$ 50,000 report shows improvement at NPCA
An evaluation of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority describing it as “competently managed” might not be enough to allay concerns about it.
The evaluation, released during an NPCA board meeting last week by Toronto- based consultant Performance Concepts, says NPCA is “a competently managed organization — poised to tackle significant policy issues (e.g. climate change), refine its core mandate and improve its two- way stakeholder communications.”
Based on the consultant’s findings, NPCA board chair Sandy Annunziata says it is clear “that the call for a provincial supervisor to oversee the authority is not based on fact.”
“This board, as well as the previous one, should be extremely proud of these results,” Annunziata says in a media release. “It has taken a great deal of discipline and focus on executing this strategic plan. We must stay vigilant in order to ensure we don’t backslide and return to the way things were.”
Welland MPP Cindy Forster, however, has no plans of stopping her efforts to lobby the provincial government to appoint a supervisor to take over management of the organization.
“One report does not change the fact that the public has lost trust in this agency,” Forster says.
She also questions the timing of the NPCA media release, issued Monday — the same day the organization was facing off against critic Ed Smith in court.
The agency is suing the St. Catharines resident for distributing a document in 2016 titled A Call for Accountability at the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.
“You put out a statement like this at the same time that you’re actually suing private citizens who dared to speak out about a list of issues?” questions Forster.
Concerns about the organization, she adds, “came from all different sectors of our community, whether they were individual homeowners or activists, conservationists, landowners — the list was endless of the issues that have been brought up.”
NPCA commissioned Performance Concepts to develop the third- party evidence- based progress evaluation on May 17, paying the firm $ 48,000 plus HST to determine the progress that has been made through the implementation of its 2014- 17 strategic plan.
Forster is concerned that NPCA footed the bill for the report.
“You get the report that you focus in on. You do the RFP. You decide what information you’re trying to elicit. And hopefully you get what you paid for,” she says.
Performance Concepts president Todd MacDonald says being commissioned and paid by NPCA to conduct the evaluation has no bearing on the results.
“The NPCA also pays their auditor, the NPCA pays science- based consultants to do their work, and in this case the NPCA retained my firm with 20 years of background in delivering evidence- based reviews to do so,” he says.
“The findings are ours, we haven’t been influenced by anybody else. ( NPCA) staff had no input into the findings. They simply provided the information. I looked at over 200 primary source documents, including financial statements, I’ve looked at financial planning models, I’ve looked at their budgets, dozens and dozens of reports. Really, the exercise I was engaged in was very similar to a value for money type of audit exercise. I stand by obviously the methodology in the findings in the report.”
He says Performance Concepts is not in the business of telling clients “what they want to hear.”
“We tell clients what they need to hear.”
In an email, Annunziata criticizes Forster for questioning the credibility of the evaluation.
“I have seen the good work Mr. MacDonald has done with other conservation authorities and municipalities,” he says. “Mr. MacDonald can speak to his own integrity, but I do find it offensive that a sitting member of the legislature would be so reckless and irresponsible with her words and attack Mr. MacDonald. His reputation is important to his ability to attain future business and her comments are disappointing.”
MacDonald’s firm was previously commissioned to evaluate the NPCA prior to the strategic plans development, based on a series of public consultation sessions that took place in 2011.
MacDonald says the organization has made significant improvements since a previous evaluation determined that NPCA lacked “fundamental competencies and systems for management.”
“That is no longer the case,” MacDonald says.
The new report, instead gives NPCA a B- plus for governance and accountability; an A for budget, financial controls and asset management; a B- plus for permitting and development approvals services; a B for policy development framework; and a C- plus to B- minus for public/ stakeholder relations.
“From an organization that wouldn’t have received passing grades in any of those categories, you now have a mixture of As, Bs,” MacDonald says.
“If there’s such a thing as a straight-A organization in terms of performance against those criteria, I haven’t met it.”
He says NPCA has reached “a pivot-point position, where their next strategic plan position can address the big issues of conservation, and climate change mitigation from a much stronger sort of management platform.”
Despite improvements so far, the evaluation also shows room for more.
“Certainly, there’s more work to be done,” MacDonald says.
“There continues to be significant room for improved effectiveness in creating a two- direction sustained conversation with the public and key stakeholders … The NPCA does currently suffer from an absence of communication discipline vis- à- vis its dealings with the media and other stakeholders,” the evaluation says.
“The transformation story that has unfolded since 2014 does not yet enjoy widespread public traction, despite ample evidence of significant progress. Technology can play a key role in improving the sustainability of two- way meaningful/ interactive consultation with the public and stakeholders. There remains much work to be done.”
You put out a statement like this at the same time that you’re actually suing private citizens who dared to speak out about a list of issues?” Welland MPP Cindy Forster