Evaluating collaborative planning: the British Columbia experience.

Finnigan, Gunton and Williams conclude that effective participation of civil society stakeholders in the planning process is critical to the success of CP because these stakeholders bring important values that must be incorporated into plans if they are to reflect the broad public interest. However, civil society stakeholder groups face two special challenges. First, they may be less effective than other stakeholders because they have fewer resources to devote to CP. Second such organizations may be less structured than other organizations such as government or private corporations. This lack of structure can make accountability of civil society stakeholder representatives to their organizations difficult.

Finnigan, Gunton and Williams assess the impact of these challenges by disaggregating the evaluation survey results of civil society stakeholder participants in the British Columbia CP processes and comparing their results to other participants. The study confirms that these stakeholders have inferior resources compared to other stakeholders. Nevertheless, the results indicate that inferior resources do not seem to reduce the effectiveness of these groups in the planning process. They perceived themselves as being more influential than other stakeholders in the design of the planning process and being just as influential on the outcomes as other stakeholders. Civil society stakeholder bodies were also as satisfied with the outcomes of the process and were just as accountable to their organizations as other stakeholders. Finnigan, Gunton, and Williams conclude that participating in CP is an effective strategy for civil society stakeholders despite the handicaps that these groups have relative to other stakeholder sectors.

Edwards-Craig, Williams, and Gunton provide an additional disaggregation of results by stakeholder group that focuses on the tourism sector. The tourism sector includes a wide spectrum of interests from nonconsumptive recreationalists, such as backpackers, to consumptive users such as hunters and integrated resort operators. Traditionally, the tourism sector has not been an active participant in resource planning despite its dependence on the natural resource base to support its businesses and activities. Like the civil society stakeholder sector, the tourist sector perceived itself as facing greater constraints than other stakeholders in the process because of inferior resources to participate. But, like the civil society stakeholder sector, the tourism sector was just as satisfied with the outcomes of the process as other, better resourced, stakeholders. Edwards-Craig, Williams, and Gunton conclude that CP is an effective means for the tourism sector to participate in resource planning to ensure that plans adequately reflect tourism interests. They caution, however, that the tourism sector requires multiple representatives to reflect its diverse interests. The tourist sector also needs additional resources and training to help overcome its disadvantages relative to better-resourced groups.

Evaluating Plan Implementation

Effective implementation of plans is a key step in achieving sustainability. Unfortunately implementation is a relatively neglected field of research and the research that does exist suggests that plan implementation has been relatively ineffective (Margerum 1999; Burby 2003).

To help address this research gap, the second dimension of our current research on collaborative processes focuses on plan implementation. The principal objective of this research component is to identify key conditions necessary for effective implementation. The first step in the research was to identify criteria for effective plan implementation based on a literature review. The next step was to rank the importance of these criteria by surveying senior officials and stakeholders currently engaged in managing the implementation of major plans. The third step was to test the criteria by analyzing the relationship between the criteria and implementation success using a case study of CP in B.C. The final step was to interpret the findings to reach conclusions on keys to implementation success and to develop best practice guidelines for effective implementation.

This research is unique in two ways. First, the research provides the first survey results in the literature that asks implementation stakeholders to identify and assess the relative importance of factors determining success. Second, the research uses various statistical techniques to quantify the relationship between implementation success and factors affecting success.

Two papers in this volume summarize preliminary findings from our implementation research, which is still in its early stages and ongoing. The paper by Calbick, Day, and Gunton reports on the development and assessment of criteria for effective implementation based on a survey of senior implementation officials in five resource agencies in North America. The agencies were chosen to reflect a diversity of implementation experience in resource and environmental management. Agencies surveyed include: U.S. Forest Service, Bay Conservation and Development Commission (San Francisco), Fraser Basin Council (B.C.), Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team (Washington State), and the Land Conservation and Development Commission (Oregon State). The results tested 25 implementation practices of which 8 were judged as high priority for implementation success, 12 as medium priority, and 5 as lower priority. The 8 high priority criteria include: a legislated mandate, administrative rules (regulations and permits), development of guidelines on how to achieve compliance, a collaborative planning process to develop and implement the plan, adequate funding, enforcement penalties, multijurisdictional cooperation, and financing projects to achieve plan objectives.

The paper by Albert, Gunton, and Day also reports the results of an assessment of implementation criteria based on a case study of one of the LRMP plans in B.C. Based on a review of the literature, 24 criteria for effective implementation were identified. These criteria were then tested in two ways. First, a multistakeholder group involved in the implementation of the case study plan was asked to rank the relative importance of the implementation criteria. Second, the same group was asked to assess the degree to which these criteria were met in the case-study implementation process. The degree of implementation success was then evaluated by assessing plan implementation outcomes and identifying the criteria correlated with implementation success.

Three criteria are normally identified in the literature as necessary for implementation success: small differences in values among those affected by implementation; small behavioral changes required to comply with a plan; and, a small number of people affected by implementation. Albert, Gunton, and Day found in their case study of one LRMP plan, that these criteria were not significant for success. However, the following factors were identified as significant:

* clear and consistent objectives,

* strong commitment of implementing officials,

* monitoring framework with appropriate indicators to track change in each objective,

* strong provincial government support,

* sufficient information available to make appropriate decisions for land use plan implementation,

* high level of cooperation and information sharing between implementing agencies,

* strong stakeholder support,

* collaborative planning process,

* implementing officials skilled in working collaboratively with stakeholders,

* clear delineation of agency responsibilities,

* land use plan objectives well integrated within individual agency work plans,

* strong local government agencies support,

* implementation monitoring committee with public reporting requirements,

* adequate natural science data available to make implementation decisions,

* adequate financial and staff resource commitments for plan implementation,

* participation of stakeholders in monitoring,

* participation of stakeholders in land use plan development through a collaborative planning process,

* power differences between stakeholders equalized through the process,

* participation of implementing officials in plan preparation,

* clear understanding of causal relationship between implementation strategies and desired outcomes,

* no conflicting government policies,

* socioeconomic data available,

* strong public support,

* favorable socioeconomic conditions in the land use plan area.

Based on these findings, Albert, Gunton, and Day conclude that successful implementation is a complex task that requires fulfillment of a diverse range of criteria to achieve success. They also conclude that a key aspect of implementation success is the development of plans through a collaborative planning process. The reasons that CP is a key to success are that engaging stakeholders in the development of a plan ensures greater support and cooperation for implementation and reduces opposition to a plan.

The implementation research results reported in these two papers are the basis for additional studies currently underway. These projects are testing the importance of factors that determine implementation success by analyzing the performance of a large set of collaborative plans completed in B.C. This ongoing work will help fill major gaps in understanding the implementation process and help develop best practice guidelines for implementation success.

Conclusion