Part B: Integrated Land Management Bureau — Continued

Service Delivery and Core Business Areas

Service Delivery

The Integrated Land Management Bureau's main purpose is to be a citizen-centred organization that provides its clients and stakeholders — on behalf of seven natural resource ministries — with coordinated access to Crown land natural resources, resource information and land-use planning, and prioritizes and coordinates recovery planning for broad-ranging species-at-risk.

The Bureau delivers access to natural resources to businesses and individuals through single point-of-contact FrontCounter BC offices, where assistance with tenures, permits, licences, Crown land sales and grants is provided. These client services are offered via multiple access channels (face to face, telephone, fax, e-mail, web, mail). Progress on the processing time for authorizations under the Land Act is currently tracked electronically, and target turnaround times for non- Land Act authorizations adjudicated by partner ministries have been developed as part of service agreements. An integrated tracking system for all authorizations is in place for 2006/07.

Resource information is provided to businesses, provincial and non-provincial government agencies, environmental groups and the public through a variety of means, such as:

  • Integrated Land and Resource Registry, a web-based tool that provides access to a library containing 250 different legal land and resource tenures, licences and leases;
  • Base Map Online Store, a new service which gives customers instant access to base maps and related air photos and ortho-imagery over the Internet with many products (such as TRIM maps, air photos and orthophotos) available for ordering using a credit card);
  • GPS active control stations;
  • provincial system of survey control points; and
  • Integrated Cadastral Fabric.

Land-use planning assists communities, ministries, First Nations, resource companies and other businesses in providing certainty about which areas have been designated for what purpose. The plans support economic and community development while maintaining environmental and social values.

Coordinating and prioritizing the management and recovery of broad-ranging species-at-risk is a service the Bureau performs in order to protect endangered wildlife in British Columbia. This service is delivered through development of recovery plans for broad-ranging species such as the Northern Spotted Owl, Mountain Caribou and Marbled Murrelet. The plans will provide recovery and management options for each species, in consultation with a wide spectrum of government agencies, First Nations, industry, stakeholders and the public.

Core Business Areas Overview

In the September 2005 Service Plan Update, the Bureau detailed the four core businesses areas shown below. It is important to note that by the time the new 2006/07 – 2008/09 Service Plan was released in February 2006, a fifth core area had been added by removing the land-use planning functions from Client Service Delivery and creating a new core business called Strategic Land and Resource Planning, principally for clarification and simplification purposes. However, it is the four core areas expressed in September 2005 that are reviewed in this document as they mirror the Bureau core businesses appearing in the June 2006 Public Accounts.

During the 2005/06 fiscal year the Bureau relied on these four core business areas to achieve its goals and objectives:

1. Client Service Delivery

This core business involves facilitation and coordination of resource-based economic opportunities through two avenues. The first entails regionally located FrontCounter BC offices that provide businesses and individuals with coordinated access to Crown natural resources as well as information concerning these through three broad themes:

  • technically knowledgeable staff assisting clients with, and accepting applications for, natural resource-use authorizations, and monitoring and facilitating efficient, timely processing of applications;
  • making decisions on land tenures and sales of Crown land under the Land Act on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands; and
  • providing land and resource information, developing landscape-level land and resource-use plans and coordinating implementation of strategic land-use plans to support the sustainable economic development of provincial natural resources.

The second avenue involves development of land and resource plans, a New Relationship with First Nations and the provision of improved tools and resource information for balanced decisions.11 This revised core business area also includes coordination of regional natural resource access strategies through regionally based Inter-Agency Management Committees, chaired and managed by senior regional Bureau staff. (143 FTEs, net operating expense $22.4 million).
11  The second portion of the core business was transferred into its own core business area in 2006/07.

2. Species-at-Risk Coordination

This core business helps ensure the most effective management of the province's globally significant, broad-ranging species-at-risk while providing responsible, balanced access to Crown land and resources. The Bureau coordinates corporate development and implementation of recovery plans for three priority species: Mountain Caribou, Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet. (4 FTEs, net operating expense $1.3 million).

3. Resource Information Management

Through this core business, the Bureau captures, integrates, manages and warehouses provincial land and resource information, and delivers this information to government and non-government clients using a variety of means, including web-based tools.

The Bureau provides these functions through the Chief Resource Information Office for natural resource ministries as a single-window access to land and resource information (Land and Resource Data Warehouse, Integrated Land and Resource Registry, GIS analysis services and the Integrated Cadastral Initiative). The Bureau is also the provincial government agency accountable for providing spatial base mapping, official geographic place names, land survey control systems and air and ortho-photo management to a wide range of internal and external users of landscape information across all sectors. Cross government and industry coordination, collaboration and strategic-level focus is being achieved through the Provincial Base Mapping Advisory Committee. (157 FTEs, net operating expense $21.2 million).

4. Bureau Management

This business unit includes the Office of the Associate Deputy Minister and a portion of Corporate Services Division (e.g., finance, facilities). The latter is a shared service and also serves the Ministries of Agriculture and Lands, and Environment. The business unit includes Corporate Operations Branch, a small team of headquarters-based Bureau staff that provides strategic business planning, corporate budget and human resource management, website oversight, performance monitoring and issues management. (25 FTEs, net operating expense $11.1 million).

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