Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 88 — Monday, November 16, 2015 (HTML)

Present: Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; John Yap, MLA

2. Pursuant to its terms of reference, the Committee continued its review of the three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budget estimates of the statutory officers.

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Elections B.C.	2071
K. Archer
N. Western
A. Boegman
Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner	2080
S. Lowe
Office of the Merit Commissioner	2088
F. Spencer

S. Hamilton (Chair): First of all, profound apologies. Sometimes we can’t manipulate what the House wants to do from one day to the next. However, everybody’s going to have their allotted time, so you can use it however you wish.

Welcome, Mr. Archer. Welcome back to the committee. It’s good to see you again. I’m looking forward to starting with you and hearing your presentation. Maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you can start by introducing your colleagues.

K. Archer: Well, great. Thanks, Mr. Chair and Madam Vice-Chair, for the invitation to address the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Yes, I’d like to introduce my colleagues. Joining me at the table are Nola Western, the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for funding and disclosure; and Anton Boegman, the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for electoral operations.

Following my comments this afternoon, which will be of a more general nature, Nola and Anton each will provide some more detailed comments about our budget submissions. Joining in the gallery this afternoon are Sherry Hyde, our comptroller; Yvonne Koehn, director of information technology; Don Main, communications manager; and Tanya Ackinclose, financial analyst.

This annual presentation is an opportunity to share with members of this committee and, through you, the entire Legislative Assembly the activities and highlights of this office and the way in which our activities are manifest in the expenditure of public funds. We believe — and I know our practices demonstrate this belief — that we are prudent and vigilant stewards of public funds and are ever mindful of the importance of providing high-quality service to all electoral stakeholders, and while doing so in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner.

Before setting out our budget request, which we have provided to you in writing in advance of this meeting this afternoon, I have a few brief remarks on the presentation of information in our budget documents. We provide our three-year operating budget request for core services and events on page 11. This is consistent with the format in which we’ve been providing budget information to this committee for many years.

Now, the advantage of this reporting format is that it distinguishes clearly between the operating budget for core services and the operating budget for scheduled events. More about this in a couple of minutes. We also have completed the three budget templates provided by the Clerk of Committees on behalf of this committee and which were provided to each of the independent officers. These appear on pages 15 to 20 of our budget proposal.

While each independent officer has their own unique features, there’s an important difference between Elections B.C. and the other seven offices, which affects our budget presentation. That is, Elections B.C. has an important service delivery component to our work that’s quite unlike the activities of the other offices. An important function of this office is the administration of electoral events — general elections, by-elections, referendums, recall petitions, initiative petitions and plebiscites.

There’s a difference in the way that we make budget requests for core services for scheduled electoral events and for on-demand events and for our capital requirements. For scheduled events, we make our budget request in conjunction with our core operating budget together with our capital budget request in the fall of each year, as we’re doing today. For our on-demand events, we provide the budget request after we’ve received a formal request from government to administer an on-demand event.

The columns in the budget templates on pages 15 to 20 include the budget approved per estimates, which is column 1 of table 1, together with the supplementary budget — that’s column 2 of table 1 — which sums to the total budget request. The budget approved per estimates represents our budget for core services plus any scheduled events funding voted on for estimates.

By contrast, the supplementary budget reflects on-demand event funding for events that arise throughout the year. These are spending requirements that are brought before this committee for approval after our core services budget and scheduled event budget have been approved. Therefore, and unlike the other independent officers of the Legislature, our budget varies considerably, year by year, depending upon our approved spending to deliver events. Now, this is all to say that the best understanding of our financing, year over year, including the 2016-17 year request, is from the information presented in the table on page 11 of our budget submission.

With that context, allow me to cut directly to the chase. We are proposing a hold-the-line, steady-state budget for core services in 2016-2017. Our budget for core services for the current year is $9.385 million. We are proposing no change to this amount for 2016-17.

You’ll also see that for the three-year horizon, including 2017-18 and 2018-19, we are planning for no increases to our core services operating budget. Now, circumstances could change for the two out-years that may affect our planning assumptions, and these may be revisited as we change them from planned to proposed budgets in the coming years. But for 2016-17, the proposal is no change.

We also have three scheduled events for 2016-17. The first is the electoral boundaries redistribution project to
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adjust our systems to incorporate changes to the provincial electoral boundaries. At this time, the Electoral Districts Act has passed second reading, and we’re proceeding on the assumption that it will pass in the Legislative Assembly during the current session. The 2016-17 budget requirement for this project is $1.589 million.

The second scheduled electoral event for 2016-17 is the enumeration project, sometimes called the voters list uplift, in advance of the general election scheduled for May 9, 2017. An enumeration is completed in advance of all general elections to ensure we have the highest quality voters list possible at the time of a general election. The budget requirement for this project for 2016-17 is $6.748 million.

The third scheduled event of 2016-17 is preparations to conduct the 41st provincial general election on May 9, 2017. It is always the case that, in the year before a provincial general election, we have spending requirements to prepare for the event. When one considers that our staffing grows from 56 permanent staff to over 33,000 employees on general voting day, it’s apparent that this change does not occur overnight. Thus, preparations for delivering the 41st general election will require $7.757 million in 2016-17.

Therefore, the three scheduled events for 2016-17 — the electoral boundaries redistribution, the provincial enumeration and preparations for the general election — total $16.094 million.

In addition to our operating budget requirement, we have a request for $700,000 in capital spending. Our capital expenditures typically are for enterprise information technology infrastructure specific to the operational requirements for election administration.

I’ll give an example of our use of the capital budget — which, of course, we repay over a five-year period of amortization. Our highest priority item is the development of an on-line system through which candidates, in the first instance, and political parties and constituency associations, secondly, can file their mandatory financial disclosure information. At present, this is done largely through the completion of paper forms, which are then scanned and uploaded as images in our financial reports and political contributions reporting system.

Our priority project is to move to a fully on-line system in time for the 41st general election. This is the kind of enterprise IT infrastructure that’s built from scratch to comply with our legislative requirements in British Columbia.

The last budget item I’d like to mention is funding for on-demand events. We request such funding when we are required to administer an event that is not previously scheduled.

I know today, for example, that there will be at least two by-elections called between now and when I am next scheduled to meet with this committee, since there are currently two vacancies in the Legislative Assembly. Our work to administer these by-elections will be funded in the 2015-16 fiscal year — that is, the current fiscal year. When the by-elections are called, I expect to write to the committee, through the Chair and the vice-Chair, seeking funding of approximately $1.3 million to administer these two events.

Our budget submission contains much detailed information on our structure and the ongoing activities which take up our operating budget for core services. Now, to ensure that our comments remain within our allotted 20 minutes, I’ll not explain these in more detail at this time, but, of course, I’ll be happy to respond to any comments or questions you have about them.

I’ll instead make a brief comment or two about our budget lines that illustrate our careful use of public funds. First, I’ll talk about the electoral boundaries redistribution project and then the enumeration project. The redistribution project takes the output of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, in light of the subsequent legislation adopted by this Legislative Assembly, and integrates the results into all of our election management systems.

Now that the Electoral Boundaries Commission has completed its work, I’m very pleased to advise the committee that Elections B.C. provided the administrative support to the commission — as I first mentioned to this committee when I met you two years ago. I’m also pleased to advise that this arrangement worked very well for the commission, and they have recommended that the arrangement continue for future commissions.

I think it’s important to say to this group that Elections B.C. sought no additional funding to take on this role, and we received no additional funding. Furthermore, the budget that was initially allocated to the commission was $4½ million. In the end, the commission spent slightly more than $1½ million. This represents an important sharing of our services that helped the commission and, I believe, made a lot of sense for British Columbians. We were very pleased with the result.

But the savings don’t end there. Because our staff were directly involved with the commission, the process now of taking the results of the commission’s work into Elections B.C.’s enterprise systems is much more efficient than it has been in the past. For the redistribution project in 2008 — that is, the last redistribution project following the last Electoral Boundaries Commission — Elections B.C. spend $2.4 million. That’s in 2008 dollars. This time the total cost is less than $1.9 million, despite an increase of more than $200,000 in postage costs and, of course, using 2016 dollars.

Now, for the enumeration project, I would simply like to remind members of this committee that when I started in this role in 2011, there was a requirement to conduct an enumeration through door-to-door visits to every residence in B.C. That method is very expensive, and in
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the present environment, where fewer people either are home for such visits or are willing to open their door to strangers, and residences are more difficult to access, door-to-door visits to all B.C. residences are less effective than they were generations ago. The budget that was brought forward in 2011 for the enumeration project, with a door-to-door visits model, was $29 million.

I recommended at the time that the Legislative Assembly remove this requirement and for Elections B.C. to develop British Columbia’s enumeration strategy. That recommendation was adopted by the Legislative Assembly, and the Election Act was changed accordingly.

The enumeration strategy used for the 40th general election cost just under $6 million, about 1/5 of the cost of the door-to-door enumeration. It produced the highest-quality voters list in the history of B.C. The current budget proposal uses the lessons from our experience in the 40th general election and proposes an enumeration at a cost of $6.7 million.

Those are my comments, Members. I will now ask Nola Western to elaborate on some of the details of our funding requests for 2016-17, followed by Anton Boegman’s comments on some of the upcoming scheduled events.

The format of the budget proposal has been updated in accordance with the committee’s direction to incorporate the three tables that include detailed information by STOB. Since those three tables reflect our total budget and don’t separate ongoing and event budgets, we’ve included, in our operating budget, budget requests by business line, as we’ve done in the past. That’s on page 11.

We’ve made some minor amendments to this document by including on it, for the first time, the event budgets, but overall, it’s in the same format as you’ve seen in previous years. You can see that the budget request for core services hasn’t increased for the next year, as Keith mentioned, or for the two out-years. There are some changes and adjustments for the individual line items, but the bottom line and the total funding request for core services remains at $9.385 million for the next three years.

As usual, it’s the event budgets that fluctuate between fiscal years. These budgets vary enormously from year to year, as the electoral events progress through the four-year electoral cycles, both provincial and now local.

Anton will address these events and the related budget requests, but I do want to bring to your attention the TBD note on this page. Although Elections B.C. has consistently submitted a three-year budget proposal for ongoing operating and capital asset funding, we are unable to provide event funding requirements beyond the next fiscal year.

We have a project planning framework that was specifically designed for Elections B.C. to meet the unique requirements of planning large electoral events, such as general elections and enumerations. That planning methodology entails zero-based budgeting. The budget is built from the ground up, so we’re unable to establish budgets for electoral events until the detailed project plans for those events are established, and those event plans are developed during the fiscal year before the event. To establish a budget for a general election or enumeration two or three years before the event starts will not result in an accurate budget.

With regard to the core services request of the $9.385 million, it really is a case of steady state. We have adjusted office expenses, including supplies, travel and training, where we can, to make sure that we can accommodate the government-mandated increases to salaries, and an office rent increase in accordance with our lease agreement, without requesting an overall budget lift from this committee.

As in past years, we’ve included a pie chart on page 14 that illustrates the core services budget request for next fiscal year — the $9.385 million — and this chart shows that we’re highly dependent on people and information technology. Once salaries, IT and rent are covered, we have very little flexibility in other areas.

The last few pages of the budget proposal include the spreadsheets created by the committee for our use. Table 1 on page 15 is the three-year budget plan by STOB, and it shows the current fiscal year, 2015-16, compared to the request for next fiscal year. This spreadsheet includes both our core services and the event budgets for next fiscal year, ’16-17, and it clearly illustrates how widely the total budget varies from fiscal year to fiscal year, as we move through the electoral cycles.

Again, the planned budgets for the two out-years — fiscal ’17-18 and ’18-19 — do not include any event funding. When we create our budgets for electoral events, we don’t simply take the prior event and add a percentage. Each budget, again, is developed from the ground up.

Table 2 on page 17 shows the budget versus actuals for fiscal 2014-15. In ’14-15, we administered, for the very first time, the campaign financing and third-party advertising provisions for local elections, and they were held last November. We also planned, prepared and began the conduct of the Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite. Both of these events were major projects, and both were first-time events.

As usual with such large undertakings, especially the first time that they’re conducted, there were some variances between the budgets and the actual amounts expended. You can see explanations for variances over $25,000 on page 18.

Finally, table 3 on page 19 shows the actual expenditures for the last five fiscal years. You’ll notice that for most years, the total operating appropriation on this table is equal to the total operating expenses. This is because
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the total operating appropriation is the amount reported in the public accounts, whereas on the other spreadsheets, the total budget is as approved by this committee.

This is a consequence of the funding process. Funding for events such as the general election, Metro Vancouver plebiscite, recall petitions, etc., is from a special appropriation. It’s approved by this committee and the Minister of Finance. At the end of the fiscal year, the Ministry of Finance actually allocates Elections B.C. with the exact amount necessary up to the maximum of that approval.

The budget reflected in the public accounts equals exactly the amount that was spent on those events. Hence, the variance of the actuals to the appropriation is zero, and you don’t see any surplus, even when the amount expended was less than the maximum approved by this committee. You can see this illustrated on pages 22 and 23 of the consolidated revenue fund supplementary schedules in the most recent public accounts.

That concludes my remarks today. Thank you for your attention and consideration of our budget request. I’ll turn it over to Anton, who’ll give you some details about the event budgets.

A. Boegman: Good afternoon, committee members. As Keith and Nola have mentioned, my focus is going to be on our event-related funding requirements for 2016-17.

I’m just going to begin with some context. In the current year, we have received funding for event-related activities totalling $4.768 million. This is comprised of two components.

First, as listed on page 11, is $1.695 million in funding that was requested during our presentation to this committee last year for known events. These were the administration of local government campaign finance activities as well as the initial preparations for the 2017 provincial enumeration, the 2017 general election and the 2016 redistribution of electoral district boundaries.

The second part of our current-year event funding is a supplemental funding of $3.073 million, which is listed on page 15 in table 3. This funding was not known when we met this committee last year and has provided the funding for the delivery of the 2015 Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite as well as the recall petitions in Burnaby North and Maple Ridge–Mission. Fully 64 percent of our current-year event funding was from on-demand events that were not known when we presented to this committee last year.

Further, as Keith mentioned, this event funding doesn’t include the moneys that will be necessary for the administration of the pending by-elections in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, the former of which must be called by January 13, 2016, and the latter by February 17. As indicated in the budget document on page 10, approximately $1.3 million of supplementary funding will be requested for this fiscal year in relation to those two events when those events are called.

Now, from an event perspective, the next fiscal year will see a significant expansion of our event administration activities that are necessary for the redistribution, enumeration and provincial general election.

By the end of fiscal year 2016-17, both the redistribution and enumeration must be delivered to completion, while the general election preparations will have increased significantly in scope and scale, as the next scheduled provincial general election on May 9, 2017, draws ever closer. Indeed, at the end of the next fiscal year, we will be only 11 days from writ day for that event.

The next fiscal year may also see Elections B.C. be required to deliver on-demand events, such as initiative or recall petitions, a referendum or another by-election. Per current practice, when we are made aware of these events, we will follow up with this committee at that time.

I will now speak to the specifics of our event budget for 2016-17. The event budget request is listed on page 11, with the detail for the event budget request provided in the notes section on page 13 of the budget proposal document.

The budget requirement for general election preparations in ’16-17 is $7.757 million. This funding will allow Elections B.C. to begin and complete the intensive preparations necessary to ensure readiness for the provincial general election.

We will identify and hire the required temporary headquarters staff in finance, administration and operations, and we’ll comprehensively train the 180 district electoral officers and deputy district electoral officers through a blend of e-learning and face-to-face practical instruction. This training will be especially significant because up to 40 percent of these appointees will be new to their role.

Our DEOs and deputies will be identifying 93 offices throughout the province, of which 50 will be required as of March 1, 2017, in support of the enumeration, with the remainder being required for April 1, 2017.

We will ensure that our warehouse is fully stocked. To give you a sense of scale, that’s 203,000 kilograms of material. It’s all the necessary equipment, ballot boxes, election supplies that are required to deliver the election.

We’ll also acquire computers and complete and test the necessary updates through our information technology infrastructure prior to the election period.

To ensure that B.C. voters are educated and informed of the available upcoming voter registration and voting opportunities, we will staff and commence contact centre operations in February 2017 and will have planned and prepared an integrated electoral event advertising campaign.

As mentioned, the other main events for funding will be the final planning and delivery of the provincewide enumeration and the voter registration event, as well as
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the completion of the 2016 electoral boundaries redistribution event.

For the enumeration, the budget requirements are $6.748 million in ’16-17. This includes the funding for the rental of the 50 district electoral offices; the hiring, training and wages and benefits for approximately 700 enumerators and 150 other required temporary staff; for the purchase, production and shipping of enumeration forms, manuals and supplies; the development of a technology application for enumerators; a post-enumeration voters list quality audit so we can determine the impact of our efforts.

Also, shared costing for a number of integrated event activities, including the design and launch of the event communications campaign — so in the enumeration, the voter registration messaging will be part of that; the shared district electoral officer and deputy salaries, which are the costs related to the administration of the enumeration; shared costs for a provincewide voter notice, having “are you registered?” messaging; and shared recruitment, training, staffing and operations of the 1-800 voter contact centre.

The budget requirements for the implementation of new electoral district and voting area boundaries are $1.589 million. This funding will provide for temporary geographical information system technical staff wages and benefits; for the shared mailing costs for the provincewide voter notice — in this case, it’s the new electoral boundaries messaging; for the design and development of these new electoral district maps, computer system modifications and shared-services IT costs.

This brings our total event-related funding requirements to $16.094 million for the coming fiscal year. The total is displayed on page 11 in lines 12, 13 and 14 of the table.

This concludes our presentation. Thank you for your attention, committee members.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. It’s going to be an opportunity now for us to go to the committee with questions.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for the specifics. I think it’s helpful to be able to know the specifics when it comes to special events. Also, I think the experience that you had through the boundaries report is helpful for the committee to know.

Just a couple of really quick questions. The $1.3 million for the two by-elections. Will that formal request then come back when the by-elections are called, even though we know they have to be called? That request will come forward when they’re called.

My second question was just around lessons learned around the federal election. I recognize they’re two different election acts, but I think there were still some lessons to be learned around advance polls, around voter registration, etc. I just wondered what kind of review process, if there’s a review process, goes on after a federal election to see if there were things that could either be translated or used or not used, when it comes to provincial elections, when you’re planning your budget for the upcoming year.

K. Archer: Great. Thanks, Carole. The budget for the by-elections — that request will come back to this committee. At the present time, there are some assumptions we’ve made in calculating this budget number, which may or may not bear out in how they’re called. We’re assuming that the by-elections, from this budget perspective, are called simultaneously.

They may not be. There’s no requirement that they are. If they’re called independently, then we’ll come forward with two separate budget requests. There would be very modest financial implications to having them synchronized versus non-synchronized. But the standard practice, and certainly, the expectation, is that once we know the date or dates, we will write to the committee immediately.

Secondly, on lessons learned from the federal event, I would say that there is a commitment by election agencies across the country to learn from one another. This is one of those businesses in which, even though we’re all governed by our own legislative framework and requirements, there are important developments from one jurisdiction that are relevant for others.

One example of that is that British Columbia was the first province to have fixed election dates within our provincial jurisdictions. Now we see this as a common practice across the country. So I think that sharing goes not only to election administrative agencies but also to the legislators as well.

I did attend the visitors program in Ottawa at the time of the event. I was really struck by a number of the new developments — a big increase. I think it was a 76 percent increase in advance voting this time around — so much so that they’re now catching up with us in British Columbia, with the number of people who are voting in advance federally and in the province as well.

A big boost in turnout. Some of the early indications are that there was a big increase in youth engagement. We will be certainly following up with our counterparts federally to continue those lessons learned. One of the specific requirements that was put in place on Elections Canada this time was that they introduce a process to audit a number of their procedures — particularly at the polling-place level.

A very small committee has been mobilized by Elections Canada to provide them advice and guidance on that audit task. Anton Boegman is one of the members of that audit. I don’t know, Anton, if you want to mention anything in addition, from that perspective.
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A. Boegman: Sure. I would just add, in terms of the specific lessons learned, that we often try to look at two different levels. One is from an overall perspective. What are the trends? What are the different things that they’re seeing?

Keith mentioned the increase in advance voting. We’ve seen a significant increase in British Columbia provincially. In advance voting in the last general election, over 20 percent of all votes were advance votes, so we need to be prepared for more people to continue to vote in advance.

The next election will have two additional full days of advance voting — the Saturday and Sunday of the two weeks prior to general voting day — which were brought into legislation by Bill 20. We’re going to be looking at that and getting ready for that.

I think, at a more detailed level, we often assign and offer the opportunity for our staff to work as election officials in a federal election. Often, staff can’t get away from our office provincially, because we’re too busy working on it, so we don’t get that front-line experience. That allows them to go through the full recruitment process, through the training process, as well as administering voting on the day, following through to counting.

They see things very differently. They’ll see things from an individual level around the training, around the processes, and they give us suggestions, which we feed back to Elections Canada. Oftentimes they’re things around how a process is done that we can take as a lesson learned and that we can use with our election officials.

As Keith mentioned, the audit. I’m very pleased to support them in that role. In fact, I’m going to Ottawa later this week for an initial report from the auditors. Anything that we can learn from that process will be something that we’ll be bringing back to B.C.

G. Heyman: Thank you for the presentation. I have two questions, and I’ll preface them by saying that I realize the answer to this might not necessarily be contained in this budget submission but the following one. But it’s probably timely to ask the question now.

One of the observations about the recent federal election was quite a bit of confusion on advance voting days, with not enough staff to handle the turnout. My question is…. I know that B.C. has had more experience with advance vote and high turnout, but are you preparing for a potential increase in turnout and ensuring that people aren’t frustrated by having long waits in lineups?

The second question is whether you’ve done a review of the last election performance and knowledge of relevant laws and procedures by the deputy returning officers and the various poll clerks in constituencies. It’s been my observation that more and more candidates are having legal teams at polls observing, sometimes challenging, sometimes just working to ensure that people’s rights are respected. That can be intimidating to people who are, essentially, doing a job for a short period of time.

Are you looking at additional training in the future, more comprehensive training and/or resources that can be contacted by officials with questions on very short order?

K. Archer: Thanks, George, for those questions. I’ll start, and then, again, I’ll turn to Anton, who’ll probably add some more specific details.

First, on the question of advance voting. In the last event, we increased the amount of messaging that we provided about voting — when it was convenient and where it was convenient to the voter. There are more voting opportunities in British Columbia provincial elections than anywhere else. You can vote outside your district. You can vote at the DEO office, really, from day zero in the campaign right through general voting day.

As we pushed that message of greater accessibility, voters responded. We had more people voting using alternative methods of voting — whether they were voting outside their district, whether they were voting by mail — than we’ve had in any other election in British Columbia.

The idea that we need to ensure that our systems and processes are up to speed and that we need to recognize that voters are increasingly taking advantage of advance voting opportunities and alternative voting opportunities is something that I would say is generally included within our planning. Again, I’ll ask Anton to talk about any specific arrangements we’re making with respect to 2017.

With respect to training of election officials. It’s one of the challenges, a real challenge of our system of running elections in this country, that most of the people who interact with the voter are people who work for us for one day. They are the face of Elections B.C. In some ways, I guess, they’re the face of government in B.C. as they go to register their vote.

Most of those people have three hours of training, whether you’re looking at the experience in B.C. or the experience federally. It has become more and more clear to us that we need to do what we can to supplement the training opportunities, especially given the more complex voting environment that these officials are confronting. As your question suggests, George, there may be a greater sense of a legalistic environment for some of those election officials.

We’re putting a lot of our effort now into developing a lot more on-line materials that are going to supplement the face-to-face interaction, which we’re still going to use as a key part of our instruction with the voting officials to ensure that they have a more solid foundation. We recognize, nonetheless, that it’s always going to be a relatively small amount, given the tough job that these people have. They work for 12 hours a day administering the voting process, and then they begin the tough work of
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counting and reconciling your counting in a high-quality manner. It’s a challenge. We’re trying to supplement some of our training.

It’s nice to hear your recognition that the environment within which the election officials are working is sometimes a confrontational one.

A. Boegman: Sure. Thanks, Keith. I can add a couple of points, I think, on both of the questions that you had.

First, I’m pleased to say that the advance voting model in our act is much more flexible than the advance voting model in the federal act. Federally, they assign their polling divisions to specific advance voting locations, and the voters have to go to that specific location, whereas in our model, it’s an open advance voting period. Any voter in the district can vote at any of the advance voting locations.

In their model, the way that the documentation and the material is prepared doesn’t give them any flexibility to add extra voting teams should the demand be higher, whereas we have that flexibility in British Columbia. The district electoral officer will have spares standing by that are fully trained and that could be deployed in areas where there is high voter turnout. Certainly, we tend to err more on the side of trying to have more teams. Typically, the first day and the last day of the advance voting period are very high in turnout. The other two days are less so. We do have that flexibility to adjust, and we are going to be preparing for increased turnout in advance voting.

Another piece that we’re doing is that, internally, we’re having some of our analysts look at the actual voting data. We’re calling this project our voting pattern analysis. We’re figuring out where voters went, where they tend to turn out, and we’re using this as an input into our planning process for district electoral officers, going forward. They may identify certain locations — say, downtown urban locations — where the absentee vote is particularly high. Instead of having one team, they may have two or three teams at those locations.

Now, past performance is not always the indicator of where it’s going to be busy in the next event, but we think that it’s certainly giving us a better look at how voting is administered, where voters are going and will allow us to respond more directly to some of those challenges.

In relation to the environment that they’re operating in, one of our key strategies this time is to give extra training to the voting place supervisor. We’re going to give them a lot more training as the go-to person for any issues that arise. In some places where we actually have particularly large voting places, we may have an assistant supervisor. They’re going to be trained on all those special circumstances, get much more training on the voting process. So if there are questions, the scrutineers can go to them, and the officials will just continue administering.

Our training for the officials, of course, is very much practical training on “this is how you administer the voting process. These are the steps that you take. This is what you need to do in order to make sure that voting is administered correctly and accurately.”

Then, of course, during the event, myself and my operations managers are available for any calls from parties or candidates if they have questions but feel that they’re not getting, perhaps, a quick enough response from a district electoral officer.

S. Gibson: Just a few quick questions. Again, my knowledge of this is going to reveal itself quite quickly here. Would it be possible to have joint voter registration? If the criteria is similar for the federal, maybe even municipal, everybody get together and have one team that does registration for all three levels of government — if the criteria is similar or the same.

K. Archer: I would say that we developed certain elements of that, Simon. The major input into the provincial voters list is the federal voters list, the national register of electors. The major input into the voters list for many local elections is the provincial voters list.

We are providing data to local officials and to federal officials. Federal officials are providing it to us. So even though we have our own separate requirements to be on the voters list, there is a lot of data sharing. It’s actually the key principle behind our model. The environment doesn’t allow for a strict development of a single list, but we go a long way to developing a list that takes advantage of the work that’s done at other levels of government.

For example, after a local election in which we have, in many jurisdictions, provided the local authorities with a provincial voters list that they’ve used for the local voters list, they will then make amendments to that voters list and send the amendments back up to Elections B.C. It really is a system in which there’s a lot of sharing.

S. Gibson: A quick supplementary. I noticed that you have…. Your values — I really like these. I really appreciate the thought that has gone into these values, because I think they’re really important.

What about…? We’re just kind of brainstorming. Instead of having an advance election…. A lot of people, especially older people, don’t think that they can vote. I talked to people in the last federal election, and they said: “Well, I don’t know if I can vote.” They feel they have to have a special reason to vote in advance. They have to have a reason. They have to be sick on the election day.

Why couldn’t we, instead of calling it an advance poll, just have four days of general election? I’m just wondering. This might help people who feel marginalized and
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who don’t realize that they can vote on those early days. It’s just kind of a little brainwave.

Another thing I was going to ask is…. Technology, of course, is limited by the legislation. I understand that. But it’s looming. What would you like to see as the next step here? There are a lot of jurisdictions where there is some on-line voting or that kind of thing. It’s kind of a theoretical question. Do you see that coming, Keith and your staff, that the next step is going to be to allow some level of on-line voting?

K. Archer: I guess the way I would answer the question about on-line voting is just to make reference to a report that was issued to the Legislative Assembly in 2014 on Internet voting. It was an independent panel on Internet voting that I chaired. There was a set of recommendations included within that report.

One of the recommendations spoke to the establishment of a technical committee that would look into any e-voting system that was proposed for a jurisdiction in British Columbia — potentially empowered to certify electronic voting systems. I haven’t received any response back to that report and set of recommendations. I’d be pleased to have further discussion on that topic.

I think one of the key recommendations in that report is that it’s important, if British Columbia begins to look into Internet voting…. Because most of the activity on Internet voting in Canada to date has taken place at the municipal level, it would be useful to take an integrated approach to studying Internet voting. Again, the report is before the Legislature, and I’d be pleased to have a further discussion.

In response to your other question about the naming of different voting opportunities, those are named in the Election Act.

K. Archer: There is a context for the way that we have referred to them in our messaging. My sense of the messaging in advance of the 2013 election was to let people know that they can vote at a variety of voting opportunities.

I think you’re right. I think there is a historical legacy which says that advance voting is available to people who have a note from their doctor or somebody that they can vote in advance because they’re sick or something like that. When you look back as recently as the 2001 election in B.C., 95 percent of everyone who voted, voted in their assigned voting place on general voting day — 95 percent. Almost nobody was voting advance. In the last election, less than 70 percent were voting that way. As Anton said, over 20 percent were voting advance.

I think that message of accessibility is getting out. I know that our messaging in anticipation of the 2017 event will be one which highlights the ability of the elector to choose.

S. Chandra Herbert: First, thank you for the report that you brought forward in 2014. I found it useful, and I also just want to say thank you for your continued pushing of the idea of preregistering 16-year-olds. I think we should just give them the vote, but if we can’t do that, we will at least preregister them so they can vote later. That’s another issue.

I noticed in the budget allocation, the budget request, that one of the areas where you’re looking for support — a very small increase — is in terms of education. What is it called? Line item 10, voter education. I notice it’s going from $52,000 to $59,000. I think that’s the amount of money. It just seems remarkably small to me. As you’re trying to get young voters, old voters — people — to vote, get them registered to vote, new voters and so on….

While I love the idea of a democracy boot camp and going out and talking to teachers — because I think, certainly, that’s a very effective way to spread the message quite widely — I think we need to get young people talking to young people, in terms of getting them to vote. If we’re not going to have a mandatory vote, if we’re not going to have a youth vote at 16, we’ve got to get more young people in there.

I’m just curious why there wasn’t a larger increase. I think $59,000 can hardly go anywhere at all in terms of the millions of people we have in this province who, I think, need some help and would want to engage if given the opportunity. Any thoughts on how that figure was reached?

The $59,000 represents, I guess, a particular aspect of our attempt to engage youth in the electoral process. Historically we have used that money to pay for the production and distribution of school kits. We’ve developed school kits for kids in grade 5 and also for students in grade 11, and we provide this free of charge within the public education system to all teachers who want to take this up.

But I think it’s fair to say that in our more general advertising in advance of the election, as well as some specific projects in the election, you’ll see that there are some expenditures that focus on youth electoral education that are event specific.

One of the groups that we partner with all the time is CIVIX. It used to be called Student Vote. Well, they were the partner with that democracy boot camp as well. Although we haven’t had detailed conversations yet with Student Vote in advance of the next general election, we would expect that we would very likely partner with them as well.
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That funding would be within an event funding category rather than within this operating funding category. So it’s more that that’s a line related to a specific element of our work rather than that that’s all we are doing for youth engagement.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you for that. I think that’s helpful. I’d love to see this kind of boot camp happen every year — that the grade 11s every year get somebody in and be asked on how they vote. There are a lot of folks that end up going through school that don’t get that opportunity because they happen not to be in the right year when they get into an election year, for example. Maybe they’re not involved.

Just a final one is something referenced earlier around the connection to federal Elections Canada and Elections B.C. I’m curious if there’s been a review or if you’re looking to do a review of the legislation itself in terms of how the Election Act works, because there are certain things which jump out to me as strange.

The federal act, for example, allows you to go into a condominium to knock on doors in a condominium tower to ask people, to give them election information, etc. That’s in the federal act. In B.C., you’re allowed to do that in rental apartment buildings, but — at least my reading of the act — it doesn’t allow you to do that in condominium buildings, in strata corporations. So federally you can; provincially you can’t — at least according to the legislation.

Any thoughts on that? I haven’t noticed that kind of issue raised before from Elections B.C.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’ll have to be brief in our response. We’re running out of time.

A. Boegman: I guess I’d just like to comment that we do look at our legislation, and we look at other legislation and look at ways that, potentially, voting or access to voting could be improved. One area in particular that we’re looking at — we’re working on a report that will eventually find its way to the Legislature — is just on ways that we can enhance accessibility and opportunity to vote through what we’re calling a modernization of some aspects of the voting process. That is one thing that we’re doing. That report we hope to have in front of the Legislature sometime in 2016.

S. Chandra Herbert: To be clear, I was asking specifically not about getting to vote but how those who want to get voted in can actually engage the people before they ever even go to vote. But I look forward to the report, and thank you so much.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’ll finish off here. I’m glad we had a conversation that, George, you brought up about readiness at the polls during advance voting. I think we saw a significant shift in that trend in the federal election. If that continues to manifest itself, we’re going to have to be ready one way or another. We wouldn’t want to see a repeat of that situation.

One of the questions I did have, though, is in regard to your budget, on page 11, and your event expenses. I look at lines 11 through 14 as, essentially, a rollup of what is represented in lines 1 to 10, for the most part. It’s probably done for brevity. But given the fact that it represents some 2½ times what would normally be incurred in a normal year, let’s say a non-election year, I wonder if there’s a flavour from this committee to see that same breakdown. I’m sure you probably have it. I’m not sure if you’d want to provide it to us as a supplemental request so we can look at it in more detail.

N. Western: I think you see more detail on page 15, where you see the budget request by STOB in the third column. That shows our total budget and each of the things, the type of expenditure. You can see how much we plan on spending on travel, professional services, information systems.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay, but do we know how much that is over and above a normal year, or do we do the subtraction or the math ourselves?

N. Western: Well, the normal year…. What’s a normal year for Elections B.C.? For the current fiscal year, it was $14 million, so you can compare the current fiscal year to ’16-17. If you go to the last page of the document, page 19, you can see the actual expenditures, again by STOB, for each of the last five years. So you can compare what we’ve spent in advertising for each of the last five years and what we plan to spend next year.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I think so. If we have any other questions, we can certainly follow up with your office and go from there.

Okay, thank you very much for taking the time to present. We do appreciate it. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again in the very near future. Take care.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Welcome to our Police Complaint Commissioner, Mr. Lowe. Welcome a lot. Welcome very much. Good afternoon.

We’ve set aside an hour, however you chose to use the time. I guess it’s going to be up to you, but I think we talked about 20 minutes or so for a presentation. It looks like we had a lot of questions the last time, so I would anticipate that maybe we’ll have some for you this time. But we can get started, and if I could ask you to introduce your colleagues.

S. Lowe: Just for the purposes of the record, I’d like to introduce, to my left, Rollie Woods. He’s the Deputy Police Complaint Commissioner. To his left is Andrea Spindler. She’s the director of strategic initiatives and special projects. To my right is David Van Swieten. He’s the executive director of corporate shared services.

I should remind the committee that four of the officers have combined shared services. We’ve managed to, from an economical standpoint and from an efficiency standpoint, save British Columbians money. And from an efficiency standpoint, they take care of all our administrative and operational needs.

This will be the sixth time that I’ve had the pleasure of appearing before this honourable committee. I recognize a number of the members that I have appeared before on previous select standing committees, as well as some of the other special committee members that I have appeared in front of as part of my role as commissioner.

Some of you already possess a strong appreciation of the work of civilian oversight of law enforcement, but I intend to provide at the outset a brief overview of the landscape of civilian oversight in British Columbia, as I believe it will provide you with an important context to my submissions today.

Over the years, I have referred to what is transpiring as a sea change in British Columbia. This sea change has been fortified by the Legislature of this province, which has taken a leadership role in Canada in the development and implementation of legislation related to civilian oversight of law enforcement.

This sea change gained significant momentum beginning in 2007 with the government commissioning a review of the oversight system by the late Josiah Wood, former justice of the Court of Appeal and former judge of the Provincial Court. His report that was released was visionary. The difficulty that government faced was taking his recommendations and his visions and translating that into legislation. They did an excellent first cut, if I may say so.

In 2010, the House unanimously passed significant revisions to the Police Act, which clearly established British Columbia as a leader in terms of accountability and transparency in the oversight of municipal police departments in this province. Many of Joe Wood’s recommendations were incorporated in the legislation. The legislation came into place March 2010, so it’s been about six years.

Two public inquiries have also provided a further catalyst for change in terms of oversight and confidence in policing. The Davies Inquiry into the Death of Frank Paul and the Braidwood Inquiry involving the death of Robert Dziekanski were both the catalysts behind the creation of legislation which improved oversight and created the independent investigations office.

More recently the Oppal Commission on missing women, the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, contributed some valuable information in relation to police accountability in this province.

In Canada, the policing environment enjoys the overwhelming support of the public at large. This level of public confidence in policing is a product of system of oversight that is in place which is independent, accountable and transparent. The public is confident in knowing that in British Columbia, there is a process in place which is accountable and independent.

There will always be incidents involving the police and members of the public which will attract the attention of the media and the public. However, if you’ll note, the focus on these incidents is on the incidents themselves. The issue of whether we have the appropriate system in place and whether the system works has moved itself squarely to the back burner. It’s no longer in the front burner. It was in 2007.

We need only juxtapose the current state of policing in Canada to what can only be described as a crisis in public confidence in relation to what is transpiring in the United States. The ongoing unrest and concerns relating to police accountability have given rise to significant activism in groups such as Black Lives Matter who have contributed to this maelstrom of public discontent.

I hear this concern from the policing community in Canada. They are concerned that the same crisis in public confidence will make its journey across our border. But in my view, this won’t occur, because the United States does not have in place a system of independent civilian oversight agencies to bolster public confidence.

Instead, they are forced to consider less-expensive alternatives, such as body-worn cameras issued to all police officers to monitor the police as well as the public. Body-worn cameras will not address the root issues behind this erosion of public confidence.

In the United States, critical police incidents with the public are really a subject of a piecemeal non-independent oversight arising out of municipal political offices, the grand jury system and the more onerous consent-decree system, which is part of the Department of Justice of the U.S. government. This consent-decree system arose
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from the Rodney King incident. It has been utilized by the Department of Justice to address what they view as unconstitutional policing.

Our neighbour to the south, the Seattle police department, is currently under a consent decree as a result of a finding that a pattern or practice of excessive force was being practised by the department, which violates U.S. constitution and federal law. This decree system involves the appointment of a monitor and a team of support to address the concerns. This process in Seattle has already cost tens of millions of dollars.

If you may reflect back to some earlier years in Los Angeles and issues with respect to their police department as a result of the Rampart matter, they were under a consent decree for several years, which cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

I’m pleased to report to this committee that the policing environment in Canada is completely different from that in the United States and will remain so as long as there is independent civilian oversight of law enforcement which enjoys the support of government.

The level of scrutiny in terms of the recruits or candidates, the level of ongoing training in the civilian agencies across this country that perform oversight of law enforcement create an environment where the public can trust the accountability of the processes in place, which, in turn, fosters public confidence in policing. This is one area where the United States could greatly benefit from the wisdom of Canada.

Arguably, we have some of the best-trained and highest-paid police in the world, which, in turn, reflects on the general quality of the candidates drawn to this honourable profession. Policing in Canada, especially in British Columbia, has accepted civilian oversight as a means to maintain public confidence and trust in policing.

I will conclude my opening remarks in regard to the landscape of oversight in British Columbia by saying that British Columbians are fortunate that civilian oversight in this province has enjoyed the unanimous support of the Legislature, in terms of legislation, and operational support in terms of funding. The importance of our work is not lost on anyone in this room. I’m here today to demonstrate that your support is being put to good use — that I have in place plans for improvement to maintain the public’s confidence in the system.

Now, I intend to take you through our budget submission in the form of a high-level briefing, so I’m going to invite you to sit back and listen or, if you want to follow along, I’ll make occasional page references. I believe I can get through my submission in about 15 minutes.

Beginning at page 2. At paragraph 2 in our submission, I allude to an overview. What I set out is that we’re at the stage where our legislative framework has been in place for almost six years. We’ve been able to identify a number of recommendations for change that we believe will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the complaint process. Government has canvassed us with respect to these changes. We’ve met with government and are very pleased with the consultative approach that government is taking.

We have also made some significant recommendations to enhance the role of alternative dispute resolution for appropriate matters in the police complaint system. Within our own office, we’re currently in the implementation stage of our revisioning process, which includes the establishment of a strategic plan to modify our operations to better meet the needs of current legislation and to be able to react quickly to any legislative changes the government may pass in the future.

As a result of the strategic plan, a number of internal and external initiatives involving our work have been developed and implemented — improvements that have been made or are in the process of being implemented to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our oversight work and to build and strengthen outreach programs to educate the public about our office and the work we do.

In a nutshell, we are engaged in what is often described as a gatekeeping function. In our office, we determine the admissibility of all complaints. We audit all questions and concerns that do not result in complaints, to ensure that they’re in the right stream. We review all reportable injuries, which I’ll discuss in a moment, to determine if an investigation is warranted.

We order investigations as and when they are required in the public interest. Then we oversee all complaint investigations, and where required, we are able to direct investigative steps. We look at this process, and we’ve had a lot of success in approaching this process from a collaborative standpoint.

Finally, we review all decisions to determine whether an adjudicative review is required, and if so, we provide a support function in relation to those reviews.

I’m at the middle of page 3 now. We continue to face workload challenges associated with our oversight responsibilities. We’ve managed these pressures over the past year by continuing to improve internal efficiencies and business practices regarding staffing and by strongly promoting alternative dispute resolution of appropriate complaints. We currently work under a challenging workload, but we’re able to maintain a high standard of oversight and professionalism.

I summarize our budgetary request at the bottom of page 3. Last year the committee approved a budget increase of $41,000 to the operating budget to cover a mandated increase to salaries and benefits for 2015-16.

In addition, the committee did not approve $25,000 that was described in the last report as unspecified costs. It appeared that the decision to not approve the request was based on an inadequate explanation, on my part, regarding the nature of these costs and a shortcoming I in-
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tend to remedy in this current budget request for your prudent consideration.

There are three areas in which we’re seeking a budgetary increase to our operating budget. We’re seeking funding for two investigative analyst positions to accommodate a change in legislation, which is impending and imminent, and funding to cover the mandated salary increase to the position of the commissioner and, finally, as I alluded to earlier, an increase to cover that inflationary impact of wages and benefits that was notionally approved by the committee in 2013.

Page 6 sets out our summary of our workload. What we’ve tried to achieve here is to identify the types of oversight functions that we perform in a number of files that we have oversight over. It’s interesting to note that since March 31, 2010, until September 30, 2015, we opened a total of 6,211 files.

In our first year, obviously, we experienced a huge increase of 100 percent in the number of files opened following the legislative amendments, but we’ve seen fluctuations in the total numbers since. On average, as you’ll go to the graph there…. Over the course of the last five years, we’ve averaged between 1,100 and 1,200 files a year. Page 7 sets out the nature of the files, but I don’t think I need to go into that in great detail.

I want to talk a little bit about admissibility, because that is a very important function that we perform. We’ve undertaken a strong commitment to the front end of the complaint process as envisioned by the act. This gatekeeping function is crucial to ensuring the proper management of public and police resources. Of the 2,749 registered complaints received from the public between March 31, 2010, and September 30, 2015, approximately 45 percent, 1,232, were deemed admissible and were forwarded to municipal police departments for investigation or informal resolution.

We’ve had a slight increase this first part of 2015-2016, but overall our admissibility rate has fluctuated in a fairly consistent manner. There’s a chart set out at the bottom of page 8, which shows the last four years, in column 2. The admissibility rate is 41, 46, 45. Last year was quite low, 36, and this year we’re running at 49 percent.

This is a critical function that we perform, and it’s important that we take a balanced and principled approach to this particular function. Of the 2,749 registered complaints, we are currently the subject of two judicial reviews of complaints that were screened out. Two out of 2,749, in my view, is a very acceptable number.

Having said that, in amongst other oversight agencies in Canada, we are probably at the lower end of admissibility. Some venture as high as 58 to 60 percent admissible complaints, but in our case, we have a robust front-end commitment in which we gather significant information, in which we can properly assess whether or not a complaint is truly admissible, as described under the act.

Page 9, reportable injuries. This is an important area. Municipal police departments are required to report all incidents which involve an individual in the care and custody of the police and who suffers a reportable injury. That is defined as an injury that requires emergency care by a medical practitioner and a transfer to a hospital.

An experienced analyst will carefully review each of these notifications and the accompanying information to make a determination whether an investigation into the matter is warranted under the Police Act. This will often involve liaising with the police agencies to obtain further information as to the circumstances of the incident, as well as the nature of the injury.

The OPCC also tracks the type of force used in each of these cases. Last year approximately 8 percent of the 24 reportable injury files submitted to the OPCC met the definition of “serious harm” that resulted in the mandatory external investigation of the Police Act, which also involved the IIO. That’s the same trigger that involves their jurisdiction. In the first half of this year we’ve seen a significant decrease in the number of cases meeting the definition of serious harm.

Moving now to page 11. I’d like to discuss with the committee alternative dispute resolution. From the outset of my appointment, I’ve made alternative dispute resolution a legacy initiative. Resolving complaints through communication, understanding and reconciliation will result in a more meaningful resolution for both participants. ADR allows for the repair and the improvement of public confidence in police one relationship at a time.

Our office reviews all resolution agreements to ensure that the resolution is meaningful. Part of this process involves contacting the complainants to ensure they’re satisfied with the process, and the overall responses we’ve seen from complainants have been extremely positive and constructive. The feedback has been very valuable. It assists us in improving our ADR program.

Our collective goal is to lead the country in alternative dispute resolution of these complaints. Since the implementation of new legislation in April 2010, the number of allegations resolved through this process has grown substantially. In the last year, we experienced a slight decline, as compared to previous years, in the number of allegations resolved through ADR. However, it’s still substantially higher than under the previous legislation, where only 7.8 percent of allegations were resolved informally. We’re hovering around the 20 percent mark.

We are now able to report on the number of admissible complaints that the OPCC identifies as admissible for ADR. For the first half of the current fiscal year, we identified approximately 60 percent of admissible complaints as suitable for ADR.

All complainants now receive an introductory letter explaining the complaint process and their rights under the act. If a complaint has been identified as suitable for
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ADR, we’ll also provide an information letter about the process. In addition, we actively promote ADR with police departments, and we provide training in ADR for professional standards investigators, as well as police association representatives. We’ve even had the RCMP attend some of our training sessions.

The fallout effects of ADR are primarily…. Number one in priority is satisfaction between both the complainant as well as the police officer. There is a feeling that, at the very end of the day, had a matter gone through investigation, either party would never really have been satisfied.

We are so impressed by the importance of ADR that in our most recent submissions to government with respect to legislative change, we asked that there be a mandatory requirement for complainants to participate in a pre-conference mediation to determine the appropriateness of matters for mediation. In Quebec, they’ve had a mandatory process in place for ten years, and they have a resolution rate of almost 80 percent. We list, at page 13 and 14, a number of legislative amendments we’re seeking.

I’d like to take you to page 15 and discuss something which is always important to our offices — the civilian presence which exists in our office. We are committed to promoting and maintaining a strong civilian presence in our decision-making positions. We’re pleased to advise the committee that 45 percent of our staff in decision-making positions are from a civilian background. Many or most of our senior analysts come from a civilian background.

It’s important to maintain a proper balance in staffing. We need to ensure that we have the necessary skill sets in place to provide efficient and effective oversight. Also, it’s important to note that all analysts from a civilian background completed our intensive in-house mentoring and training program and have graduated to the pay scales of senior investigative analysts and are currently in management roles. What we had relied on in the past is…. A salary gap has been now eliminated, and everyone is operating at full capacity as far as salaries go.

We’re confident that we will continue to provide a work environment which provides an attractive balance between work and life so that we may continue to attract excellent staff to work in what is clearly a challenging environment in the public service.

Taking you to page 17, I just need to go over this ground that I’ve been over with the committee in past committees. We have a gatekeeping function which allows us to resort to three types of adjudicative reviews. We also include in our work judicial reviews. The committee has been very supportive in increasing our dedicated funding, which I’ll elaborate on in a moment, to allow us to finance, as and when necessary, these very important adjudicative reviews.

I want to go through some statistics. It shows that we resort to these reviews in a fairly modest fashion. The first form of adjudicative review is the appointment of a retired judge. Following a police investigation into a complaint, the discipline authority, or the person that’s identified by the police department that decides on the complaint, determines whether the conduct of the member did or did not constitute misconduct.

Where they determine it did not constitute misconduct and I believe there to be a reasonable basis to believe that decision is incorrect, I may appoint a retired judge to review the matter and to review the entirety of the investigation. It’s important to note that in the last six years, we’ve only resorted to this on 21 occasions.

Review on the records. This is another aspect where after a discipline proceeding where there’s been a determination, I can send the matter, either as a result of a request from a member or in the public interest, for a review of the entire process. I’ve only done that four times.

Finally, public hearings. They remain an option for the commissioner. If I believe that a review of the matter is required in the public interest, a public hearing is declared. These are conducted by retired judges. They’re open to the public, and evidence is presented under oath. Since April 1, 2010, I have called 14 public hearings.

Ten hearings involved incidents under current legislation, and four were called transitional files that did not have the benefit of contemporaneous or near contemporaneous oversight. Five of the hearings were mandatory because of the proposed discipline, and nine were initiated by myself. When we say “mandatory,” pursuant to statute, the recommended penalty is dismissal. Then that member is entitled automatically to a public hearing.

Page 18. I’d like to discuss adjudicative and legal expenses. There’s a chart that’s there. At the outset, this chart really demonstrates how the committee has been supportive of our office as well as these adjudicative expenditures.

The funding for adjudications is what I refer to as dedicated funding. Any amounts unspent revert back to treasury. They’re earmarked only for this purpose and can only be used for this purpose. As you’ll see, over the past four years, the expenditures have substantially outdistanced the funding in each…. You’ll see, over the last four years, the committee has supported our office by increasing the dedicated funding to the current funding of $400,000.

Having said that, last year was an extremely challenging year because of the mandatory public hearings. The costs of those public hearings exceeded the funding by $107,000. We managed to find savings within our own operational costs to cover that. But in terms of a $3 million budget, we came to within $3,000 of the full budgeted amount, which is much closer than I would like to prudently manage the money. We were able to…. Through delays in filling gaps in employment, as well as through our exercise of not using any discretionary costs, we managed to cover the over $100,000 shortfall.
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The next page, page 19, shows our current year. This is where we have the drought and downpour or flood and drought syndrome. As you’ll see, this year, at this time, after completing two quarters, we’re only at $108,000. I can’t explain why. It’s just the nature of our business. For the most part, we usually end up spending it. Maybe there’s a transition occurring within the environment, which I was hoping for, in terms of informal resolution, in terms of, really, an improvement in professionalism.

I should note that in the special committee report, in 2012, on the police complaint system, the Auditor General, who was contracted by the special committee, found that through our office, we would promote thorough and competent investigations of complaints by the exercise of discretion, pursuant to the act, which includes a power to refer a matter to any one of the three adjudicated avenues for review. Our office will continue to exercise this gatekeeping function in a principled manner in arriving at our decisions.

Finally, I get to our request for funding, and I have an opportunity to expand on that. At the outset, I wish to mention, at page 21, that when you calculate discretionary spending in our current budget, outside of what we consider big costs, we really only have approximately 2 percent of our budget allocated to discretionary funding. That calculation is based on allocating 50 percent of travel, 50 percent of non-adjudicated contracts and 25 percent of office expenses. That’s how we come up with a 2 percent number.

The first area I alluded to earlier was the need for two investigative analyst positions. I have not requested an increase in investigative analyst positions for…. I think, this is five years now. We’ve not asked for any of those positions.

In July of 2015, we were advised by the Ministry of Justice that they are in the process of putting together legislation in the form of regulations which will expand significantly the jurisdiction of our office to include oversight of special municipal constables appointed pursuant to the Police Act. This will immediately increase the number of current municipal constables by approximately 400 members. To give you some perspective or context, that’s equivalent to two additional municipal police departments — for example, the size of Victoria and Saanich combined, on the Island; and on the Lower Mainland, Abbotsford and Delta combined.

Though many of these special municipal constables currently work in the jail environment as guards in the municipal police departments, they are responsible for a significant number of individuals who have been arrested for a variety of reasons. By virtue of the sheer volume of inmates in the jail environment, they have been a fertile ground for investigations and complaints as a result of in-custody deaths, injuries and complaints. For example, in Vancouver police cells alone, they deal with an average of 15,000 inmates a year.

The use of special constables has, to this point, been dedicated to roles which directly interact with the public in an environment that’s conducive to citizen complaints. The training in these positions is provided by the municipal police departments, where the training may vary in duration and intensity. This is in contrast to normal members, as defined under the legislation, who must attend and complete police training as provided by the Justice Institute, as well as a field component.

There is a significant and substantive difference in the level of training provided to municipal police constables in comparison to regular police constables. More importantly, the use of special municipal constables as a cost-effective tool in policing is at its very early stages in terms of use. It is our view that, as a cost-saving measure, the use of special municipal constables will increase substantially in the years to follow.

We’ve taken a modest and measured approach in our request, based on projections in terms of the ratio of complaints investigations to our current active members in the province. I think we’re approaching or have exceeded, as far as municipal members, over 3,000 members. This is a rather crude estimate, which does not take into account the level of interaction with the public — nor training — which may have a significant impact on the number of complaints investigations.

As I said, we have not received any new funding since our last substantive changes, when the Police Act was first brought in, in 2011. The amount for the two analyst positions is $220,000, which includes all their benefits as well as the increase in the shared-services costs.

I can tell you that in relation to those regulations, we are in a process of significant consultation as to the manner and form of those regulations. So I anticipate that this jurisdictional change is imminent.

My second request is for the mandatory salary increases that were as a result of the October 2015 court decision which upheld the wage increase recommended by the Judicial Compensation Committee in 2010. This has resulted in a retroactive increase in the remuneration of the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court, in which the salary of the commissioner is statutorily tied to by law, pursuant to section 50 of the Police Act. This statutory increase will have an impact on our current year’s budget, and it will also include any retroactive amount.

There is just a really difficult equation in assessing exactly how much this will impact. I know that the Ministry of Justice is in consultation with the Provincial Court judges in determining a formula for how to interpret the decision of the Court of Appeal.

We’re asking the committee to notionally approve both the retroactive wage and pension increase to the commissioner’s salary for the budget year 2015-2016. Furthermore, we’re asking the committee to approve, for next year’s budget and thereafter, the increase in the
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commissioner’s salary. Although we give an estimate of $16,000, I think that’s on the high side, given some of the information that I’ve received.

Finally, as I alluded to earlier, my shortcomings last year on my submissions. When I appeared last year before you, some of the costs that I was seeking, referred to as unspecified costs, were not acceded to by the committee. What I was not clear in providing to the committee was, in essence, that it was a cost that was approved notionally by the committee of the previous year. Four of the members of the 2013 committee are current members of this current committee. I’m here today to provide, perhaps, a more detailed account of what these costs are.

They relate to wages and other non-discretionary costs. They were notionally approved to increase our 2015-16 operational budget by $25,000 to cover off the impact of these wages and benefits negotiated in the public that were transferred into the schedule A group. It was put forward last year as an item that was presented and notionally approved by the committee. However, I failed to make clear that this was not a new request. In fact, it was probably a request that was redundant and confusing, since it had already been passed by a previous committee. However, I’m here again today to seek additional funding in relation to this already approved funding from 2013.

I have with me the report from the select standing committee of two years ago, which I am relying on. As you look to the last page, under the conclusions and recommendations, you will see that they make a recommendation, No. 14, that the annual appropriation for operating expenses for the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner be…. You’ll see that the movement from 2014-15 was $3.124 million. It’s increased by $25,000 to the ’15-16 of $3.149 million. That’s where the increase finds its genesis. Unfortunately, I didn’t make clear that this was not a new request. It was really a confirmatory request, which probably was more confusing.

I can tell you that in our interim submissions to you this year, we anticipated seeking additional funding in relation to a gap in service, as seen in our administrative support section at that time. I’m here to say today that we will not be making that request and have decided to take a wait-and-see approach to determine whether, if granted, the two additional full-time analysts I spoke about earlier would require additional administrative support in light of our changes to our internal business practices.

On page 24 is our budget request broken down for each year. For the current year, we’re seeking the notional increase in remuneration as well as the incremental costs for non-discretionary spending of $25,000. And then we’re asking for the next year, which would be in the new fiscal budget, the two full-time investigative analyst positions.

Page 25 sets out our statement of operations. It shows, as you’ll see, in the previous year, the budgeted amount of $3.124 million. Our actual amount was $3.121 million. Again, I think each year since my appointment, we’ve managed to return some money back to government as unspent — except, per se, the first year, in which I was left with a number of contingency expenses that were from the previous commissioner.

Page 26 is the proposed budget by standard object of expenditures. I think they speak for themselves. I don’t intend to go into great detail over our budget amounts.

At that time, I think, unless there’s any specific questions on budget, I’ll just leave the floor open for questions, Mr. Hamilton.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Mr. Lowe, for the very detailed presentation on the materials.

I’m curious. I understand the argument around the municipal constables, the regulation coming, the financial argument for why you would need the two additional folks working for you. I did wonder, though. Are there other police or special police or peace officers employed either municipally or provincially that we still haven’t captured, that we still haven’t brought into the police complaint system?

Any thoughts on that? One I can think of immediately is the conservation officer service, which is set out to…. They can arrest you. They can write you tickets. They can do search and seizure. They can do all the kinds of things that a police officer does, but they aren’t included.

S. Lowe: They aren’t included, and it was currently a decision of government not to include them. I think they have their own separate process, which approximates, to some degree, our process. I think they’re answerable to the director of police services at the end of the day.

But you’re right. There are some other categories. The special police constables is a separate section of swearing in under the act, where we received advice. Historically, at one point, they did fall underneath us, and we did have a number of complaints arising, primarily from the custodial setting.

There was this discussion about them not falling within that, and then the legal advice I received was that they weren’t within that area. Since that time, there was a smaller number. Now we’re advised, and our latest estimates confirmed, there are over 400 that are in that capacity.

S. Gibson: Well, thank you again for your presentation. I’m an MLA from Abbotsford, so as you know, we’re one of the 12 communities in this province policed by local police. We’re very proud of our police department in Abbotsford.
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I know that we had a recent issue last year that created quite a bit of controversy, but I’m very optimistic that it will turn out well for the department. I have a lot of confidence in our police chief, Bob Rich, and the way that the department is being run.

A couple of quick questions. In the report, I didn’t understand something here. It said, if I can ask, “self-inflicted.” What does that mean?

S. Lowe: Self-inflicted injuries that require…. Sometimes you may have an individual who is in a custodial setting and may cause damage to themselves. I’ll give you a brief example….

S. Lowe: No. But what happens is that because they’re in the broader context of being in custody of a police officer, they must be brought to a….

S. Lowe: No. It could be even just while arrested and while incarcerated in the custody of a police officer. For example, riding in the back of a police vehicle, handcuffed, and smashing one’s head against the window and having to go to emergency, as a result, to get stiches. Or cases in which they’ve tried to self-harm themselves while in cells, and then having to be taken…. Those all have to be come under our scrutiny.

Not only do we have complaints, we have service and policy complaints that look at ways things are handles in the custodial setting. So we could provide valuable advice and recommendations arising out of these incidents.

S. Gibson: I want to acknowledge, too, your earlier comments, your remarks, as you were setting the stage for your presentation. This is anecdotal. I’d like to mention it, though.

A good friend of mine lives in a small town in greater Seattle, and they have absolutely no respect for their police department at all. I was shocked. I was over there for a barbeque, and one of the police cruisers go by, and they, you know…. Yet here in B.C., we have a high regard. We respect our police officers.

In fact, I went on the website for this little micro police department, and the message of the police chief says: “We would like to hire officers. We’re looking for officers.” And one of the benefits: “We’ll allow you to bring your own gun with you in your vehicle.” I mean, what kind of policing is that? Unbelievable.

Anyway, the other question I would like to ask is a serious question. In my experience in local government, we sometimes had….

I don’t want to be disrespectful, but we often had people we’d call frequent flyers. Some of us know that, those of us in municipal government. They’re people that have an ongoing lament about many things. Sometimes it’s police; sometimes it’s public works — whatever. But they’re often chronic complainers. I’m no better than they are. I’m not saying that. But they seem, psychologically…. They come forward a lot, and they complain a lot.

I look at your form here. It’s quite easy to become a complainant. How do you try to diminish the frivolous or trivial or minor complaints by people who don’t deserve, sometimes, the attention that other files get, to put it respectfully.

S. Lowe: That’s an excellent question. That’s where we have to…. Really, it’s a matter of having a robust front-end admissibility. We actually get in contact with that individual. We actually keep information on individuals, whoever files a complaint through part of our information system. It gets flagged, if we could refer to it, as frequent flyers. Often, as you’ll note, it’s really the issue that continues, that won’t be let go of. It’s a continuous issue. If we’ve made a determination on admissibility on that issue, we just won’t entertain it again. Do you know what I’m saying? You can’t continue to file complaints after complaints.

Part of our robust front-end admissibility is to contact that person and get to the real crux of what the complaint is. Then we apply it against a set standard in the act of: these are the types of misconduct. If it doesn’t fit, it’s not admissible. That’s why we have an admissibility ratio, I’d say, that probably averages around 45 percent.

S. Lowe: Forty-five percent of all complaints are ruled admissible. Fifty-five percent are ruled out. It’s a pretty robust system. Whereas in Ontario, they don’t have the same capacity to do as robust a system, since they have 30,000 officers and so many more complaints. About 58 to 60 percent get screened in, so only 40 percent are screened out.

The only thing that I worry about, Simon, is the time it’s taking for us to do that robust front-end assessment and trying to reduce the time. Sometimes it can take several weeks just trying to connect with the complainant and gathering as much information as we can without judging the matter at the outset.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation. Just a question. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the alternative dispute resolution process. Regardless of what area we’re talking about, including
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police complaints, I think all of us would support alternative resolution. I think it’s often a great success for the individuals on all sides of a dispute. I wonder if you could talk a little bit.

You talk about some advanced training going on, what criteria you have. I’m sure there are people in the dispute resolution on both sides, the complainant as well as the police, who would be keen to go into this area and others who would not be wanting to. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about the criteria and work that you do to get to that stage.

S. Lowe: Most certainly. What we use primarily is informal resolutions. We found that the mediation process was just far too expensive, and it’s a cost that’s borne by the department. We save that for where we view there’s a power imbalance, and a person needs a supported environment. Then we go the mediated route with support.

In any event, for complaints that are ruled admissible, we have in place guidelines which describe what types of cases can be informally resolved. It’s fairly robust. It’s principled guidelines. Of course, the most serious ones certainly can’t go that route. But many, many of the complaints that we receive are less serious in nature.

As the matter gets farmed out to the investigative analysts in the police department, our analysts work on assessing and informing the complainant about the process and also, if a complainant is amenable to the process, passing that information along to professional standards.

Now, we had offered what we call level 1 training for the past four years. There’s nothing in statute that provides me the jurisdiction for that training. I thought it was so important that, under a larger rubric of providing advice to members, I could provide training.

What we did is we brought in experts in that area, and we talked about appropriate programs. We got consultation with the associations and unions about the program. We developed a course that we could train individuals in techniques of informal resolution. At the end of the day, we provided them with a robust set of resolution agreements, which they can use as precedents.

But what we’re after is meaningful. There’s a danger. A simple paper chase between a professional standards officer, as between a complainant and a police officer, to sign something off that says, “Okay, well, it’s all good. I’m happy someone’s talked to him….” That’s not a meaningful resolution.

We ask for resolutions for an exchange. We have a criteria of exchange of perspectives, perhaps goals, that could be achieved and held through the process. They feel that they’ve been heard or not heard. Those that we determine meet our requirement then go to informal resolution.

The exit interviews that we have, in terms of ensuring that no one was coerced and everything was voluntary with the complainants, are excellent. They’re very happy by it. People want to have their confidence and their dignity restored with policing.

People in policing have always been in the business of helping people. Many times, it’s a matter of process in which they responded and in which their intention was not really to offend a person or to hurt their feelings. To receive some empathy from a police officer, which often they freely provide, does wonders to repair the relationship between that member of the community and the officer.

It also moderates their behaviour. We find that complainants that have complained before in the system that go through mediation or informal resolution rarely complain again. Most of the officers that have participated don’t find themselves back as a subject of a complaint. It changes perspectives.

Seeing none, my one…. I’m a little confused here. Some will agree that that happens easier to me than most, but….

On page 24, you talk about your budget request for the increase of $220,000 for the analyst positions. Is that just simply salary and benefits? That will map, if you take a look at the different STOBs. That meant you have office increases. You have travel benefits — a number of things. Does that cover in full the cost of the two?

S. Lowe: It covers entirely. So that’s salary. That’s benefits paid, and that’s also a portion of the costs that we would pay the shared services we have, the corporate costs. That’s all factored in per person. That’s everything imaginable. I can put it that way for the costs.

Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Lowe, thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Welcome, Ms. Spencer, to the committee. Good to see you again. We’ve given you the whole hour, which you’ve indicated you don’t think you’re going to need. Nevertheless, the entire time is yours. You may use it however you wish.

F. Spencer: Thank you very much. Yes. I don’t think I’m going to take the whole hour. Unlike my colleague, I am going to speak for 15 minutes. He said he’s speaking for 15 and went on for a little longer.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I have with me Dave Van Swieten. Stan did explain to you the benefits from the financial end, the administrative benefits of a shared-services model that we adhere to, so I won’t repeat those.

Dave is the executive director of our shared services and here to support me, if you have any questions about the details related to my budget.

As you know, the Merit Commissioner has two main responsibilities, as specified in the Public Service Act: first, to conduct random audits of appointments to and within the B.C. public service to examine if the individuals being appointed are qualified and if the processes undertaken to appoint those individuals are based on merit; second, to undertake final-level review of staffing decisions at the request of employees. From time to time, the office also undertakes special audits or studies into specific appointment types or into elements of the staffing process which may have an impact on merit-based hiring.

In the past, members have asked about why the Office of the Merit Commissioner was established as an independent office. I might just say at the outset that the Merit Commissioner was established as an independent officer in 2005, when the functions related to oversight and review were separated from the Public Service Employee Relations Commission, as the B.C. Public Service Agency was previously known.

My understanding is that there were two main reasons for the creation of an independent office in 2005: first, to separate the responsibility for overseeing appointments into the public service from the organization responsible for those appointments, thus addressing perceptions of bias or undue influence; and second, an interest in creating a model and approach to handling the staffing review process which was more effective and efficient than the process which existed at the time in what was called the appeal board. I think both those reasons remain valid today.

What I’d like to do is to speak briefly about our service plan, the budget submission, and then I would of course be pleased to respond to any questions you might have.

Also, before I get started on the service plan, I would like to say that I appreciate the time that the committee made for us in May to come before you. It’s very reassuring and helpful to have increased access to the committee, so thank you again. I’m not going to go over the information that I provided to the committee in May, but maybe just talk about what has happened since then and where we’re going with our work over the next few years.

In my service plan — if you want to refer to it, but it’s not necessary — it starts on page 8 when I talk about progress on our key commitments. Since the meeting in May, we’ve completed our 2014-15 merit performance audit, analyzed the results and tabled the report earlier this month. We audited 243 appointments over the course of the year and found overall improvement in hiring processes that were free of issues and flaws and found no evidence of unqualified individuals being appointed.

There were areas where we identified the need for improvement and provided recommendations to the B.C. Public Service Agency. Their response indicated that they are taking action to address those areas where weaknesses were noted. It was also noted that our audits provide valuable feedback on hiring, which allows for continuous improvement, and given the agency’s plans to introduce new strategies and approaches to hiring, our audit results will remain valuable to them.

In June, we also posted our report and staffing reviews, which were conducted in 2014-15. We received a total of 19, which is the second-highest number since the office was established. We also recently finalized and posted on our website a study undertaken that relates to a tool used in hiring — self-assessment questionnaires.

Due to the prevalence of its use and the agency’s plan to continue to ask applicants to self-assess with respect to certain job qualifications, we wanted to take a closer look at these tools and their use to determine if there was a significant impact on merit-based hiring. We’ve been assured through this study that self-assessment questionnaires are largely being used correctly in the B.C. public service and pose little risk to merit.

Underway now is our audit of the 2015-16 appointments. Appointments from the first half of the fiscal year have already been sampled, and our audits are in progress. There are about 170 appointments that are being audited to date. Interim results should be provided to deputy ministers and organization heads early in 2016. There has been a marked increase in hiring activity in the B.C. public service this fiscal year, resulting in an increase in the number of appointments randomly selected for audit. If appointments continue at the same rate for the balance of the fiscal year, we could be looking at approximately 340 appointments to be audited.

Since the beginning of April, we’ve received five requests for staffing reviews, and decisions were rendered, on average, in 29 days.

We’ve also done some preliminary work to conduct an audit of auxiliary appointments. These are appointments intended to be short term in nature, and while not requiring a full selection process, they’re still required to be merit-based. Last time we looked at this appointment type, we found a significant number of auxiliary appointments had become longer term in nature, and consequently, the auxiliary employees had become part
[ Page 2089 ]
of the longer-term workforce without the benefit of a complete assessment process.

This audit that we’re planning to undertake is intended to determine if employees who are appointed on an auxiliary basis can be considered to meet the qualifications required for their positions and if a selection process was conducted. Then at a future date, we may look to see if these employees have remained in the workforce.

In the years ahead, our focus is going to be on our core work. That is audits of appointments and staffing reviews. In addition, we hope and plan to undertake an examination of the use of the lateral transfer appointment type and direct appointments. We’d also like to examine the implications on merit-based hiring of using narrower restrictions on who can apply in a competition.

Now I’d just like to turn to our budget submission. I think, perhaps, the easiest way to take you through this is to just refer to the Excel spreadsheets that you’d asked us to submit or the tables that are actually in the back of my submission. You may have them in front of you.

Looking, then, at table 1, which is the three-year budget plan by STOB, you’ll see that, at this point, I’m requesting no new funds for 2016-17. We’re determined to manage our workload within our current budget allocation.

You’ll see there’s also some slight reallocation of budget between STOBs, and that’s just better to reflect our spending patterns in our operational environment.

I’ve asked for a slight increase in 2017-18 and 2018-19 to address what we know are increased salary costs for schedule A employees that are upcoming and some increased building occupancy costs.

I’m not reflecting here any proposed budget increases for excluded or managerial staff, because first of all, we’re unsure when those will be forthcoming, but we also have determined that we will make every effort, if there are increases, that they are managed within our current budget allocation.

You may also note too that I’m not reflecting any proposed budget increase under STOB 54, legislative salaries and indemnities, because unlike the other officers, the Merit Commissioner’s compensation is set by LGIC.

I do think there may be some possible budget pressure in the coming years for the Office of the Merit Commissioner, and it’s related to our audit activity. As mentioned, we do random audits of appointments in the public service, and should appointment activity in the public service continue to increase and we maintain our current rate of audit sampling, the workload will increase accordingly.

To prepare for that eventuality, we’re going to start to talk to some experts and get some expert advice on statistical analysis to see whether or not we can reduce our sample size and what the impact of the reduction of the sample size might have on the statistical validity of the work that we do. I may be back to talk to you about that at some point in the future, but right now we’re okay for the next year or so, I think.

You’ll also see that I’m proposing no change to our capital budget, which is $15,000. I think that’s really considered the minimum for me to allow for the office to update the information system, purchase furniture, respond to unexpected requirements, replace equipment and information systems and that sort of thing.

Then just moving to table 2, which is our budget versus actual results for the prior fiscal year. You’ll see that, overall, there was less than 3 percent of our budget unexpended — so about $25,000. The most significant variances in our spending were between the STOBs that are associated with salary and benefits and STOB 60, which is professional services.

How we expend the money in professional services has been of interest to you in the past. I just want to make a couple of comments. We supplement our public service workforce with contracted auditors who work for us on an as-and-when-required basis and a cyclical basis, depending on when we sample appointments for audit.

What they do is the front end of the audit work. They make sure the files are complete. They collect information. They do a lot of the discussing with hiring managers and then pass that on to my staff, who finalize the audits.

We have four of these folks who have been working with us for a number of years, and they bill on average in a year between $20,000 and $23,000. We’ve found the use of contracted auditors to do this work the most effective, from both an operational and a budget perspective, and I think we’ll continue to feel that way.

The cost to have similar work done in-house by employees we estimate to be about $100,000 per employee per year. That would include salary, benefits, office expenses, shared-services costs — those sorts of things. We’d probably need at least two of these folks.

If we had employees do the work, it’s estimated to be about $200,000. But using contracted work, it’s around $100,000. Because the work is cyclical in nature, if we had employees doing this work, we’d find that sometimes in the year we’d have some workload pressures, and at other times in the year we’d probably have some excess capacity. We think that this is a way to go forward.

That’s all I’ll say on table 2. Then on table 3, I think the only thing that I would like to note for you is just with respect to the FTE count, the background information at the bottom of the table.

You’ll see that we have budgeted FTEs of five and a half. That includes me. I’m a part-time appointee. Then we have two schedule A employees and three management exclusion employees for 5.5. There’s some lapse in there, and with a small staff like that, it’s difficult to do some succession planning or hire in advance of people leaving. The gap is due to things like turnover in the junior position and unexpected absences or part-time workers.

That, I think, is all I need to say in terms of my remarks. I’d be happy to answer your questions, if you have any.
[ Page 2090 ]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you for that. I will go to the committee for questions.

E. Foster: I’m just curious. When you talk about your method of sampling, do you use just random, systematic sampling? Or do you get asked to do some sampling in certain areas?

F. Spencer: The legislation sets out that we do our work through the random audit of appointments. So what we do is…. We have been using B.C. Stats to help us with this. They set up the sampling methodology. They have told us that we need to establish a certain sampling rate to make sure that the results of our audits are valid, so we can generalize those to the broader population — so they can be generalized and valid and also compared year to year.

They’ve told us that the lowest sampling rate that we could use to maintain that level of confidence, which is a 95 percent level, is 6 percent.

Right now we’re sampling on a quarterly basis. Each quarter we ask the Public Service Agency for a list of all the appointments that have occurred in that quarter. Then we send that to B.C. Stats. They use our sampling rate to pull from that larger population a 6 percent sample and then send us the names of the files or the competition numbers. Then we get in touch with the appropriate individuals to request documentation.

Would you ever pick maybe a department, or even a ministry, if there were complaints coming in that there were abnormalities in the hiring in some areas? Do you have that type of a reaction?

F. Spencer: No. That’s currently not provided for under the legislation for me to conduct that.

I think if we tried to do a random sample within a ministry, the numbers would become very small and not very meaningful. Right now, it’s quite specific in the legislation how I’d carry out the audit of appointments.

E. Foster: If I could, Chair, who would deal with…? If there was a complaint that came forward that somebody’s cousin was getting hired — you know, that kind — would you deal with that, or would that go somewhere else?

F. Spencer: It would depend on the nature of the complaint. I can deal with complaints that relate to specific appointments that occur. An employee can come to me after they’ve gone through a couple of steps before that. They can eventually come to me with their concerns about a hiring process in which they were an unsuccessful candidate. Then I can review that entire process.

S. Gibson: I find this very interesting, coming with a bit of an HR background. I know I asked you maybe a similar question last year. But how do you differentiate between qualitative and quantitative?

I’ll use myself as an example. I want to hire…. Spencer and John are the applicants. Spencer meets all the qualifications, but there are other areas where maybe I’m looking for a skill set or something. It’s not quantifiable. Do you know what I mean? Or I want to hire John.

It’s nothing to do with anything subtle but more that you hire somebody for qualitative reasons, not just quantitative. You know what I mean? How do you deal with that? Maybe I asked that question last year.

F. Spencer: You may have. I have to say that it’s not my role to determine how an assessment will be made. There are many, many ways that managers undertake assessments of candidates, depending on what qualifications are required.

What my job is, is to say: what have people done? Is what they’ve done fair, and is it merit-based, and has it been applied appropriately?

I don’t replace the judgment of managers with my judgment as to how they conduct assessment processes. Coming from an HR background myself, I sometimes question why somebody would do it in a certain manner, but it’s not my job to bring that up.

Sometimes, people will be stuck in a position. You also look after promotions as well. Say somebody is locked in a junior position and there’s a glass ceiling and they can’t get past it and they’re not promoted. So they leave. Do you do exit interviews as well?

F. Spencer: No. Again, that’s not within my mandate. When you say, “Look after promotions,” I audit appointments that sometimes are promotions. Therefore, I can see where that happens.

In terms of whether or not somebody is leaving because they’re not getting promoted, the only time I might have a look at that is if, first of all, I’m auditing some such appointment. Then I might say: “Well, the criteria that were applied were unfair and there were some concerns around the process.” Or if somebody complains about that fact, then I would have a look at it.

Again, it’s the Public Service Agency that’s charged with turnover in the workforce, succession and career planning and those kinds of things.

S. Gibson: That’s often a systemic complaint. People apply over and over again to get promoted. They think they meet the criteria. They check off all the boxes. They don’t even get an interview. I know I worked for a company like that and a number of my co-workers — they’re just locked in.
[ Page 2091 ]

F. Spencer: Yes, I’ve heard that. And if that’s the case and they are concerned, there’s a process for them to come to me, and I can have a look at that.

S. Chandra Herbert: I just want to say thank you for the report. I don’t think many people know about your office or really know what it does.

I won’t ask the question that I’ve wanted to — whether or not you would audit the cabinet. Just kidding. I just want to say thank you for the presentation.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Not surprisingly, there are probably a lot of people in public service — regardless of where you are — whether or not you’d be able to apply for your own job and get it. Seriously.

But I assume…. As you say, the way your audits are performed, there are different jobs with different skills. A social worker has got all the soft skills. Essentially, that’s what you’re rating on. A systems designer — incredibly intelligent and inspired people, by the way — they have an entirely different skill set you’re looking for on the technical end of things.

F. Spencer: Exactly. And we do look, as part of our audit process, to see whether or not the assessment process that’s being applied to the job in question is reasonable, that they’re not asking a clerk, for instance, to have an engineering degree or an engineer to take a typing test or something along those lines. That’s part of it but just in that context.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Just to finish off. You are mandated to audit 6 percent of the public service hires. You mentioned the word six.

F. Spencer: No, I’m mandated to audit appointments to and from within the B.C. public service that are made under the Public Service Act. That’s quite a large portion, but what I do is — obviously, I can’t audit all of them — we audit a random sample. The random sample that we audit is 6 percent of appointments that are made.

Whatever I said we did — 240 last year. That’s 6 percent of the total appointments that are made within my mandate. We’d look at 6 percent. B.C. Stats tells us if you look at 6 percent, that’s a good enough sample size for you to be able to say that this is what happens across…. You can generalize those results across the public service and across those appointment types.

S. Hamilton (Chair): With the attrition rate that we have…. The public service is getting a little older. I know we’ve been dealing with this issue for the last number of years. Do you see the cyclical trends, more hiring, as a result? Consequently, is your office busier?

F. Spencer: Yes, definitely. We’re seeing that hiring trend. Since there was the staffing freeze back…. I’m not sure how many years. Then, what they’ve had is a managed staffing strategy in place. It’s been changing over the years. This current year that we’re in, we’re seeing a significant increase in appointment activity, and we’re predicting that it’ll continue.

That’s why I say I have some concerns — budget pressures — that if I continue to sample at a 6 percent sampling rate and appointment activity goes up, there’s going to be a workload challenge for me. I’m either going to have to compromise the quality of the audit a bit by reducing the sample or come back and say I’ve got a problem.

S. Hamilton (Chair): But then that would take that 95 percent confidence rate that you mentioned earlier and potentially bring it down.

F. Spencer: Yes, it definitely would. I’m getting some expert advice about what the impact of changing the sampling rate might be, just in anticipation of the increased activity. I have an audit advisory committee, so I’ll be talking to them when we have that advice to see what they would recommend. As I say, I may have to talk to you about this again in the spring.

J. Yap: I echo what Spencer said. You do very important work, and the profile in the outside world of what you do is not as high as it should be. Just a comment.

Now, I see that your coverage includes the independent officers of the Legislature and ministries. Do you audit positions up to the deputy positions — the deputy ministers and deputy officers of the Legislature?

F. Spencer: In simplistic terms, what I don’t look at are order-in-council appointments. I think they’re ADM levels, deputy ministers, the independent officers themselves and then any other sorts of…. In the Public Service Agency, I think, those people are excluded.

J. Yap: The independent officers — their deputies are not order-in-council appointments, though.

F. Spencer: Yes, and I do. Sometimes appointments in my colleagues’ offices come up for audit, and we see those. In fact, if I was making appointments within my organization, they could come up for audit as well in the random sample. In that case, I would…. In the past, we’ve had that happen, and I’ve asked my federal colleagues to undertake the audit on my behalf.

J. Yap: So this is a position that is there federally and in other provinces as well.

F. Spencer: A similar position? No. Actually, we are rather unique in this province. There aren’t other provinces that have merit commissioners, so we’re a bit of a model. There is a similar function performed at the federal level, not by an officer who is focusing on this but by the president of the Public Service Commission. Again, they look to us. They consider us to be quite exemplary and a model for practice.

G. Heyman: Thank you for the report and for your work. I am aware, however, that the powers that you have are somewhat circumscribed, as they were for the Public Service Appeal Board in the past.

I’m wondering if you have looked at the powers that exist in any other provinces — there is no position that is directly comparable to you, but similar positions — to see if any of them have broader parameters or scope or more powers and if, in your opinion, it would be beneficial, given that you’ve mentioned you see lots of things in hiring practices that you don’t think are best practices but aren’t necessarily something which you can address or should address, given your terms of reference.

Do you see, in your opinion, any scope for broadening your terms of reference or your powers or the parameters of your office?

F. Spencer: In terms of the first part of your question, you’re correct. There aren’t any other similar positions in other provinces to use for comparison purposes.

We have talked to a number of people who are heading public service agencies in some of the other provinces and federally, and we think that there are some things that perhaps we could do a little differently. But basically, I think, in terms of our practice, it’s quite appropriate within my current mandate.

Do I see room to expand the mandate? Well, I think any expansion to the mandate for the office would, first of all, require some legislative change, but also, it would have a significant impact on the work we do.

Right now, we’re working with one act, the Public Service Act, so any expansion of the mandate to, say, other public sector organizations would require significantly increased resources to be able not only to handle the audits that might be associated with that but the expertise that would be required to have a look in terms of other legislation.

I’m not sure if that answers your question or if there was another element there.

G. Heyman: I know, for example, that the position prior to the creation of the Merit Commissioner had very limited powers. If a panel was found to have not been fair, a new panel could be ordered, but that’s as far as it went. And sometimes the result would be the same and was open to some manipulation.

My question, really, was whether you should actually have more power with respect to any findings you might make regarding the handling of any particular panelling.

F. Spencer: You’re talking about the complaint process right now, as opposed to audit process?

F. Spencer: Yeah, you’re right. My authority or my power is merely, if I find issues or concerns with a process, to direct a reconsideration of that process.

The one thing that I think there may have been…. The previous iteration of the appeal board had the authority to direct an appointment or direct that the person that was being appointed — that that would not occur. It was decided specifically that that would not be a power that was vested in me.

I’m not sure how much benefit there would be, in a process where we don’t want to replace the judgment of managers, for me to direct certain action. I don’t think that’s something that I would feel the office should be undertaking.

S. Chandra Herbert: One more follow-up. I’m just curious. What happens if an employee argues that they should have got a position, but somebody else got it? Your office reviews it and finds that there might be something to it. Then is a rehiring panel struck again? What kind of tools do you use then — I’m just curious — this year compared to previous years?

I know in your report that you speak about how the number of issues has been increasing over the last couple of years. I didn’t see specific examples of what that necessarily referred to. But is that more cases of people not being qualified for positions or challenges in the process?

Finally, how many times have you had to call for a reconsideration of a process this year compared to previous years?

F. Spencer: We’ve always tried to determine why the numbers fluctuate from year to year in terms of requests
[ Page 2093 ]
that come forward for a staffing review, and we really can’t tie it to any one factor.

We’ve looked at things like appointment activity. We’ve looked at things like discontent being expressed on the workplace employee’s survey. But there’s no factor that we can tie it to. It really is a function of whatever’s going on in the hiring process.

Last year we had 19 requests for review. Previously, the highest number was 21 in the history of the office. Of those 19, there were three that were ineligible. They perhaps weren’t submitted on time, or they hadn’t gone through one other step in the process, and one was withdrawn. Of the 15 that we did look at, I dismissed ten of those and in five, directed reconsiderations.

When I direct a reconsideration, that’s all I do — to say to the deputy minister that I direct that this appointment be reconsidered. It’s up to the deputy minister to determine what that means. Sometimes they strike new hiring panels and they start the process from the outset. Sometimes, perhaps, the flaw that I found in the process related to something near the end.

For instance, one of the factors of merit is years of continuous service, and there’s a calculation that’s associated with that that occurs after all the rest of the hiring process has occurred. It’s a complex calculation, and sometimes it’s done incorrectly, and that results in the wrong person being declared successful. What may happen in those cases is the deputy minister may just direct the hiring panel to conduct that part of the hiring process again, and that could go forward.

It could end up, in some cases, that the person who was initially declared successful is still the successful candidate. Or if there’s a new process that happens, it could end up in the same way. Sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. The employees who are engaged in that process have the opportunity again, if they still feel that things haven’t been carried out correctly, to come back to me again.

Some of the reasons why employees have asked — or where we have directed reconsiderations — have to do with such things as education and experience factors. For instance, people haven’t taken those into account correctly. There may have been incorrect use of assessment tools. People might have been…. There might have been errors in calculation of scores.

One thing we did find that was troubling in some of these is that employees had not been provided, as the first step in this process, with appropriate and complete feedback as to how they performed. So they would discover things about their assessment when it got to the next stage at the deputy minister level. The way that the legislation is currently structured, they weren’t able to use that information to bring forward another complaint. We found that there were issues around feedback and have asked managers or deputy ministers to pay more attention to those kinds of things.

Seeing none, Ms. Spencer, thank you very much for taking the time to present to the committee. Mr. Van Swieten, thank you for attending.

If there’s no further business to come forward, I will look for a motion to adjourn.

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Chair:	Wm. Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
	Spencer Chandra Herbert (Vancouver–West End NDP)
	Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	Mike Morris (Prince George–Mackenzie BC Liberal)
	Claire Trevena (North Island NDP)
	John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
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SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
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