Background
Historically, the government used grazing leases as a way to allocate land and to support agriculture and settlement. The role of grazing leases and Albertans’ expectations for them are changing. Grazing leases are now a tool to help ensure the long-term sustainability of public land and protect native plant and animal species.
It is always good practice to set clear goals and objectives for programs. Defined goals help program managers identify how best to help the program meet its objectives and provide the expected benefits.
Clear objectives also help set performance measures to help analyze results and identify areas for improvement.
RECOMMENDATION 1: CLARIFY OBJECTIVES, BENEFITS AND RELEVANT PERFORMANCE MEASURES We recommend that the Department of Environment and Parks define and communicate the
environmental, social and economic objectives it expects grazing leases should provide all Albertans, as well as relevant performance measures to monitor and ensure those objectives are met.
Criteria: the standards for our audit
The Department of Environment and Parks should have effective systems to:
• clearly define objectives and priorities for managing leases and providing Albertans with the expected benefits of grazing leases
• collect the information it needs to make decisions on the objectives and benefits
• report on whether grazing leases are achieving the goals and objectives and providing the expected benefits to Albertans
7 Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, Custom Rates 2013 - Land Leasing. (first posted November 28, 2012) http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/inf14267
SYSTEMS AUDITING – NEW AUDIT ǀ ENVIRONMENT & PARKS—MANAGING GRAZING LEASES Our audit findings
KEY FINDINGS
The department does not have:
• defined environmental, social and economic objectives for grazing leases
• relevant performance measures and processes to assess and report whether grazing leases achieve expected objectives
Lack of defined objectives for and benefits from grazing leases
Through regional land use frameworks, the Government of Alberta identified some high-level objectives for private and public lands in Alberta. We reviewed the two regional land use plans completed in 2014.
Our review of the Lower Athabasca and South Saskatchewan regional plans found high-level references to grazing leases as a tool for meeting land use objectives. However, the plans did not state what those objectives are and did not provide details on how grazing leases support the government’s objectives for its land use plans.
The department’s Grazing Lease Code of Practice defines best practices for the use and health of grazing leases and provides high-level comments for the support of agriculture and allowing recreational access. However, the code itself is not mandatory.
We were able to identify the department’s objectives for rangeland health of leased land. As each lease is different in size, location, area or topography, the department gives its agrologists the authority to use their professional knowledge and judgement to decide on the exact requirements for each lease to be in good health. The department also has processes to regularly assess and report on the health of the leased land, usually in the two years before the lease renewal date.
The department has not documented its economic objectives for grazing leases, such as stating what revenue it expects from grazing leases. The department was also unable to tell us if grazing leases generate or should generate revenue for the province above the costs to manage the leases or for other initiatives associated to public land.
We confirmed that, other than requiring leaseholders to keep their leases in good health, pay rental fees and taxes, and allow recreational access, the department has not defined any other objectives for grazing leases.
Throughout our audit the department used the term “optimum mix of benefits” from grazing leases to include ideas such as protecting rangeland, native grasslands and species at risk; providing access for recreational use; supporting agriculture and ranchers; or improving environmental sustainability of public land. However, the department has not documented these concepts, defined the benefits it expects grazing leases to provide or assigned a priority to each expected benefit.
Performance measures are lacking
We confirmed that the department does not currently have any formally defined performance measures.
The department did not meet its previous performance measure, to have 90 per cent of all grazing leases in good standing—for 2007–2008 through 2011–2012.
In its 2014 annual report the department stated it would report only on those performance measures that best reflected the integration of the newly formed Ministry of Environment and Sustainable
SYSTEMS AUDITING – NEW AUDIT ǀ ENVIRONMENT & PARKS—MANAGING GRAZING LEASES
Resource Development, now the Ministry of Environment and Parks. As a result, some performance measures, including rangeland sustainability, were no longer reported in the annual report.8
The department told us they are currently developing new internal performance measures for grazing leases and systems to monitor and assess the achievement of those measures. However, these were not ready to review and assess before we completed our audit field work in March 2015.
Implications and risks if recommendation not implemented
Without clearly defined objectives and relevant performance measures for grazing leases on public land in Alberta, the department cannot ensure those objectives are being met, or that Albertans are receiving the benefits they should.
Further, without relevant performance measures and effective systems to monitor and analyze them, the department cannot know what it must do to improve its processes to better manage grazing leases on behalf of Albertans.
8 Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (2014). Annual Report 2013–2014. Alberta: Government of Alberta.
SYSTEMS AUDITING – NEW AUDIT ǀ ENVIRONMENT & PARKS—MANAGING GRAZING LEASES
Appendix