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1997 April and October Report of the Auditor General of Canada

April and October 1997 Report—Chapter 11

Case Study 11.6—Creating a Corporate Climate for Managing for Results at Environment Canada

Environment Canada, with about 4,600 employees and expenditures of approximately $546 million, is a science-based department with a mandate to preserve and enhance the natural environment, and its renewable resources (including migratory birds and other non-domestic flora and fauna); conserve and protect our water resources; carry out meteorology; enforce the rules of the Canadian-U.S. International Joint Commission; and co-ordinate federal environmental policies and programs.

Senior management was instrumental in creating a corporate accountability framework. Faced with shrinking resources and the need to simplify the reporting of its programs, the deputy minister (DM) in 1991-92 started an initiative to integrate program results for the Department through a corporate accountability framework. Successive DMs continued this work, and their leadership and commitment encouraged the assistant deputy ministers (ADMs), regional directors general, and other executives to adopt managing for results and accountability practices. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development also played a role. In discussing the Department's performance report in November 1996, the Committee asked that the Department be able to demonstrate the progress it is making.

Exhibit 11.7 depicts the corporate accountability framework in which Environment Canada sets out how performance is to be measured in its three business lines: securing a healthy environment, ensuring safety from environmental hazards, and building a greener society.

The Department's budget is apportioned through four activities - three externally focussed business goals or lines, which are in turn divided into 10 components - and a fourth internally focussed activity called "Corporate Administration".

Discussion forums communicate commitment across the Department. Each component has its own forum, or "table", of managers from across the Department to facilitate intra-departmental co-operation of the groups that are making a contribution to each component's goal. The tables are co-led by an ADM and a regional director general. The component system of planning and reporting allows for managing toward results that requires co-operation across the organization. Although the Department believes this approach to be effective in developing consensus on its program direction and commitments, it continues to explore ways to simplify this approach and to link planning to expenditure management - while preserving the focus on integrated results delivery.

Every year, each of the 11 tables of Environment Canada managers, with their clients and partners, prepares an action plan identifying clear results statements, major deliverables and performance indicators. These action plans then serve as the basis for developing departmental documents such as the Corporate Business Plan, the Minister's Action Plan, the departmental Performance Report, and the Report on Plans and Priorities.

The Department's vision, mission and results are publicized. Environment Canada's senior management shows continuing commitment by emphasizing results in published planning documents and using results to assess management performance. The Department's overall vision and mission, as well as those of its business lines, are clearly articulated in the departmental documents.

Learning and adaptation is fostered. To foster learning and adaptation, the results of Environment Canada's evaluations and reviews are being integrated into the process of corporate planning, performance measurement and accountability. The emphasis of reviews includes performance monitoring and reporting, implementing service standards, organizational learning and responsiveness, the achievement of results and accountability mechanisms or frameworks. This revised functional responsibility helps to build a results-based management culture in the Department.

Lessons learned. Environment Canada's performance requires making, maintaining and enriching partnerships with other jurisdictions in Canada and other countries and with other sectors. Achievement of its goals are predicated on mobilizing others to act. In developing indicators in this context, the Department has learned that indicators are needed that:

  • measure a range of results, from short to long term;
  • pertain to the results of more than a single activity;
  • reflect the cumulative impact of several partners; and
  • measure system-wide results rather than focus on a single aspect of the ecosystem.
The accountability framework provides several benefits. Department representatives indicated that the accountability framework provides significant benefits. First, it facilitates speed - it is an effective mechanism to bring parts of the Department together quickly and mobilize knowledge. Second, Environment Canada could begin to answer horizontal questions, efficiently drawing information from across the Department. Third, the Department considers the framework a significant step toward resourcing trade-off decisions, but recognizes that there is a long way to go yet. Finally, the framework is important for maintaining focus on priorities and the long-term view (typically 25 years) for effort in the environment area to achieve results.