A guide to better municipal governance
Workshops introduce NWT Community Government Accountability Framework
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 16, 2013
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The GNWT is helping communities improve its governance and accountability practices.
Representatives of communities had the opportunity a look at the GNWT's NWT Community Government Accountability Framework, which is designed to help improve local government, during three workshops held over the past month.
Eleanor Young, an assistant deputy minister for regional operations with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA), said the aim of the workshops was to introduce communities to the accountability framework.
The workshops were held in Inuvik (Nov. 19 and 20), Hay River (Dec. 3 and 4) and Fort Simpson (Dec. 10 and 11). Representatives of all but a couple of local governments attended the workshops.
The Fort Simpson workshop was specifically for the nine designated authorities in communities such as Lutsel K'e and Kakisa where a band provides municipal services because there isn't a municipal government in place.
"This is the end of the regional type of events," Young said. "We'll be actually going in and doing community government specific workshops starting in January. We'll be going into each community to talk in more detail about each community's situation."
The accountability framework will help all community governments monitor the performance of their organizations, and provides MACA with a mechanism to monitor and report on individual communities.
It focuses on the core areas of municipal responsibility - good governance; comprehensive planning; sound financial management and administration; and safe, healthy and vibrant communities.
For each of those core areas, the framework lists several key indicators which will be used to assess the performance of the community governments and designated authorities.
Young said the accountability framework has been developed in consultation with communities over roughly three years.
"It's meant to be a living document, so it's final in the sense that this is the document that we're starting implementation with, but we do anticipate change over time," she noted.
One of the new features of the accountability framework is a checklist, which Young said helps make the document simple, straightforward and easy to use.
Fort Resolution Mayor Garry Bailey attended the Hay River workshop and was pleased with what he heard about the accountability framework.
"I think it's excellent," he said. "I think it's good that people are going to be able to use that accountability chart."
Plus, Bailey thinks the accountability framework will help senior administrative officers in the communities. "We want to keep our local people hired and I think it's a good guide for everybody to use."
Plus, the mayor said the accountability framework will allow communities to keep tabs of themselves and let them know what issues they have to work on.
Young said the accountability framework was well-received. "We were really pleased," she said. "It's simple. It's straightforward. Folks really commented on that aspect of it."
Young noted the communities also welcomed the fact that every year they'll get a report from MACA outlining support that is available to deal with issues identified by the communities themselves.
Draft runs will take place during the spring visits by MACA to each community, while the formal annual reporting cycle will start in the spring of 2015.
