Impacts of Devolving Settlement Funding on Government-SPOs Relationship: BC Experience Presentation to Metropolis Conference Ottawa, March 13-15, 2014 Miu Chung Yan, Ph.D. University of British Columbia

Government-SPOs Relationships  An asymmetric-symbiotic relationship: co-existence and mutual benefiting but unequal in power  Government: control the resource, set the policies, regulator, quality control  SPOs: actualizing policies, service delivery network, service expertise  How to make this work? BC Experiences  Environmental factors:  Funding availability  Stability in personnel, accumulating collective memories and expertise  Willingness among different parties to work together in respectful way  Government  Consultative  Rationalizing the rules of game  Investing resource to support sectoral capacity building  Sector  Adaptive  Participation  Performance

Three Phases in the Evolution  :Re-alignment, Core Review and Minor Modifications  Minor change in programming  2002, the BC Coalition for Immigrant Integration issued “The Inter-Provincial Report Card on Immigrant Settlement & Labour Market Integration Services”  2003, introduction of new procurement procedure: RFP  : Pilots and New Initiatives with Expanded Funding  Pilot projects with vulnerable population, welcoming community, families  Settlement workers in School: tension of direct contract with school districts  Second RFP: Consortium model  : Program Review and Procurement of New Ongoing Programming  Major restructuring with the Branch: WelcomeBC, new leadership  Consolidate changes made in second phase  Better procurement and bundling of programs and contracts  A continued good relations between BC-Gov and SPOs

Timeline of Major Events Devolution BC Core Review Funding Report Card RFP Round 1 Funding Increase Begins Pilots Developed RFP Round 2 WelcomeBC Action Plan WelcomeBC Program Review New Programs Implemented RFP Round

Procurement and Impacts  BC has a long history, dating to late 1980s, to support third party delivery of social services  2010 Core Services Review:  a new core policy to govern procurement. It is guided by the principles of fair and open public sector procurement: competition, demand aggregation, value for money, transparency and accountability.  2003, introduced procurement processes and contracts for settlement services characterized by  Multi-year agreements  Agreement management is focused on outcomes/outputs  Disruptive and dislocating existing relationships amongst SPOs: tension between the Branch and the SPOs, political mobilization

Procurement and Impacts (cont.)  The shift was “radical” for both government and sector staffs – System change in BC Settlement Service Sector:  For government staff: integration of program/contract management; greater focus on consultation and relationship management; emphasis on front-end planning and thinking about how to build a system.  For the Sector: competitive processes; encouraging cooperation and coordination amongst service providers; expensive for sector to respond to large RFPs; small vs. large organizations; “professionalized” many organizations; open, fair and transparent with clear expectations on goals, output and outcomes; flexible in financial monitoring and allows SPOs to better customized the service.

Consultative  Branch was sensitive, responsive, and flexible to meet the changing local needs in a relatively fast way – pilots and programs.  Easy for the sector to channel feedback to the decision making level in the BC government  Consultative: actively seeking feedback and ideas from service provider organizations (SPOs). i.Sectoral support: platform for ongoing consultation and dialogue ii.Regional Consultation: ensure resource allocation matched with local immigrants’ needs.

Rationalizing Rules of the Game  The development of performance management system and logic models shifted the program evaluation from output to outcomes and better defined programs goals and outcomes  RFP provided clarity of the expected goals and outcomes.  BC’s RFP process moved away from input accountability to outcome accountability  Regular program evaluation (third party evaluators) including service user survey – feedback to the sector and program adjustment  Evidence-informed practice - putting emphasis on research, evaluation and need assessments.  Multiyear funding: stability in the system

Sectoral Capacity Building  Supporting umbrella organizations  A platform for the sector to build collaboration among different service providers and to enhance the communication between the sector and the BC government  Enhancing professionalization of the sector  Developing settlement worker’s competence  Supporting training  Creating gateway web resource  WelcomeBC.ca portal  Resources for settlement workers and newcomers

Sectoral Contributions  Adaptive  Consortium model: among NGOs and between NPOs/PMOs  Professionalization and sophistication of budgeting and program plan  Two tier system  Closing down of small, particularly ethnic-based, organizations  Participation  Sectoral network: platform for coordination and mobilization  Actively participating in all levels of consultation activities  Forming Immigration and Integration Coordinating Committee – Regional concerns  Performance  In-service training  Accepting evidence-based approach, initiating own evaluations and needs assessments  Results of program evaluation and expansion of programs

Beyond March 2014  Currently, CIC-SPOs negotiation  Wish List:  Consultative attitude and genuine collaboration with the sector  Multiyear funding to ensure stability  Strong sectoral support  Continuous support of professionalization of the sector  Recognizing the importance of building citizenship and social cohesion as a part of settlement and integration programming.  Evidence-informed practice: program evaluation, ongoing monitoring and research

 Acknowledgement  This presentation is made possible by the Immigration Research West (formerly Western Canadian Consortium on Integration, Citizenship and Cohesion  Materials presented in this presentation is largely based on the report, Devolving Settlement Funding from the Government of Canada: The British Columbia Experience, , which is coauthored by Heather Dickson, Evert Lindquist, Ben Pollard, Miu Chung Yan.