimizing each and every customer contact to meet the needs and expectations of our citizens.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 98 One of the key components of the strategy was centralizing the customer service and communications functions. While Halton has always consulted with its citizens and encouraged public participation, it was never coordinated through a centralized function. Through the formation of the Community Relations Division in 2001 we are now able to align the key messages of the organization with enhancements to more accessible and responsive service delivery. The result has been successful, as seen through a decline in customer complaints, increased awareness of the region through media and advertising, and more effective opportunities for engaging the public.

Citizens First

Over the past several years, Halton Region has employed a number of methods that are designed to be citizen-focused and promote an effective and accountable relationship between regional government and the citizens of this community. We’ve had to explore new ways to raise awareness, enhance accessibility to our services, improve customer relations, and increase the number of opportunities for engaging our citizens. Further, we have had to do this in the face of a growing number of challenges: the lack of one media outlet that reaches all Halton citizens; the transfer of responsibilities from the provincial and federal governments; and a growing community with changing needs in diversity and accessibility. We have highlighted a few of these initiatives below.

Halton Region’s Strategic Plan

The 2001–03 strategic plan identifies the major challenges facing Halton Region, outlines council’s priorities and how council intends to reach its goals over three years. The plan addresses five themes: smart growth and liveability; mobility and prosperity; services to people; accountable and responsive government; and accessible and resourceful government. Each theme contains goals supported by actions and progress indicators that measure our success in achieving these goals.

The theme of accessible and resourceful government contains two goals in particular that are significant for public participation:

• Customer service – to work with our partners to provide Halton’s residents with more integrated and seamless access to government services and to raise public awareness of those services provided by the region; and • Citizen participation – to engage in two-way communication with our residents and encourage their participation in the development of regional policies and programs.

Each goal contains a number of specific actions that clearly indicate regional council’s commitment to engaging the public in the affairs of the region and in finding innovative ways to provide information to the public and create new opportunities for community feedback.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 99 Chairman’s Community TV Show

For the past two years, Regional Chairman Joyce Savoline has been hosting PeopleSpeak in a Place Called Halton, a local cable-television show featuring key guests from the community. PeopleSpeak provides viewers with news and information on upcoming council events and regional meetings while offering a forum for Halton residents to discuss issues that have federal, provincial, and even global connections. Each thirty-minute segment addresses the region’s services, programs and issues while emphasizing the role the region plays within the community. Topics range from emergency planning, flu clinics, and the regional budget, to West Nile Virus, physician recruitment, and child care curriculum. Viewers are invited to call in during the live broadcast, which airs on local cable stations about once every three weeks

Annual Report

The 2001 Annual Report was reformatted with a focus on being citizen-friendly, providing residents with a clear picture of the initiatives the region is involved in and a broader understanding of the challenges faced today by regional government. The creation of the 2001 report presented an opportunity to use a traditional vehicle to enhance communication with our stakeholders. One of the central goals of the report was to educate our citizens about the services and programs provided by the region. The report was magazine-style, with articles written in story form on topics of interest to our community, including West Nile Virus, housing, waste management. The report, which is also available on Halton’s web site, included a tear out/mail form to encourage feedback from the community.

The Evolution Continues

Despite the strategy to enhance customer service, improve access to our programs and services, increase awareness, and an ongoing commitment to meaningful, two-way communication with our citizens, we have learned that the process for engaging and responding to the public is constantly evolving. Two recent case studies will be used to illustrate how public participation requires a sincere commitment to citizen-centred service, accountable and responsive governing, and the ability to continually reflect and re-evaluate the way we do business.

Case Study 1: Sheltering the Homeless in Halton Although Halton is one of the most affluent areas in Ontario, the incidence of homelessness is increasing. In January 2001, a focused approach began to establish an emergency shelter in Oakville (the area in Halton with the greatest need and where no permanent emergency housing shelter exists). As the funding partner, Halton region worked with the service providers, the Salvation Army and the Town of Oakville, to find a suitable site. The region held public “town hall” consultations, but, without a specific site on the table, interest from the public and the media was minimal.

In June 2002, the Salvation Army submitted a rezoning application to the Town of

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 100 Oakville for a site in a residential area. Community outrage ensued, leading the Salvation Army to withdraw its application. It quickly became apparent that there was need for a rig- orous communication and consultation process that was open, transparent and accountable and an education component that would foster an alignment of interest and understanding of the need for emergency shelter within the region.

The communications strategy included the following components:

Emergency Housing Advisory Group (EHAG) • Halton Regional Chairman Joyce Savoline took the lead by establishing an advisory committee made up of interested stakeholders and citizens-at-large – this served to broaden the ownership of the issue and extend the voices of response to the need. • The committee was tasked with developing a set of criteria for locating, operating and communicating any emergency shelter in Halton. • The committee met weekly for ten weeks exploring specific themes such as safety and security and conducting site visits of existing shelter operations. • The work of the committee culminated in a final report, which was ultimately endorsed by regional council.

Communications Working Group • Bi-weekly meetings led by Halton community relations director with participation by the Town of Oakville, the Salvation Army, and Halton Region staff.

Community Update Bulletins • EHAG issued weekly updates on their work and progress after each meeting. • These updates were delivered to resident associations, church groups, not-for-profit groups, and the media.

Dedicated Emergency Housing Line • Stakeholders were encouraged to leave their comments on the dedicated phone line – all comments were transcribed and provided to EHAG, and all public comments were addressed in the final report.

Dedicated E-mail Address • Stakeholders utilized e-mail to leave written comments and these e-mails were provided to EHAG and addressed in the final report. • Residents also wrote directly to their councillors and the regional chairman.

Dedicated Web Site • The web site posted continuously updated fact sheets, community bulletins, media releases, question-and-answer documents, and reports.

Public Meetings • 19 September 2002 – objective was for EHAG to listen and learn from the community. • All comments recorded during this meeting were posted on the web for the entire community to see.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 101 • 24 October 2002 – the second public meeting was held specifically to address EHAG’s draft report. • Prior to the meeting, the draft report including all recommended criteria was posted for review on the web.

Advertising • The communications strategy utilized a number of advertising vehicles, including advertisements for the public meetings, messages to the public from the chairman in the weekly advertising masthead, public-service advertising on Cogeco Cable.

Media • Media stories on the “faces of homelessness” were arranged with the Oakville Bea- ver newspaper. • Sixteen media releases covering the extended work of the advisory group were issued.

Regional Chairman Updates to Councillors • The regional chairman provided ongoing updates to local and regional councillors on the progress of the advisory group.

Internal Communications • Halton Region’s chief administrative officer provided regular updates to Halton staff on the progress of EHAG.

Open Houses/Site Visits to Shelter Facilities • The Salvation Army conducted tours in their temporary emergency shelter in Oakville. • Visits to similar proposed facilities were arranged in Peel Region for advisory group members and councillors.

Prior to the 19 September 2002 public meeting, media coverage was predominantly nega- tive. However, once the purpose of the advisory group was known and the first public meeting was announced, an editorial in the Oakville Beaver encouraged the community to get on board and move the process forward. More than 120 residents participated in the roundtable sessions at this meeting. Media coverage became more positive and balanced, and the number of angry calls and e-mails lessened significantly.

There were a number of critical factors that led to a successful outcome:

• clear, consistent, open, honest, complete and timely communications; • emphasis on personal face-to-face communications; • commitment to consistent behaviour and messaging; • accessibility of the process and key decision-makers; • feedback initiated, acted upon and reported back; and • public involvement that led to building an understanding and ultimate success in siting a shelter.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 102 By delivering a report with criteria for siting, operating and communicating about a shelter that was accepted by the public, community outrage was significantly diminished. While the majority of work on this issue took place from June–December 2002, the EHAG report was delivered to regional council on 22 January 2003, where it received wide endorse- ment. Public meetings on the final report were held in all four area municipalities in Halton, and a permanent shelter site has been purchased in Oakville.

In recognition of Halton’s commitment to quality communications with this initiative, Halton Region received two communications awards in 2003, including the highest national honour (Award of Excellence) from the Canadian Public Relations Society for the communications supporting the work of the Emergency Housing Advisory Group in 2002.

Case Study 2: Expansion of Mid-Halton Wastewater Treatment Plant

The Mid-Halton Wastewater Treatment Plant is a sewage plant located in the Glen Abbey area of Oakville. In 2002, discussions began about the proposed expansion of this facility. Ever since the treatment plan was initially proposed in 1972, the plan has been to expand the plant in phases using a modular design to accommodate future increases in demand and the use of the latest wastewater treatment technology.

Halton Region’s mandate is to consider the infrastructure needs of our entire community and to pursue infrastructure solutions that maximize environmental quality and efficiency region-wide. In keeping with the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment, a four- phased environmental assessment was launched in 2002. The Class Environmental Assessment Act also requires that the regional municipality consult with the public prior to any expansion.

In June 2002, Halton Region held a public open house to review the operations of the plant and explore the possibility of a proposed expansion. While the open house was advertised through local media, it was titled “Public Information Centre – Halton Water & Wastewa- ter Master Plan Review Class Environmental Assessment,” and less than twenty people attended. It soon became obvious that there was a need for clear, plain language. The majority of residents did not understand the term “wastewater,” as it was advertised, but they later stated they would have attended if the facility had been referred to as the “sewage” plant.

A second public meeting was held in November 2002 and drew more than 100 people. Public angst and interest was clearly growing on the subject. Two regional councillors hosted a third public meeting in January 2003 addressing concerns over the plant’s expansion. Public confusion about the expansion continued to be evident at this meeting. The use of new technology (e.g., Internet) fed a misinformation campaign as citizens obtained information on the issue from unreliable sources.

As resident interest grew on this issue, the volume of public inquiries and councillor requests led to the need for a more strategic approach: effectively engage the public’s participation and support a balanced and informed public dialogue on the proposed expan-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 103 sion. A range of communications vehicles was required to ensure that information reached the community in a timely and effective way, including media releases, direct mail, and web-based resources. The tone of communications initiatives needed to be fact-based, comprehensive, straightforward and responsive to the issues and themes raised by the community.

The objectives of the communications program were to welcome public input into the review of the proposed expansion; ensure the information the public received was balanced, timely and accurate; to clarify the environmental assessment process; and to identify opportunities for public participation. Some of the activities that Halton employed included

• establishment of a communications steering committee – including the development of a communications strategy to provide information and encourage public involvement; • establishment of a phone hot-line for residents to ask questions, leave comments by voicemail; • acknowledgement of every e-mail sent from the public; • distribution of a “letter drop” to all residents in the area of the sewage plant; • creation of specific Mid-Halton sewage plant page on the regional web site to include fact sheets, Q&As, presentations, scientific information, a myth-versus-reality campaign; • engagement of local media – letters to the editor, public presentations, public tours; and • preparation of a strategy to deal with “what if there is no expansion.”

In addition to the strategies outlined above, a citizen’s committee was established to draft a terms of reference for the next phases of the environmental assessment. As part of its educational awareness campaign, Halton also developed and launched a video on the Mid- Halton plant, offering a “virtual tour” of the facility.

In this case, it is clear that the use of consistent, clear language, and using one voice to deliver the key messages were paramount to the success of this campaign. We also learned through this initiative the importance of being clear on commitments to the public; having one point of contact coordinating public responses; timeliness of information; and providing factual information.

Moving Forward

As stated earlier, successfully engaging citizens in the life of their community requires moving beyond traditional approaches. The case studies cited above are evidence that the means of communicating with citizens continue to change and challenge our standard ways of doing business.

One of the key initiatives that evolved directly out of the sewage-treatment plant example

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 104 was the Halton Citizen Reference Library. During the public meetings and open houses on the proposed expansion of the plant, residents questioned why the master plan for the plant’s expansion was not available on the region’s web site. Due to the enormous size of this extensive planning document, there were technical limitations that prevented us from putting the document on-line (the document would “crash” computer systems, both inter- nally and externally). It was decided that if the document could not be available virtually we would make it available physically, to meet the needs of our citizens. And so, in Febru- ary 2003, the Halton Citizen Reference Library was launched. This self-serve reference centre is designed to provide Halton residents with access to accurate and timely information on public issues currently before regional council. Residents can obtain copies of Halton documents from the library, ranging from staff reports and the official plan, to the budget book and social housing documents. This user-friendly resource also supports Halton’s ongoing commitment to make government in Halton more accessible to the public – residents can visit the library at the Halton regional building, or visit it on-line at the region’s web site from the comfort of their own home or office.

The reference library is an example of how Halton has responded to the needs of the public for enhanced accessibility to timely and relevant information. And while Halton has successfully consulted with and responded to the public for many years, there was no formal document that illustrated our ongoing commitment to public consultation. Further- more, in support of the strategic plan goal to engage in two-way communication with our residents and encourage their participation, council specifically committed itself to developing protocols for consultation that ensure early and regular input from residents in the design of Halton’s policies and programs.

In 2003, Halton launched its “Guiding Principles for Public Consultation.” The guiding principles are set out in a list of sixteen protocols that are based on the notion that effective public consultations help to ensure that the region develop and deliver quality policies, programs and services that meet the needs of Halton residents. The purpose of this document is to provide Halton regional staff and residents with an understanding of the guiding principles when planning or participating in public meetings or consultations. A staff committee, with representatives from all departments, developed the principles. The committee’s objective was to establish protocols that clearly set out the manner to which Halton Region is committed to consulting the public. The made-in-Halton guiding principles, and the explanations that accompany the principles, can be applied in the Halton context, where the consultation processes have differing content, scale and complexity. Each of the sixteen protocols, which were approved by regional council, is supported by a clear definition explaining Halton’s commitment to the process. Some of the protocols include value and encouraging public involvement, sharing information and education, timeliness, openness/two-way communication, mutual respect/objectivity, responsiveness/feedback, transparency and accountability. This document is available in brochure and bookmark formats and is also available on the region’s web site and in the Citizen Reference Library.

Halton’s ability to engage its citizens in the life of local government depends in part on the public’s level of awareness of regional programs and services and the region’s ability to provide timely and relevant information to the public. These factors in turn rely on our

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 105 understanding of the community’s perception of the region and knowledge about how our citizens prefer to receive information about Halton. In May 2003, a “Customer Satisfac- tion Survey” was carried out to measure our residents’ perceptions, expectations and levels of satisfaction with customer service and to determine how they like to receive information on the region. This survey provided us with another means for measuring how much our citizens know about the region and its services, and how we’re doing on customer- focused delivery of those services. It also enables us to assess our citizens’ preferred methods for receiving regional information, which allows us to plan more effectively for meeting their needs in the future. Regional council will use the survey results as it identifies key priorities for action in the next strategic plan (2004–07).

Early in 2004, the region will embark on a strategic planning process for the new regional council term (2004–07). This process will build on Halton’s past experiences and use that knowledge to effectively respond to the changing needs of our community. The strategic plan is intended to identify and clearly articulate regional council’s vision for Halton and priorities for the new council term. It will act as a vehicle for communicating to citizens what council sees as the major challenges that face the region now and into the future, and how council intends to respond to those challenges.

The proposed process for the 2004–07 strategic plan involves engaging the community in public consultations at a number of different levels to confirm the key issues identified by council, to seek input on the draft strategic plan, and clarify municipal priority-setting. Public consultations are being designed to include the following: conduct an interactive “town hall” meeting designed to canvas a pre-selected, demographically representative sample of Halton residents on the key issues facing the region that should be addressed by regional council as part of the strategic planning process; engage community leaders in the strategic planning process, including local councillors, school board trustees, members of the Halton Regional Police Services Board, conservation authorities, hospital boards, etc.; consult with representatives from Halton’s existing regional advisory committees; organize an interactive, facilitated forum with citizen-based organizations, including ratepayer and environmental groups active in Halton; hold public open houses to provide a general opportunity for interested members of the public to provide input into the strategic planning process; and enhance opportunities for engaging the public through the Halton Region web site (e.g., explore the potential for interested members of the public to participate electronically, including registering their e-mail addresses for information updates and for the public to provide feedback electronically at key points in the process).

Looking Ahead

Effective public participation does not occur by accident. It is the result of continual growth, learning, commitment to open, honest, two-way communication, and the ability to constantly re-evaluate our efforts. What we’ve learned is that there is no fixed strategy for success. Halton needs to strive for improving public participation on an ongoing basis. The way our citizens want to access information continues to change, and the methods we use to respond will have to evolve as well.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 106 As our citizens increase their use of technology to access information, we need to enhance our ability to provide interactive, responsive web-based services. We need to ensure that our programs and services continue to be easily accessible to all of our citizens. We need to ensure that opportunities for participation are widely publicized and that the public is given sufficient notice to be involved. Information needs to be clear, concise and factual. We need to continually increase awareness about regional government and the overall value of public participation. We need to ensure the maximum input of the public into the municipality’s priority-setting processes today and into the future. And we need to maintain the ability to change. The future of Halton depends on it.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 107 CHAPTER 9

PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN MUNICIPAL PRIORITY-SETTING: THE CITY OF VANCOUVER’S PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT REVIEW

Michael White Planning Department City of Vancouver

In recent decades there has been increasing pressure to increase public involvement in government decision-making and priority-setting. There is no single technique to engage the public for the variety of programs that governments offer, but generally the necessity for public involvement increases as issues become more significant and controversial. The City of Vancouver has considerable experience in engaging the public to make choices about policies and spending, including its planning programs and annual budget reviews. At the corporate level, the city has also taken considerable effort to improve the ways in which the public is engaged across the organization. This has most recently been expressed through the city’s Public Involvement Review, which has resulted in a number of improvements, including new staff training, a public process guide, community web pages, a newcomer’s guide to the city, and a civics manual for high school students.

The Public Connection to Local Government

The very nature of local government implies a strong connection to the public. It is the closest and most tangible form of democracy with which citizens connect (through the amenities of parks, schools, police, fire-fighting, roads, water, sewers, etc). This often results in a much more visible product of government spending than the more abstracted senior government programs (social welfare, national defence, fiscal policy, etc.). Local government is also generally more accessible than senior governments, as citizens can walk into local town halls and speak directly to local politicians, either informally or through council meetings and public hearings.

In terms of decision-making and priority-setting, we include the public, on the one hand, because we are obliged to do so, and, on the other, because we genuinely believe in the value of including the public. The obligation stems from the legal issue of due process. People should be treated fairly, through substantive and procedural means, when government decisions affect them. This obligation becomes even clearer when the public reacts to change. People become concerned when something new, large and/or different is pro-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 108 posed near their community, and especially when it’s near their home (e.g., NIMBYism – Not in My Backyard). People also seek involvement over issues that are not propinquitous but still important to them, such as concern over the environment or social programs. And, more importantly, we include the public in decision-making because we genuinely value the public’s input. It follows as a basic democratic principle, “by the people for the people.” As one author has said, “[P]ublic involvement promotes self esteem, a sense of efficacy and empowerment, and good citizenship.”1

This has not always been the case. Turn the dial back forty or fifty years and you can see just how much this view has changed. It was not uncommon to see entire neighbourhoods being bulldozed to make way for urban expressways without any form of public consultation. The interests of entire cities were being “represented” by advisory planning commissions and technical bodies that did not engage with the wider public. However, as is always the case, actions produce reactions, and in the late 1960s we saw the emergence of a grass-roots reform, best expressed through the anti-freeway protests in cities like Toronto, San Francisco, and Vancouver. The era of community activism had begun.

Since that time, governments have been increasingly under pressure to enhance the public’s role in decision-making and priority-setting. We are moving from “decide, announce, and defend, to consult, decide together, and jointly implement.” This pressure has been fuelled by a number of changes occurring across North American cities:

• increasing desire for more accountability from local government, particularly as more responsibilities get “downloaded” from senior levels of government; • devolution of responsibilities without increased revenue sources resulting in choices around which services to retain and which to cut; • community change becoming more complex, both in terms of physical redevelopment and increasing diversity of the population (over fifty per cent of Vancouver’s residents have English as a second language); • new communication technologies and freedom-of-information laws; • increasing levels of education and community awareness; • increasing demand for greater involvement and improved customer service.

What is the Right Amount of Involvement?

While it may be clear why we should include the public in decision-making, it is not as easy to determine what degree of involvement the public should actually have across the variety of municipal processes and projects:

Informing Consulting Shared

Over the years, there has been growing pressure to increase direct public control over decisions and budgets, as evidenced by the number of North American cities that have devolved some decision-making to the neighbourhood level (e.g., Portland and Seattle).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 109 However, the debate continues as to how much control should be shared and for what types of projects/processes.

Some citizens seek greater neighbourhood control over decisions so they, not distant politicians or bureaucrats, can determine what is in their neighbourhood’s best interests and help build “community.” Public processes that limit involvement often result in a harden- ing of positions, with needs going unmet and relationships being damaged. While even the best consultative process cannot guarantee resolution of issues, they at least can create a process that includes the exploration of needs and interests, finding of common ground, and a sense of empowerment.

However, some argue there are limits to the amount of decision-making that can be shared directly with the public. We live in a representative democracy and the politicians we elect are supposed to represent their constituents’ interests. Experience shows that most people, while indicating they would like to be consulted further in decision-making, show little interest in such processes unless the issue is affecting them in some meaningful way. Also, as the decision-making becomes more complex, people tend to vest power back with traditional decision-makers. As the push for public involvement in decision-making increases, the problem of participant overload starts to occur. The public simply withdraws from involvement because of the time and resources that they have to commit to involvement processes.

Realistically, a balance must be struck, and the real challenge becomes matching the right degree of involvement with the right process. Generally, public involvement processes move from informing, through consultation, to shared planning, as the decisions become

• more significant – wider and longer-term impacts on larger groups of people; • more controversial – being of greater concern to various communities and the public; • more uncertain – reflecting less information and conflicting values and interests; and • more complex – needing the agreement of many parties for effective implementation.

Vancouver’s Approach to Public Involvement: A Focus on “Choicing” Initiatives

Like many other cities, the City of Vancouver’s approach to public involvement has evolved over the last century. While at one time major decisions and priorities, such as freeway expansion and facility construction, were made in isolation from wider public consultation, the city now engages the public on a variety of levels, ranging from overall planning for the city to traffic calming in specific neighbourhoods. The degree of public involvement varies depending on the characteristics of the particular project or process, but it does range from simple notification for street repairs, to consultation on rezonings and neighbourhood planning, through to partnering in the operation of community centres and neighbourhood improvement projects.

For major policy decisions and spending, the city undertakes significant public programs to understand public interests, needs and priorities, and ultimately to have the public make

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 110 choices and trade-offs about the future of the city. In almost all cases, final decision-making still lies with elected officials.

Example One: CityPlan

The challenges in creating a plan for Vancouver were formidable. Vancouver is a city with strong neighbourhoods that have highly developed preservationist tendencies, especially in traditional single-family areas. The process started with information collection and dissemination in the form of a tool kit. Some three hundred “City Circles” (groups of ten to fifteen citizens drawn from all corners and walks of life) were formed to discuss the information that was presented. The City Circles were asked to suggest ideas for their city.

All submissions were published as submitted in a 477-page Ideas Book. A three-day Ideas Fair displayed the City Circle presentations. Over 10,000 people attended the fair and completed “check books,” which identified ideas warranting more consideration.

The ideas were outlined in a forty-page Choices Workbook, with twelve key themes. This was distributed to 6,000 people on the CityPlan mailing list and made available to the public. The results of the workbook identified four possible futures:

1. a city of neighbourhood centres that concentrated services and medium-density housing in each neighbourhood; 2. a city of mixed residential neighbourhoods (low- and medium-density housing), with services focused on “main streets”; 3. a strong central city that focused growth in the downtown and adjacent inner-city industrial areas; and 4. a traditional city that did not accommodate its share of growth and contributed to growing suburbs.

The futures were summarized and displayed throughout the city, with 15,000 visitors com- pleting a questionnaire, indicating which future they preferred. A professional telephone opinion survey was also conducted. The results were assembled into a draft plan: residents called for a city of neighbourhood centres, with a strong sense of community, a healthy economy and environment, and where residents have a say in decisions that affect them. Council adopted the plan in 1994.

Critics argue that the process was too expensive for what was gained, over $3 million spent (including staff time) for a “vision” of the future that is not a legal document (like traditional official community plans). However, the plan is a clear expression of the public’s priorities and choices for a future Vancouver, and is proving highly influential. Since 1994, the city has implemented the Greenways Plan, the Industrial Lands Strategy, Inte- grated Service Teams, and has brought CityPlan to the neighbourhood level over the last few years by undertaking Community Visions for single-family areas of the city.2

Example Two: City Choices Budget Review

City Choices is an example of a much shorter, simpler and more specific public consulta-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 111 tion process. Late in 1996, the province cut its grant for the 1997 city budget by $17 million. Together with other factors, this meant a tax increase of over eight per cent to maintain present service levels.

Council then embarked on a professional survey, an information program, and a series of “Mayor’s Forums” to find out if citizens wanted increased taxes or service cuts. The results were interesting, with broad support shown for city programs, and not a lot for “slash and burn.” Efficiencies were emphasized, as were user-fees. Residents, while not enjoying the thought of increased taxes, were prepared to pay more to maintain service levels (businesses were generally opposed to increases beyond the rate of inflation).

Council then proceeded to raise user-fees significantly, approve a 4.5-per-cent tax increase, and make limited reductions in city services. They also shifted a small part of the tax burden from commercial to residential to allay the concerns of business. By many accounts, the consultation was very successful and is now used as a template for the annual budget review process.3

Example Three: Business Improvement Associations

A Business Improvement Area (BIA) is an area designated by city council within which businesses and property owners can implement programs to increase the area’s profile and promote business, including street beautification, cleaning, security and community events. A non-profit association of property and business owners manages the BIA.

To form a BIA, fifty per cent of an area’s merchants and landlords must sign a petition requesting the formation of the BIA. Leading up to this, a local business sponsor will often start an information campaign, hold local meetings and even conduct surveys to promote and gauge support. City council then enacts a by-law to establish the BIA and its boundaries. Business Improvement Area budgets are funded annually through a special property tax on commercial properties within the established boundaries. The city collects the tax and remits the entire amount to the business association to carry out projects and programs. Each property owner’s share of the total BIA budget is proportionate to his or her property’s share of the area’s total taxable value. Annual budgets for BIAs in Vancouver range from $70,000 to $1.8 million, and the number of businesses represented ranges from 200 to 8,000. There are now sixteen BIAs in the city.4

Keys to Successful “Choicing” Initiatives

While the size and scope of the city’s choicing initiatives vary, there are a number of key elements that contribute to their success.

Set the “Goalposts”

When initiating a choicing initiative, the scope and parameters of public input need to be established from the outset. For example, CityPlan needed to respond to regional direc-

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 112 tions to accommodate a certain amount of regional growth over the next twenty to thirty years. This meant that in whatever “future” the public chose, a certain amount of density would have to be accommodated to fit in with regional policy.

Clarify Expectations

The failure of many public programs often stems from a lack of clarity around how and what the public will actually have influence on or control over. Will the public make the decision or simply advise the decision-maker of their interests and concerns? With City- Plan and the city’s Community Visions Program, council adopted a “Terms of Reference” at the beginning that clearly spelled out the role and nature of involvement for the public, staff and council.

Create Process Minders

Depending on the size and scope of a program, it can be helpful to create a committee of citizens to monitor and advise solely on the process, to ensure that it’s fair, inclusive and follows the mandate. This group does not comment on content, but can provide reality checks or flag other city policies or interests that may need to be considered during a program. The committee also has opportunities to independently report progress and results to city council. For CityPlan, council created the City Perspectives Panel to achieve this objective.

Have People Talk to Each Other

Citizens often achieve a better understanding of issues and trade-offs when they hear directly from other citizens. It also allows the public to feel a greater sense of ownership when they get to play active roles in the process and know that they have been heard.

Choices are about Values not Technical Expertise

It is critical to provide all of the necessary information to the public so it can make an informed decision. This may require bringing in outside “experts” to explain information or help the public better understand data and trends. However, choices are about making value judgements, not technical decisions, and experts should not be brought in to con- vince people of their world-view. The public can also be intimidated by the presence of experts and may be inhibited by them to speak freely.

Use a Variety of Involvement Techniques

No single involvement technique will work for all programs or all audiences. Some techniques are more appropriate for getting information out (e.g., open houses) and some for drawing in information (e.g., workshops). Some people are more comfortable participating in an informal familiar setting (e.g., local church), while others prefer speaking in the formal council chambers. In the end, the city often uses a combination of techniques so that people have a choice in how to participate. Programs like CityPlan involve open

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 113 houses, fairs, classroom sessions, workshops, surveys, etc. For smaller, more specific programs like the budget review, an information campaign, community meetings and a survey may be involved.

Creating Informed Choices: Use Surveys Cautiously

The goal of choicing exercises is generally to have the public make an informed choice around competing interests. To come to an understanding of an issue, people need to have the necessary information and hear the variety of perspectives on an issue. Surveys are a useful tool to confirm responses or to get a quick read of a situation. However, since they are not always accompanied by the necessary information or sharing of viewpoints, surveys can often lead to a “knee-jerk” reaction that is not an informed choice. As such, the city generally uses surveys in combination with other involvement techniques. For example, in the Community Visions program, a survey is mailed to every household at the end of the program to confirm the conclusions that were created through open houses and workshops.

Reach Out to Groups and Communities

Passive forms of notification and information-sharing such as newspaper ads and flyers only reach a certain type of audience in the community. For a large number of people, especially for those new to Canada, passive forms of communication do not encourage them to actively participate. Over fifty per cent of residents in the City of Vancouver has English as a second language. With such a diverse population, staff use a variety of outreach methods to engage with different groups. Outreach activities often take place at local schools, churches, community organizations, in addition to ethnic radio and newspaper.

Making Public Involvement a Corporate Priority

Through processes such as CityPlan, the annual budget and BIA program, the city has made a strong commitment to having citizens make choices about the future of the city. However, critics still contend that the city does not provide enough public input into decisions that affect them, particularly at the more operational level (e.g., neighbourhood planning, rezoning, development approval). Other critics contended that the public involvement that we do have is ineffective and wasteful and that direct neighbourhood control over programs would be more effective and provide better value for money.

These concerns, coupled with broad public interest in improving the effectiveness of local government and service delivery in general, resulted in the creation of the Better City Government Initiative in 1995. Better City Government established a broadly based process to bring best practices into the city, to review and redesign city processes, to use technology effectively, and to make the best use of staff resources. One of the priorities of Better City Government was to ensure that effective processes were in place to provide the opportunity for many community interests in decision-making and service delivery. This priority resulted in the city undertaking a review of its public involvement practices, the Public Involvement Review, which began in 1996.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 114 Program Description

The Public Involvement Review consisted of three stages: a cataloguing of city processes (1996), an evaluation of city processes by an independent consultant, Context Research (1997–98), and implementation, which has been under way since 1999. The review has been a corporate effort, guided by an interdepartmental steering committee with representatives from every department that has contact with the public. It was staffed by a temporary coordinator and used consultant assistance at key points throughout the three phases (descriptions and costs are set out below). The review engaged both staff and the public throughout the process, including focus groups, workshops and pilot projects. A staff- public working group was also created to give feedback at key decision-making points.

Phase I – Cataloguing City Public Processes (1996)

Phase I of the review was intended to establish the baseline for public involvement at the city, with a full documentation of processes that involve the public. Over 100 types of interaction were identified, ranging from simple notification for development applications, to broad consultation for community plans, through to partnerships to jointly operate local community centres.5

Phase II – Evaluation (1997–98)

The evaluation phase consisted of a review of ten representative processes by an independent consulting firm, Context Research. The intent behind reviewing these processes was not only to assess the effectiveness of the public involvement programs but also to act as models in Phase III for how improvements could be made to typical processes. A list of selection criteria were developed by the steering committee, and staff-public working group at the beginning of the phase to ensure that representative processes were selected for review. The selection criteria included

• range of long- and short-term initiatives; • tests for all types of barriers to involvement; • values trade-off; • various sizes/scales; • complex information; • the continuum of public involvement; • not already evaluated; and • areas where the public is not usually consulted.

The following processes were selected:

• budget management – City Choices survey; • Oakridge Langara area plan; • Blenheim Street traffic calming; • Balaclava Mews rezoning; • Community Centre Association Boards – Killarney, Kerrisdale and Strathcona;

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 115 • CityPlan multicultural and youth outreach; • advisory committees to council – public art, seniors, and cultural; • liquor licence applications; • RS Interim Zoning Program; and • development application – special-needs residential facilities.

In order to assess the effectiveness of the processes, six evaluation criteria were developed by the steering committee and tested with the staff-public working group. In summary, they were

• mandating the process – were the purpose and objectives of the process clear? • resourcing the process – were there adequate resources to achieve the mandate? • process participants – did all affected stakeholders have representative involvement? • communication strategies – were communications effective and inclusive? • involvement strategies – did the process allow for clear understanding of issues and deal with conflict? • feedback and closure – did the process achieve its mandate, and does the public know how their input was used?

The consultant then conducted focus groups with both staff and members of the public who were involved with the processes. The results were assessed against the evaluation criteria and a list of strength and weaknesses generated for each process. In general, the consultant found that the city does a good job of public involvement, although there were some areas that could use improvement. Some common themes emerged:

• Mandating the process was generally the weakest stage, with insufficient clarity as to the goal of the public involvement, including the appropriate scope and level, as well as how input will be used in decision-making. • Most of the processes had an appropriate level of resources to accomplish the work, noting that more is not necessarily better; what was most often lacking was staff expertise. • The city is generally strong on its outreach to all groups; one weakness is the lack of a coordinated shared database of community groups and ongoing contacts. • The city’s communications strategies are also seen as a strength – the amount, timeliness, and distribution of information are good; however, information is at times too technical and relies on jargon and sometimes mixes facts with opinions. • The city’s involvement strategies offer a good variety of different approaches and opportunities for involvement; however, there is a general concern that public input was not valued and a specific concern about lack of “buy-in” to survey methodologies. • The lack of feedback and closure to city processes indicating how input was used was identified as a weakness. • There is a need to develop a means by which public involvement in neighbourhoods can occur on an ongoing basis instead of a project-by-project basis, with linkages being re-established at different times by different departments.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 116 These findings were discussed and confirmed with the public at a community workshop, then presented to Vancouver city council, along with sixteen recommendations for improvement:

• Develop a set of guiding principles. • Develop a policy on multicultural outreach and the translation of information materials. • Train city staff in plain language. • Increase staff training for public involvement. • Develop and use a public involvement planning form or checklist. • Establish a core of expertise in public process. • Commit to evaluation of each process. • Prepare and maintain a community contact database. • Maintain continuity of contact and public involvement. • Maintain continuity of staff involved in specific neighbourhoods. • Train staff in public conduct. • Train staff in civics. • Provide background materials. • Broaden use of media in public involvement. • Improve use of survey research. • Enhance feedback and closure.

City council adopted the recommendations, then instructed staff to develop a strategy for implementing the recommendations.6

Phase III – Implementation (1999 to present)

Guiding Principles for Public Involvement

To set the framework for implementation, as well as for ongoing public involvement city- wide, city council adopted a series of “Guiding Principles for Public Involvement.” These were developed by the consultant team and based on the criteria used in the evaluation phase:

Mandating the Process • The credibility, purpose and objectives of the public involvement process are clear to all process participants. • The roles and interests of all participants are defined and effectively communicated. • The public is involved in making changes to processes in which they are participants.

Resourcing the Process • The public involvement process has adequate resources (financial, staff, community) to achieve the stated mandate. • Community resources and energies are used effectively and efficiently.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 117 • The assigned staff are trained in the conduct of public involvement processes that are used during the process. • The selection of resources considers the relative cost-effectiveness of alternative techniques to achieve process objectives.

Process Participants • Everyone potentially interested in or affected by a process has an opportunity to become involved. • Public involvement processes have a balance of people who represent others and people who represent only themselves. • Efforts are made to include underrepresented and hard-to-reach communities in all public involvement processes. • Any barriers to access are recognized and overcome, including physical, communication, economic, language, ethnic and social constraints. • Efforts are made to involve elected representatives and all affected city departments during the course of an involvement process.

Communications Strategies • All communications for public involvement processes are effective, inclusive and cover all necessary issues. • The language of all written communications is clear, concise, objective and free of technical jargon. • Communication materials address relevant existing policy and procedure, history of the issues and past city initiatives, and alternative approaches to resolving issues and their respective advantages and disadvantages. • Communication also regularly reiterates such basics of the process as the schedule, decision milestones, progress-to-date, and upcoming opportunities for involvement. • Media is used regularly to provide general information to the public at large. • Information or feedback is distributed regularly to those involved in the process and, at intervals, is also broadly distributed to anyone potentially interested in or affected by a process.

Involvement Strategies • The public involvement process is transparent and deals openly with conflict and imbalances of knowledge in order to maximize participant input. • The scope and goals of the public process are repeatedly clarified during the process. • The tone of the process fosters creativity and encourages civility and mutual respect among all parties to the process. • Processes have a balance of proactive and reactive techniques to ensure that representative input is assured and everyone who wants to can be involved. • Input is obtained from those affected both negatively and positively by proposals or projects. The involvement process addresses both agreement regarding the validity of the facts and understanding of varied opinions and values regarding the outcome of the process.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 118 Closure • Participants are convinced that a process has achieved its mandate at its completion. • Evaluation of the process assesses its successes and shortcomings and communi- cates its results to the participants. The longer-term effects of the process on neighbourhood and community relationships and on perceptions of effectiveness of city processes are included in the evaluation. • Affected communities are informed of process outcomes.

Improvements to Public Involvement

To implement the consultant’s sixteen recommendations, staff created an action plan that was based on a number of ideas presented by both staff and the public throughout the review. The action plan included over thirty-five projects that were grouped according to six strategic areas for improvement. By 2002, improvements had been made in all six strategic areas, with over seventy-five per cent of the thirty-five projects either completed or under way. The following summarizes the achievements:

Individual Departmental Improvements

Staff have been working with the consultant team on making improvements to nine representative processes where the public are involved, ranging from recurring processes such as development applications, liquor licensing reviews, to one-time processes, such as the street furniture program. These processes were similar to the ones selected in the evaluation phase of the review, so the teams could learn from the results.

New practices were utilized to make the processes more effective. For example, it is typical in a development application process for the developer and city to meet and discuss issues and options, then present the draft solution to the community for comment. This approach often does not recognize community interests up-front and can result in conflict. Instead, a pilot process was initiated that had the developer, city and community invited to a facilitated workshop to identify issues and concerns together. The pilot itself was the proposed redevelopment of a large corner site for a mix of commercial and residential uses. The community’s key concerns focused on a library and high-quality design and public space. As a result of the workshop, the developer was able to develop a scheme that was both profitable and also served the community’s interests.

Developing a Corporate Framework for Public Involvement

Over the past two years, staff have been working to improve the tools we use to involve the public. An intranet-based “Public Process Guide” for staff was developed by Dovetail Con- sulting to help staff plan and execute effective public involvement programs. The guide has recently won an education award from the Canadian Association of Municipal Administra- tors.7 The consultant team is now working with staff and the public on a companion guide for the public, so they know what to expect from the city and how they can get involved.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 119 Improving Public Involvement Skills

The human resources department has reviewed its courses for public involvement skills training. A new course is being offered based on the “Public Process Guide,” and enhancements have been made to some existing courses. A staff resource group is also being created so that other staff can seek advice before or during a public process.

Creating Better Civic Awareness

A number of steps are being taken to raise civic awareness of how the city functions. A civics curriculum has been developed in consultation with Vancouver School Board teach- ers for Grade 11 social studies students. The communication’s department will be increasing the promotion of city services, including a revised Your City Works brochure. The Newcomer’s Guide to the City of Vancouver has been completed and, in addition to Eng- lish, has been translated and printed in Chinese, Punjabi, Vietnamese and Spanish.8 Other ongoing initiatives to improve civic awareness include the city’s web site, the Greater Van- couver television program and new technologies such as interactive television.

Improving Ongoing Contact With Communities

A number of city programs facilitate ongoing interaction and information-sharing between the city and communities, including the Community Visions program, community polic- ing, Neighbourhood Integrated Service Teams and Community Centres. Public Involve- ment Review initiatives have built on these programs. QuickFind is now the city’s centralized database of community groups and is updated biannually. In addition, the Community Services Group has recently created a list of staff with knowledge of planning issues and community contacts for each neighbourhood and policy area of the city. Com- munity web pages have been created for all twenty-three local areas of the city and contain information on services, recreation centre programs, community events, developments and construction taking place. The project won the 2000 innovation award from the Municipal Information System’s Association of B.C.9

Creating a Multicultural Outreach and Translation Strategy

Multicultural outreach and translation strategies are being developed by the social planning department, in consultation with various multicultural groups and other city staff. As mentioned above, the Newcomer’s Guide to the city has been completed and is available in five languages. Project costs have been covered through partnerships between the city and corporate and government sponsors. Sponsors include the Scotiabank, Lower Mainland TV (LMtv) and the provincial government.10

Sustaining the Improvements

As the Public Involvement Review was coming to a close, the steering committee developed a Strategy for Sustaining the Improvements to ensure that the gains that had been

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 120 made over the review were not lost once it concluded. The strategy includes a number of elements that provide a basic infrastructure for public involvement at the city, including a staff resource group to provide advice and assistance to other staff, a public involvement budget to bring in consultant assistance for unusual or difficult processes, ongoing training and development for staff, and a permanent public involvement coordinator to support staff training, to act as a point person for the staff resource group, and to administer the consultant budget.11

Program Costs

Costs for the review itself were approximately $Can 220,000, which includes funding for the temporary coordinator position, consultant contracts, and funding for research and development for a limited number of projects (Figure 1). Ongoing funding for sustaining the improvements has been established at approximately $85,000 annually, which includes funding for the permanent public involvement coordinator and small consultant budget (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Review Costs (Canadian Dollars)

Temporary coordinator $92,000 Cataloguing of city processes (consultant) $10,000 Evaluation (consultant) $50,000 R+D for newcomer’s guide and civics curriculum $20,000 Improvements to specific processes (consultant) $27,000 Public process guide (consultant) $15,000 Guide for the public (consultant) $7,000 Total $221,000

Figure 2. Ongoing Costs – Sustaining the Improvements (Canadian Dollars)

Permanent public involvement coordinator $65,000 Consultant budget for facilitation/mediation $20,000 Total $85,000

For individual projects that came out of the review, funding has been acquired separately either through the corporate management team or city council itself. The newcomer’s guide cost approximately $116,000 to format, print and translate into four additional languages. The city provided $66,000 with the remainder coming from partnerships with

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 121 private sponsors, including banks and local media. The community web pages cost $66,000 to develop and roll-out for all twenty-three local areas, with ongoing funding established at $30,000 (which covers staff costs and marketing).

Lessons Learned

The response from the public, staff and city council has been mostly supportive, largely due to the involvement of these groups right from the beginning and throughout the review. The public was invited to participate through various means, including focus groups, workshops and pilot-projects. The key to staff buy-in and participation was the development early on of the interdepartmental steering committee, which ensured that the interests of every department that deals with the public was represented. This also allowed for cooperation and team-building between departments as diverse as police, parks and the library.

One of the larger challenges for the review was deciding if Vancouver should reinvent the way it involves the public or simply build on the current structure in place. This was primarily framed around the role that community groups should play: officially recognized as representative of an area, or, as is the case in Vancouver, treated equally along with the input of all other groups and individuals. Many community activists in the city felt that a more formal recognition of community groups, through formal involvement in development review and community development, would provide for improved public process. Supported with the results of the consultant evaluation, it was determined that Vancouver has a number of programs and opportunities for input from both groups and individuals and that changing the structure would not necessarily improve public process at the city. Instead, the city decided to focus on improving access to the current programs and processes by improving communication and information-sharing through tools such as the community web pages. Having said that, these improvements do not preclude an increased role for community groups in civic affairs in the future. However, any increased role will need to reflect the city’s principles for public involvement to ensure that processes continue to be representative, inclusive, accountable and transparent.

Implementation of the various projects hinged on the commitment from city council and the city’s corporate management team, in terms of allocating the necessary staff time, as well as the funding for consultants and projects. They also provided the necessary leadership to promote initiatives that would show lower financial return in the short run, including improvements that are technology-driven or based on improved staff training but that over the longer term would prove to be more cost-effective by reducing time-consuming conflicts and providing more efficient service to residents.

Success was also dependent on having a dedicated coordinator and steering committee willing to bring the necessary expertise together and to push projects along. Finally, partnering with the private sector allowed for the development of the newcomer’s guide, which otherwise would not have had the necessary scope or exposure.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 122 Summary and Conclusion

Governments have been increasingly using choicing programs in response to increasing pressure to include the public in decision-making and priority-setting. The City of Van- couver has a number of examples of such initiatives, ranging from CityPlan, annual budget reviews and the business improvement program. The Public Involvement Review was initiated in the mid-1990s to improve the overall corporate approach to public involvement at the city. Through a three-phase approach, a number of initiatives were undertaken in the areas of departmental improvements: a corporate framework for public involvement, public involvement skills, civic awareness, ongoing contact with communities and multicultural outreach and translation. The success of the program was based on an interested and active public, as well as a partnership between all city departments that involve the public.

Notes

1 William Mishler, “Political Participation and Democracy,” in Michael S. Whittington and Glen Williams, eds., Canadian Politics in the 1980s (Toronto: Metheun, 1981), pp. 126–41, cited in Jill Grant, The Drama of Democracy: Contention and Dispute in Community Planning (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), p. 205. 2 For more information on CityPlan and related initiatives, visit http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning. 3 For more information on the 2003 operating budget public consultation process, visit http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/cityclerk/cclerk/20030227/A1.htm. 4 For more information on the city’s BIA program, visit http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/cityplans/bia/biazone.htm. 5 For a copy of the final document, visit http://www.cityvancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/pubinvolveguide/index.htm. 6 For more detailed information on the consultant’s findings and the sixteen recommendations, visit http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/pubinvolveguide/Pubinv2.htm. 7 See http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/publicprocessguide/. 8 The guide may be viewed at http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/ socialplanning/newtovancouver. 9 Community pages may be viewed at http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ community_profiles/index.htm. 10 For more information on implementation or the action plan itself, visit http:// www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/pubinvolveguide/pirjly99.htm. 11 For the latest report to council, including the Strategy for Sustaining the Improvements, visit http://www.cityvancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/011213/pe4.htm.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 123 CHAPTER 10

A PRAGMATIC SHARING OF POWER: RETHINKING INTERGOVERNMENTAL PRACTICES AND PRIORITIES

Gerry Berry City Manager City of Nanaimo

Brian Mehaffey General Manager, Development Services City of Nanaimo

A. Neilson-Welch Neilson-Welch Consulting Inc.

On 11 July 2003, The Globe and Mail printed an essay on federalism by former MP and constitutional law professor Edward McWhinney. In his essay, Mr. McWhinney notes that “Canada is changing too rapidly, socially and economically, but also, even more star- tlingly, demographically, to be artificially contained much longer within the archaic bonds of the Constitution Act.”

Mr. McWhinney intended to bolster the case for a new style of federalism in which senior governments moved beyond the constraints of the Constitution to develop pragmatic approaches to intergovernmental issues. His words could just as easily have been written, however, to support the call for a new position for municipalities in the Canadian system of governance. He strikes a distinct chord with municipalities and their leaders, who are becoming increasingly frustrated with their present constitutional status as mere “creatures” of the provinces. This status bears little relationship to the real and growing importance of cities and their local governments in Canada today.

The City of Nanaimo and its leaders share the feelings of frustration that are becoming so prevalent at the local government level. Recent dealings with British Columbia and Can- ada have demonstrated to city officials that senior governments continue to rely on the Constitution’s division of powers as the framework within which to handle key issues that affect local governments and the communities they represent. These experiences have underscored for the city the need for change in the effective status of municipalities in intergovernmental discussions. Nanaimo, however, is not seeking direct constitutional change; measures introduced in the 1982 Constitution Act have, in the words of Mr. McWhinney, “effectively consigned the processes of direct change to a constitutional straitjacket.” Nanaimo is seeking, instead, a more pragmatic approach to the sharing of

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 124 power between senior and local governments – an approach that recognizes, constitutional limitations notwithstanding, a legitimate role for local governments in the making of decisions that have a clear and distinct impact on municipalities and their citizens.

This chapter presents the City of Nanaimo’s call for a pragmatic approach to power-sharing and priority-setting. It begins by commenting on the growing importance of cities and their governments in Canada. The chapter then identifies some of the shortcomings that characterize current intergovernmental dealings and ends by outlining the basic elements of a new pragmatic sharing of power and configuration of priorities between senior and local governments.

It should be noted that this chapter presents the B.C. Treaty Process as a case study to illustrate Nanaimo’s misgivings with the current status of municipalities in important intergovernmental dealings. The city’s use and criticism of the existing Treaty Process should not be interpreted as a criticism of the Snuneymuxw First Nation (SFN), the Nanaimo-area First Nation that is attempting to negotiate a treaty with senior governments using the process. The City of Nanaimo recognizes the legitimacy of the SFN’s treaty claims and has no wish to impede the SFN’s efforts towards self-government and prosperity.

Cities Today

The Constitution’s division of powers, which has the effect of making municipalities “creatures” of their provincial masters, was put in place in 1867. At that time, most Cana- dians lived in rural areas, outside of urban centres. Agriculture and primary resource industries were the economic drivers. Most cities, where they existed, were service and supply centres for these non-urban pursuits. City governments existed to provide only the most basic of services to enable urban centres to function. Water, sewer, roads, police and fire-fighting were the primary – and often the only – responsibilities of local government.

The treatment of local government in the 1867 BNA Act reflected the predominantly rural character of Canadian society and the Canadian economy of the day. The view that city governments should be treated as administrative agencies of the provinces was, at the time, quite acceptable. As Canada evolved after 1867, however, this view became increasingly outdated. Today, it has become an anachronism, completely out of touch with Can- ada’s modern society and economy.

The most recent census (2001) paints a very different picture of Canadian society from that which existed in 1867. Canada, at the beginning of the 21st century, is an urban nation, with over eighty per cent of its people living in urban centres of 10,000-plus population. Concentration in key cities is becoming the norm. The Greater Toronto Area already has more people than eight of the ten provinces, and soon the populations of both Calgary and Edmonton will eclipse that of the whole of Saskatchewan. Even smaller regional centres, such as Nanaimo (80,000) and Kelowna (100,000), have become magnets for people in outlying towns.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 125 Urbanization has changed not only the size of cities but also the range of activities of city governments. Partly in response to the urban citizenry’s expectations, local governments have moved far beyond their traditional property-focused services to become active in the provision of services to people and various regulatory functions. Recreation facilities and programs, unthought of in 1867, are one of the largest budget items in many cities today. Transit, libraries, social planning and land-use planning are other high-cost functions that, in some municipalities, have eclipsed the traditional “bricks and mortar” activities.

Senior government downloading, in addition to citizen expectations, is another factor behind the changing role of local governments. In British Columbia, cities of all sizes have been forced into functions that, until recently, were considered the exclusive domain of senior governments. Arterial highways, airports, seaports, jails and regional parks are but a few of the recent examples of senior government downloading. This downloading has, throughout most of the province, coincided with the virtual elimination of revenue trans- fers to municipalities. The result has been a marked increase in the importance of local government, relative to that of senior governments, in the eyes of many citizens.

The accessibility of city governments to their citizens is a hallmark of the local government system and has served to increase the relative importance of municipalities even further. The excessive concentrations of power in Ottawa and Victoria – concentrations that have stretched the very notion of accountability to its breaking point – are virtually absent at the municipal level. City governments across B.C. and Canada exist today as highly inclusive and democratic vehicles for community priority-setting.

Senior Governments

Municipalities, once concerned with “bricks and mortar,” have evolved to become modern vehicles for the provision of community services and for the expression of community interests and priorities. The notion that municipalities today should be viewed as creatures of their provincial masters is nonsense. The Constitution’s division of powers, while (arguably) appropriate in 1867, is simply not valid in modern, urban Canada.

The view that municipalities deserve greater power is widely held by municipal leaders (of course) and by many of the citizens they serve. The view does not appear to be shared, however, by the senior governments with which municipalities interact. Based on the experience of the City of Nanaimo, senior governments appear reluctant to recognize the changing landscape in Canadian society and Canadian governance that has increased the importance of local governments vis-à-vis that of their senior counterparts. Senior governments appear unable or unwilling to accept the reality that the conditions that informed the 1867 division of powers are not a valid basis for the division of powers today. Senior levels appear content to place stock in the out-dated position that local governments exist to act on and promote the priorities of their provincial masters. The unwavering assumption that municipalities will fund and deliver functions that senior governments have decided, unilaterally, to download demonstrates the senior governments’ adherence to this position.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 126 The City of Nanaimo, like other municipalities, has been less than satisfied with the senior governments’ apparent view of local government. In recent years, the city and the community have been directly and seriously affected by numerous senior government initiatives. The initiatives, which were undertaken after only token (if any) local consultation, were pursued solely to promote senior government priorities; the potential impacts on local priorities were never examined. Examples of these initiatives can be found in several areas of provincial and federal policy, including liquor control, marine trade and education. The initiative that best illustrates the degree to which local governments have been shut out of key decisions, however, must be the B.C. Treaty Process.

B.C. Treaty Process

In 1992, representatives of Canada, British Columbia and the First Nations Summit established the six-stage B.C. Treaty Process as the made-in-B.C. model for resolving the many outstanding land claims in the province. At the same time, the parties established the B.C. Treaty Commission as the independent, neutral body responsible for overseeing and facilitating the treaty negotiations that occurred within the Treaty Process framework.

Canada, British Columbia and the First Nations Summit are the three official parties to the Treaty Commission and the Treaty Process. Within individual negotiations – treaty tables – that take place, British Columbia, Canada and the individual affected First Nation are the three recognized parties. Municipal governments affected by specific negotiations do not have independent standing with the commission or in the process. The interests of affected municipalities are deemed, as per the Constitution, to be represented by British Columbia.

In response to protests by municipalities, British Columbia agreed in 1994 to a protocol with the Union of British Columbia Municipalities on the issue of local government participation in the Treaty Process. The protocol was designed to provide local governments a limited role in discussions by allowing affected municipalities to appoint a representative to the province’s negotiating team. Many municipalities, however, have been less than enthusiastic with this arrangement that, in practice, consigns them to play the role of mere advisers to the province’s chief negotiators.

At certain treaty tables, the senior governments have, to a limited degree, accepted the view that municipalities will be critical to the successful implementation of treaties. In recognition of their importance, some municipalities have been asked to participate directly, as independent parties, in “side tables” that have been established to study and resolve specific concerns that have arisen. To date, however, few if any of these side tables have satisfied the expectations of the affected local governments.

There are forty-two separate treaty tables operating under the Treaty Process at present. Despite total expenditures of over $500 million since 1992, no treaties have been signed. Several treaty tables have progressed to the approval-in-principle (AIP) stage (stage 4) of the process. Draft AIPs have yet to be approved, however, by the participating First Nations.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 127 Local Government Concerns

As suggested earlier, the B.C. Treaty Process illustrates the frustration felt by Nanaimo and other municipalities in their dealings with senior governments. Four specific concerns with the Treaty Process highlight the feelings of frustration particularly well. These concerns relate to

• points of contact between senior and local governments; • expectations of secrecy; • matters of local jurisdiction; and • presumption that the province is capable of representing distinct local interests.

Points of Contact

In intergovernmental dealings, it is customary to establish points of contact between positions that are perceived to be relatively equal. The chief administrative officer (e.g., a deputy minister) from one government organization would normally be expected to make contact with his or her counterpart (e.g., a deputy minister, a CEO of a special agency, a city manager) at a separate organization. The chief elected official (e.g., a federal minister) would, likewise, deal with the chief elected official (e.g., a provincial minister, a mayor) in another government.

Contact between senior governments and municipalities is not peer-to-peer when it comes to the Treaty Process. In Nanaimo’s case, relatively junior bureaucrats, or even consultants, from senior levels expect to make direct contact with the mayor and/or members of council. This expectation on the part of senior governments reveals a stark lack of respect for, and/or understanding of, the local government system. The problem with the senior governments’ approach is more than simply one of protocol. Inappropriate points of contact pose severe challenges to communication, understanding and progress. In addition, democratic principles are strained when appointed staff are perceived to be dictating policy to local government elected officials.

Expectations of Secrecy

The City of Nanaimo operates, like most municipal governments, in a very open environment. Citizens expect – indeed, demand – that local issues get debated and resolved in the public forum. Even advice given by senior staff to municipal councils is given in full view of the public. In camera exchanges in the municipal environment are certainly the exception rather than the norm. Senior governments have traditionally operated outside of the public forum. Debates, to be sure, do occur in open settings (e.g., Parliament, legislature); however, cabinet meetings, where key government decisions are made, are held in camera. Advice given to ministers by bureaucrats is also confidential.

The wide disparity between the culture of cabinet secrecy practised by senior governments, and the open form of decision-making practised by local governments, exists as an impediment to good intergovernmental relations. Within the Treaty Process, Nanaimo has

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 128 found that it is quite common for senior government bureaucrats to be restricted from releasing critical information to affected local governments. In some cases, council has learned that information may only be shared with one member of council, on the condition that the information not be passed on to the other local elected officials. The expectation that information could be held by one member and not shared with others reveals a total lack of understanding of the fundamentals of municipal government that require council as a collective makes all decisions.

Local Jurisdiction

Most treaty settlements include the transfer of a large amount of federal and provincial Crown land, in addition to funds, to the particular First Nation. In rural areas of the country, Crown land is abundant; the dedication of sufficiently large tracts of such lands is not terribly difficult or controversial. In established urban areas, such as Nanaimo, however the situation is very different. In Nanaimo, Crown lands are in short supply; those that do exist are scattered about the city in relatively small parcels.

One of the ways the senior governments intend to compensate the First Nations in B.C. for the shortage of transferable Crown land is to acquire private lands for inclusion in settlement packages. Nanaimo, like most municipalities, does not object to the acquisition of private lands, on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis, for transfer, fee-simple, to First Nations. Nanaimo and other cities do object, however, to the senior governments’ position that such fee-simple lands should, upon transfer, become exempt from municipal land-use controls and taxation. That this position has been determined unilaterally, without reference to the concerns and priorities of local governments and their communities, only strengthens municipalities’ objection.

Representation of Local Interests

Under the terms of the tripartite Treaty Process, British Columbia is responsible for representing the City of Nanaimo and its citizens. More to the point, British Columbia is responsible for judging the validity of Nanaimo’s expressed interests, and for determining how, or whether, to present these interests at the treaty table.

The notion that British Columbia should be responsible for determining the city’s interests is as outdated as the Constitution’s characterization of municipalities as creatures of their provincial masters. The province is simply not capable of fully understanding the city’s views and positions – views and positions that are distinct from those held by British Columbia.

The city accepts that British Columbia’s interests are legitimate and must be properly represented in the Treaty Process. The city maintains, however, that its interests are also legitimate and worthy of proper representation. The city’s scope of Treaty Process interests may not be as broad as that of the province. Given the direct and potentially serious implications that any treaty settlement will have on the local community, however, the city’s

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 129 interests are equal to those of the province in terms of importance. Only the city’s local government is capable of understanding and promoting the city’s interests.

Pragmatic Approach to Change

In the City of Nanaimo’s view – a view shared by most local governments in B.C. – the B.C. Treaty Process needs to recognize the legitimate role of local governments in treaty talks. In a perfect world, the process could be changed to accommodate municipalities as independent members at treaty tables. In the real world, however, such direct change is not possible. The Treaty Process was structured to reflect the constitutional status of municipalities vis-à-vis senior government. Like the Constitution, the Treaty Process would be exceedingly difficult to amend in any formal way.

Future changes to the sharing of power in the system of Canadian governance will occur outside of the Constitution and will require, in Mr. McWhinney’s words, “pragmatic intergovernmental accommodations” based on “goodwill, common sense and [a] willingness to act together.” Similarly, changes to the B.C. Treaty Process will occur outside of the bounds of the process itself and will depend on the same common sense and willingness to act together.

The City of Nanaimo has developed the beginnings of a new, pragmatic sharing of power between senior and local governments. This approach has been crafted specifically to address the city’s need for inclusion in the B.C. Treaty Process. The approach can be adapted, however, to deal with the broader need for including municipalities in various areas of intergovernmental decision-making. The approach is based on three key principles, each of which is described below.

Principle 1. Senior governments recognize that local governments have a legitimate and important role to play in identifying and negotiating issues of local interest.

The treaties negotiated through the B.C. Treaty Process will have direct and potentially serious implications for municipalities and their urban communities. The successful implementation of these treaties require the active support and commitment of the affected local governments. Local government support and commitment will be contingent on the senior governments – in particular, the provincial government, which is responsible, in constitutional terms, for local governments, recognizing that municipal councils, as the democratically elected local governing bodies, are the governments capable of, and responsible for, identifying and negotiating important local issues.

In practice, principle 1 implies the following:

• Each affected local government will provide to the province a list of issues that are considered by the municipality to be of local importance. In most cases, the list of local issues will, it is imagined, include questions of jurisdiction over fee-simple land, as well as others related to the provision of important services.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 130 • The provincial and local governments will review the list of issues and determine, together, a position for the provincial negotiators. • Where possible, the province will work to have the identified local issues moved from the main treaty table to side tables, where municipal and provincial negotiators could present the joint positions. • Each local government will accept that the province’s negotiators are ultimately responsible for conducting the main table negotiations, as per the constraints of the Treaty Process. In return, the province will accept the need to consult the local government prior to making final commitments on the specific local issues identified.

Principle 2. Senior governments recognize that direct negotiations between local governments and First Nations will be essential in setting the stage for positive intercommunity relations, both pre- and post-treaty.

The affected local government and First Nation will be the two parties most involved in implementing any treaty that emerges from the Treaty Process. It is important that these governments be encouraged to meet, as equals, on issues of municipal concern to identify and negotiate areas of potential conflict.

In practice, principle 2 implies the following:

• British Columbia will create the climate and provide the opportunities necessary for the First Nation and the local government to negotiate specific issues at side tables or through treaty-related measures. • British Columbia will take the steps necessary to assure the First Nation that an agreement to negotiate directly with the municipality in no way affects the First Nation’s full and independent status in the tripartite Treaty Process (i.e., the First Nation will not be relegated to municipal status as a result of undertaking direct negotiations with a municipality). • British Columbia will assure both parties – the local government and the First Na- tion – that agreements reached at the side tables or through the treaty-related measures will, except in exceptional circumstances, be accepted by the province. Where agreements cannot be accepted, full explanations will be provided.

Principle 3. Senior governments and local governments recognize that better communication on treaty issues is required in order to build the level of mutual trust.

The purpose of the proposed arrangement is to build an improved relationship, between local and senior governments, based on a new and pragmatic sharing of power. Any such relationship will require better intergovernmental communication and, ultimately, a greater degree of mutual trust.

In practice, principle 3 implies the following:

• The affected local government and the province will agree to hold regular meetings to brief each other on treaty-related developments and changes in positions.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 131 • Points of contact between the governments will occur on a peer-to-peer basis, in a manner that accords each level of government a proper degree of respect. • The affected local government and the province will agree to copy each other on all correspondence that related, directly or indirectly, to the important local issues identified by the municipality. • The province and the local government will agree to inform one another before taking steps to release information to the public, or to hold public meetings or media briefings.

Conclusion

This chapter has presented the argument that local governments in Canada deserve a greater say in the making of intergovernmental decisions that clearly affect local governments and their communities, that existing intergovernmental priorities have to be rethought. The current B.C. Treaty Process has been used as a case study to illustrate the need for change. Change to the division of powers in the Treaty Process, or in the Consti- tution, will not occur in a direct fashion – neither system is amenable to direct change. Change to the effective status of local government in both the Treaty Process and the Con- stitution will occur outside of the systems.

A new, pragmatic approach to sharing power and reworking priorities does not require formal constitutional change. It does require, however, all levels of government to demonstrate “goodwill, common sense and [a] willingness to act together.”

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 132 The New Directions Series

The Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) has, for many years, sponsored issue-oriented working groups of public servants and academics to find practical solutions to emerging issues. The Institute assembles groups of experts working on public-sector reform and public policy to discuss, compare, analyse, document and advance the understanding of critical issues and themes. While these reports are published in the language in which they were written, the executive summary is provided in the other official language.

The projects continue to explore a wide range of issues. In its continuing commitment to exploration and exchange, IPAC launched this series. Publications in this collection highlight critical findings and analysis from our action-oriented research activities. Besides advancing the understanding of current best practices, this work also serves to advance the understanding of what these initiatives mean with respect to the broader concerns of public-sector reform. These reports are available free of charge to IPAC members. Orders can be placed by contacting the IPAC national office in Toronto (www.ipac.ca).

La Collection Nouvelles Directions

Depuis plusieurs années, l’Institut d’administration publique du Canada (IAPC) commandite des groupes de travail axé sur les grandes questions en administration publique. Com- posés de praticiens et de théoriciens, ces groupes d’experts se réunissent pour apporter des solutions pratiques aux nouveaux enjeux qui confrontent les administrateurs publics. Spécialisés dans les secteurs de la réforme administrative et des politiques, ils discutent, comparent, analysent les problèmes et questions critiques qui sont soulevés et documen- tent leurs observations, faisant ainsi avancer la compréhension dans ces domaines. Des rapports découlant de ces études sont publiés dans la langue dans laquelle ils sont soumis. Un sommaire exécutif est présenté dans l’autre langue officielle.

Nombreuses questions d’actualité sont continuellement étudiées dans le cadre d’activités de recherche. L’IAPC a donc lancé cette collection afin de poursuivre son engagement d’explorer et d’échanger. Les publications qui paraissent dans Nouvelles Directions met- tent en relief des conclusions et analyses importantes qui sont tirées de notre recherche active. Tout en faisant avancer la compréhension des meilleures pratiques en vigueur, ces études permettent de mieux saisir leur importance en ce qui a trait aux préoccupations plus générales concernant la réforme du secteur public. Ces rapports sont offerts gratuitement aux membres de l’IAPC. Pour obtenir des exemplaires, prière de communiquer avec le bureau national de l’IAPC à Toronto (www.iapc.ca).

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 133 Other Reports in the Series/ Déjà parus dans la collection

1. Management and Performance Measurement in the Jewellery Industry: A Golden Opportunity? By Ann Rauhala. 2. Performance Management: Linking Results to Public Debate. By John English and Evert Lindquist. 3. From Controlling to Collaborating: When Governments Want to be Partners. By Jim Armstrong and Donald G. Lenihan. 4. Improved Reporting to Parliament. By Jim Thomas. 5. Crossing Boundaries: Privacy, Policy, and Information Technology. By Harvey Schachter. 6. Collaborative Government: Is There a Canadian Way? Edited by Susan Delacourt and Donald G. Lenihan. 7. Business Planning in Canadian Public Administration. Edited by Luc Bernier and Evan H. Potter. 8. Making Government the Best Place to Work: Building Commitment. By Monica Belcourt and Simon Taggar. 9. To Better Serve Canadians: How Technology is Changing the Relationship Between Members of Parliament and Public Servants. By Jonathan Malloy. 10. Service North of 60. By Frances Abele and Katherine Graham. 11. “Always Better”: Continuously Innovative Public-Sector Organizations in Canada. By Peter Buker. 12. Competitive Cities, Healthy Communities: Charting Collaboration. By Patrice A. Dutil.

IPAC Making Connections: Municipal Governance Priorities Today 134