Value Stewardship

NBPSPP & Stewardship

Is the Board of NBPSPP (the New Brunswick civil service pension plan) a good steward of the plan's assets. Over the last couple of weeks, areas of some concern in the plan's oversight and management have been raised. The term "stewardship" has been thrown out, but without a definition.
So , what is stewardship and how might one know that a board is an effective steward?

Stewardship is about fulfilling the Board's responsibility in growing the Plan's assets entrusted to it. 

The key characteristics to ensure growth include:

• a plan making it resilient to crises;
• a plan ensuring that growth is value driven;
• structures and processes providing Vestcor with a clarity of purpose; 
• strategic.

To be an effective steward of the assets consigned to its care, a Board needs , first , to be informed both about the assets and the needs of the plan's members. Any decisions that the board makes needs to be substantiated. To do this , properly, the Board members need to know:

• the purpose of the plan;
• its own core values;
• its capabilities. That is the abilities of each board member and each committee;
• the plan's risk profile;
• the characteristic which define the plan's membership. 

Further, the Board needs to be able to communicate clearly with the key stakeholders as well as the individual members. All need to know what process to accomplish this, is. 

Board leadership is critical. We would expect that the Chairman:

• can assure us that the composition of the board is capable of reaching its targets;
• ensures that the board and its members have sufficient preparation to accomplish these objectives;
• can assure us that the board has the appropriate capabilities to accomplish its work; and that the Board chair has a process to replace any under-performing board member. 

To demonstrate effective stewardship, the Board should have policies which address:

• Board effectiveness
• board-staff relationships (in this case the management of Vestcor)
• Governance processes

Key documents might include:

• Board member skill profile
• Performance feedback forms (  committee leadership, members)
• Board Chair review form
• Board Chair Skill Profile
• Board profile process
• Board Committee structure
• Committee Terms of Reference
• Compensation grid for Vestcor
• An organizational (aka Plan) sustainability profile. 

The next post will focus on how to set a context to foster a culture of stewardship within the Board. 

Saint John's City Budget

This is absolutely not an exciting topic. Lots of numbers and blather about Continuous Improvement and cuts to the budget.

Public Servants are not the most transparent people with whom to try to communicate. 

The City Manager patiently described all of  the requisite budget numbers, the issues being that increase in salaries to keep u with the cost of living a union settlements. He noted that department managers are rigorously applying the principles of continuous improvement without once describing utilization metrics, what staff were to improve upon and how, as a process, staff were engaged in discussing work processes. Nor were customers....so us, the taxpayers.

Few questions were asked by councillors..most of them. One councillor, Councillor Mackenzie, Ward 2, asked what innovations were being considered. It was a good question and the answer dealt with a declining tax base. Another councillor suggested an innovation to address that. Simply expand the city's boundaries and take n other (presumably growing) communities and take their tax revenues. 

This , of course was tried in Ontario. A Sudbury councillor by the name of George Lund, a man of remarkable brainlessness, suggested the same thing. The then Conservative government of that genius Mike the Premier  lept at the idea. The problem was the province simply downloaded their rural costs to municipalities like Sudbury , Kingston etc. This then wrecked their delicately balanced budgets by jacking up costs for roads, garbage collection etc.  

Anyway, back to Saint John.

A reasonably insightful taxpayer might ask if Saint John had an open data portal. Such a portal might provide the taxpayer with a few facts including : 

• tax revenues over , say 10 years
• poverty rates
• school achievement stats
• business start ups.. and the nature of those start ups
• where are these start ups are occurring ( uptown or in the 'burbs)
• the impact of the social enterprise hub on poverty rates and tax base. 
• utilization data for city utilities (a big one)
• stated needs of the tax payers.

Further, citizen engagement through the use of open data is something being advanced by the feds and particularly by our federal politicians. Is it being used here? I think not. 

So , back to Councillor Mackenzie's question about innovation.

1. Will smart technology serve to reduce costs..and which costs? Why can't we explore the benefits of being a smart city?
2. Why couldn't Councillor Mackenzie have accessed interest of his Ward 2 constituents through a citizen engagement portal through the city's open data portal?
3. Marijuana is to be legalized in Canada in July 2018. 75% of the revenues are to go to provinces. What revenue does he city expect to get? How many local vendors are there going to be locally? If Moncton has a grow op with 100+ jobs, why couldn't we get a similar business?
4. Why did Oland's block the development of a micro brewery in uptown Saint John? If Fredericton can have 9 microbreweries with 50% of our population, why do we only have 2?
5. Gaming and game developers account for a significant part of the Montreal (UK, S.Korean). Why isn't Saint John encouraging developers to come here. Its nicer and a helluva a lot cheaper. The whole area of game development for health care is a big deal.
6. Finally the province unveiled a strategy to deal with climate change. Its a really good document. There are business opportunities in it. Why can't Saint John get into this, aggressively. Why is Fredericton fingered for this (so far????) 
7. There is this social enterprise hub set up up town. It is a beautiful building with nice, well meaning people in it. How successful has the micro loans project been in getting people at least out of poverty? How many social enterprises have been developed and how many people have been employed? Are these businesses sustainable? What is its projected impact on the local economy in 2018? Is there a glimmer of a maker space in its future?
8. UNB touts itself as Canada's most entrepreneurial university. Great! What is planned for Saint John in 2018? Where is NBCC in business development? Anywhere? 
9. The current provincial government is looking at privatizing parts of the health care system. Depending on what parts, there might be an opportunity for health tourism. I mean its a helluva a lot cheaper to fly here than to fly to Dubai. 
10. What is the impact of the Arts on our local economy. Any plans for the development of an Arts Cooperative.  Really!?! This town is supposed to be Irish. 
11. Been to up town Saint John? Can't beat it. There are a bunch of niche businesses in town which merit a look (with 2 markets.).And all this is 15 minutes from  some pretty nice beaches. Why isn't Saint John listed as one of Canada's least expensive cities?

More on this , likely depending on what Councillor Mackenzie says to any of this.