|
2. MID-TERM
GOVERNANCE REVIEW Examen de mi-mandat sur la gouvernance |
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
That Council
receive this report for information.
RECOMMANDATION
DU COMITÉ
Que le Conseil prenne connaissance de ce rapport.
DOCUMENTATION
1.
Committee Coordinator’s report dated 19 June 2009
(ACS2008-CMR-CSE-0007).
2. Extract
of Draft Minutes.
Report to / Rapport au:
Council / Conseil
19 June 2009 / le 19 juin 2009
Submitted by / Soumis par: Corporate Services and
Economic Development Committee / Comité des services organisationnels et du
développement économique
|
City Wide / À l'échelle
de la Ville |
Ref N°: ACS2009-CMR-CSE-0007 |
SUBJECT: PUBLIC
DELEGATIONS - MID-TERM GOVERNANCE REVIEW
OBJET: DÉLÉGATIONS PUBLIQUES – Examen de mi-mandat sur la
gouvernance
That the
Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee receive public
delegations with respect to the
Mid-Term Governance Review, as referred by Council at its meeting of 10 June
2009.
Que le
Comité des services organisationnels et du développement économique reçoive les
délégations publics en ce qui concerne le rapport sur l’examen de mi-mandat sur
la gouvernance, tel que référé par le Conseil à sa réunion du 10 juin 2009.
At its meeting of 10 June 2009, Council tabled the report titled Mid-Term Governance Review (ACS2009-CMR-CCB-0043) and referred it to the 16 June 2009 meeting of the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee for the purpose of hearing public delegations.
CONSULTATION
This item was advertised in the local dailies as part of the Public Meeting Advertisement on Friday preceding the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee Meeting.
FINANCIAL
IMPLICATIONS
There are no financial implications since
this is to receive public comments.
Document
1 - Mid-Term Governance Review
(ACS2009-CMR-CCB-0043) previously issued to all members of Council and held
on file
Staff to implement Council’s decisions with respect to this matter.
MID-TERM GOVERNANCE REVIEW
Examen de mi-mandat sur la gouvernance
ACS2009-CMR-CCB-0043 city wide / À l’Échelle de la ville
Vice Chair Desroches
reminded members that this item had been referred to Committee for the purpose
of hearing public delegations. He noted
a number of the delegations registered to speak were representatives of
Advisory Committees and as such, he proposed allowing them 10 minutes each for
their presentations. Before proceeding
to the delegations, he invited the City Clerk to set the stage.
Mr. Rick O’Connor, City
Clerk and Solicitor, noted the Vice Chair had already set the stage insofar as
the representations from Advisory Committees.
He confirmed this was an opportunity to receive public input and for
members to ask questions of the delegations.
He explained the matter would then be returned to full Council for
debate on June 24th.
Responding to a question
from Vice Chair Desroches, Mr. O’Connor stated the intent was not to deal with
any motions or to debate the question at the current meeting and that such
discussions would be held at the following week’s Council meeting.
In reply to a question
from Councillor El-Chantiry, the City Clerk and Solicitor indicated he had not
planned on making a presentation.
Committee
heard from the following public delegations:
Mr. Pierre Boivin,
Results-Based Scorecards Inc., referred to documents circulated to Committee members: Results-Based Scorecards Governance System;
an example of a governance scorecard; and a draft proposal to Council for the
implementation of a governance system.
He then provided a brief overview of his experience in this area, mainly
in the federal public service, and spoke to the executive summary of his
proposal to Council. He believed the
governance report prepared by staff identified a need for metrics with regards
to governance and submitted this was what his proposal addressed. Copies of Mr. Boivin’s submissions are held
on file.
Responding to questions
from Councillor Bloess, Mr. Boivin confirmed he was proposing to sell a service
to the City and that he had not approached procurement staff. However, he reported having met with the
City Clerk in January. He explained
that he had wanted to start with the governance level and would welcome
suggestions as to whom he should contact.
Ms. Irene Mlambo and
Ms. Christine Santele, City for All Women Initiative (CAWI), spoke to a document prepared and
submitted by CAWI titled The Peach Paper Re-Visited, June 2009. In doing so, they provided an overview of
CAWI’s response to the mid-term governance review and outlined the
organizations recommendations with regards to same. A copy of their submission is held on file.
Responding to a question
from Councillor Wilkinson with respect to suggestions for an application form
to be used in recruiting members for advisory committees, Ms. Mlambo suggested
CAWI would have to get back to members on that.
Councillor El-Chantiry
referenced CAWI’s recommendation with respect to training for members of
advisory committees. He believed the
City Clerk’s office already did this but that the sessions were not necessarily
well attended. He recognized the
importance of training, noted that CAWI had been successful in this area, and
wondered if CAWI representatives could make some suggestions in this
regard. Ms. Suzanne Doerge referenced
meetings and discussions held with respect to the white papers and noted that
advisory committee members did not always understand how City government worked
or how decisions were made. Therefore,
she talked about the need to impart a basic understanding of how City
government worked and skills around chairing meetings as well as to facilitate
meetings amongst the advisory committee chairs.
Councillor El-Chantiry
understood the type of training that could be useful to advisory committee
members. However, he re-iterated his
concerns were that when staff did organize sessions, these were not well
attended. Therefore, he wondered how
the City could ensure participation.
Ms. Doerge suggested putting the question to the Advisory Committee
Chairs who would be presenting.
Ms. Jenny Gullen,
Coordinator, People for a Better Ottawa, referenced her organization’s written
response to the City’s mid-term governance review, which had been circulated to
all members of the Committee. Speaking
to this submission, she explained the organization’s composition, listed its
goals insofar as changes to the current municipal governance structure, and
expressed support for a motion approved by Council in July 2007 to take a tripe
bottom line approach to budget and policy development. She also spoke to the aspects related to the
standing committee structure and public engagement. A copy of Ms. Gullen’s written submission is held on file.
Councillor Wilkinson
referenced the speaker’s recommendation that the City hold meetings in an open
and transparent manner. She maintained
that the City already did this; that all standing committee meetings were open
to the public, people could attend and speak directly to members of Council. Ms. Gullen suggested having an assessment
done to determine the extent to which public delegations felt Committees were
accessible.
Councillor Wilkinson
raised the issue of ward councils, as referenced in the delegation’s written
submission, and indicated she would be going a pilot of this. She inquired as to the speaker’s views in
this regard. Ms. Gullen indicated her
organization held a public forum on May 23rd and with respect to
ward councils, people felt these could be a good idea, as long as they were
done in a way that promoted inclusion.
Responding to a question
from Councillor Wilkinson with respect to encouraging participation, Ms. Gullen
suggested working through existing voluntary sector organizations in the
community.
Councillor Wilkinson
noted that the presenter had spoken against having the Audit, Budget and
Finance Committee develop the budget, which was contrary to what the City was
trying to do. She explained what was
proposed, in terms of standing committees’ involvement in the budget process
and then inquired as to the speaker’s views.
Ms. Gullen supported the basic principle of having public engagement
from the very beginning and then transparency and openness throughout the budget
process. She indicated her organization’s
fear was that the Audit, Budget and Finance Committee could become more closed;
a world onto itself.
Responding to questions
from Councillor Chiarelli with respect to budget processes, Ms. Gullen
acknowledged that even with a budget process that involved residents from the
beginning, there would always be some people who felt the need to comment on
the draft budget. She submitted that
was politics. However, she maintained
she was suggesting a need for a more constructive process where the City worked
hard to engage people at the beginning; a budget based on an understanding of
residents’ needs rather than being based on financial constraints. She believed starting at the beginning was a
better process because it would become a consultation as opposed to a
confrontation. She remarked that there
were models for development a more bottom-up budget process and she suggesting
that the City engage some of the voluntary sector organizations in developing
such a process. She submitted that when
people felt they had been heard at the beginning and that their opinions were
respected, there was much less chance of anger and confrontation at the end.
Mr. Essam Hamed,
Joint Chair, French Language Services Advisory Committee, referenced the recommendations
already submitted by the FLSAC with respect to the City’s governance structure,
which largely flowed from the Advisory Committee’s last appearance before the
Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee when it presented a
series of recommendations aimed at giving French language services a higher
profile within the City. He talked
about the need to actively offer quality services in both official languages in
every aspect of City activities and offered examples when this had not been the
case. He referenced the proposed
creation of a Board of Health and he maintained the need to affirm that it
would be subject to the City’s Bilingualism Policy. He reminded Committee that implementation of the Bilingualism
Policy was a shared responsibility of Council and staff. He suggested the third objective identified
in the White Papers could have referenced the francophone community as a target
group. He recommended welcoming meeting
participants in both official languages, having bilingual hosts for events and
providing documents in French and in English simultaneously. He expressed support for the recommendations
submitted jointly by the City’s advisory committees and suggested: that the
City encourage all of its advisory committees to seek to achieve equitable
representation within their memberships by recruiting francophones; that all of
the City’s decision-making entities meet the requirements of the Bilingualism
Policy; that the selected governance model always reflect the fact that Ottawa
has a Bilingualism Policy; and that strategic planning processes ensure an
active offer of services in both official languages. A copy of Mr. Hamed’s written submission is held on file.
Responding to questions
from Councillor Bloess, Mr. Hamed agreed that the current Bilingualism Policy
was pragmatic and that, to a certain degree, it served residents well. With respect to the proposed Board of
Health, he indicated the FLSAC had exchanged some correspondence in an attempt
to address its concerns and that the respect had not be satisfactory.
Mr. Rob Sproule,
Chair, Business Advisory Committee, provided a written submission, a copy of which is held on file. He expressed excitement over the changes
being implemented, which he felt would lead to a dramatically improved
municipal government. He commended
Council for moving forward on this and staff for putting together the process
and putting the concepts into words. He
remarked the process was putting forward an enhanced role for advisory
committee and he believed that, as this was implemented, the City would see a
stronger pool of candidates coming forward to participate on advisory
committees. Notwithstanding that, he
supported the notion of increased orientation and training for advisory
committee members, noting this was a complex environment. He submitted that getting good advice from
advisory committees required a two-way dialogue, which he felt had been missing
for the past several years. However, he
believed that as the new governance structure was implemented, different forms
and approaches of public input would evolve.
In closing, he again congratulated members of Council and staff on a job
well done and he encouraged the continuation of these efforts.
Responding to comments
from Councillor McRae with respect to the need for training advisory committee
members, Ms. Leslie Donnelly, Deputy City Clerk, confirmed that to date, the
City Clerk’s office had conducted advisory committee orientation, but not
training. However, one of the things
staff had learned early on was that an orientation was not enough. Therefore, she advised that staff had begun
a very productive dialogue and a new direction with the advisory
committees. She indicated staff would
be working with the advisory committees to talk about how best to train them
for their roles and how best to train the chairs. Further, she suggested that once this was successful, it could
potentially be opened up to community associations in order to enhance public
involvement and public knowledge about how to be engaged.
Councillor McRae,
appreciate that and pleased to hear you talk about community associations. Was just speaking with the City Solicitor
this morning about how some run like independent organizations and don’t offer transparency
and don’t know how to conduct themselves.
That’s why I’m glad Mr. Sproule raised this issue because, when you look
at how important the advisory committees’ role is, it’s also important for
advisory committee members to know what their role is. Have talked to many chairs who say they get
new members on and members think they’re here to provide legislation and go off
on a political bent when that’s not what the role of an advisory committee
is.
Mr. Sproule added that,
as the process evolved to the point where there was a city-wide strategic plan
and standing committees had actions plans to achieve Council’s goals, it would
become easier and more effective for advisory committees to plug into this
process and become more productively engaged.
Ms. Sheila Perry, Vice-Chair,
Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee (PRAC), suggested the principles of good governance
were key. She talked about: the
importance of training advisory committee members in terms of getting to know
how things worked; the need for dynamic communication between the PRAC and its
standing committee, the Community and Protective Services Committee; the PRAC’s
role in terms of the development of the City’s Parks and Recreation Master
Plan; mechanisms for communicating with the community, including recent
improvements in terms of web based tools; the importance of seeing where
advisory committee workplans fit into the bigger picture; members’ terms and
the fact that when members were appointed for one-year terms, it was taken up
by a learning curve; the need to involve youth; and the need for training. A copy of Ms. Perry’s written submission is
held on file.
Mr. Roger Beauchesne,
Chair, Roads and Cycling Advisory Committee (RCAC), suggested planning was paramount for any well
managed organization and he believed the system has been broken for some
time. He referenced the City’s
Transportation Master Plan, which listed cycling as Council’s number two
priority and remarked that no money was assigned to this priority in at budget
time over several years. Therefore, he
maintained that there was a disconnect between planning and budgeting. He noted the City had approved a Cycling
Plan the previous year but in the last budget, there had been no mention of the
Plan’s prime objective nor was there a mention of the $26M allocated. He stated very little money was
presented. He wondered why the City
would spend money to create plans if these were to be shelved. He reported that starting last November, the
RCAC had worked to prepare a workplan, that all members had participated and
that he was very pleased with the quality of the document. He indicated the previous week, he had
received an e-mail saying the workplan would no longer be required. He felt this sent a message. He maintained plans were important, that
they created expectations, but that they needed money and staff in order to be
implemented. In conclusion, he
expressed his belief that Council was on the right track and he urged members
to continue their outstanding work.
Vice Chair Desroches
noted that any time the City did a new road widening, it included cycling
facilities. Therefore, he felt there
was progress being made and he did not want to leave the impression that
nothing was being done with respect to trying to improve cycling facilities
throughout the City. In response, Mr.
Beauchesne listed examples of what he referred to as disconnects in terms of
cycling infrastructure.
That the Corporate
Services and Economic Development Committee receive public delegations with respect to the Mid-Term
Governance Review, as referred by Council at its meeting of 10 June 2009.
RECEIVED