The goal of the Smart Communities Program¹ is to help establish world-class Smart Communities across the country so that Canadians can fully realize benefits that information and communications technologies have to offer. The Program has the following objectives:

Assist communities in developing and implementing sustainable Smart Communities strategies;

Create opportunities for learning through the sharing among communities of smart activities, experiences and lessons learned; and

Provide new business opportunities, domestically and internationally, for Canadian companies developing and delivering information and communication technology applications and services.

Following the advice of a Panel on Smart Communities, the 1999 federal budget provided $60 million over three years to fund 12 Smart Communities demonstration projects – one in each province, one in the North and one in an Aboriginal community. The Program commenced in 2001 and is scheduled to continue to March 31, 2004. Each of the 12 communities selected by a National Selection Committee will have received a non-repayable contribution of up to $4.5 million over a three-year period, on a matching basis. The Smart Communities each entered into a contribution agreement with Industry Canada providing the terms and conditions of funding for the projects.

Three additional and complementary programs to the demonstration projects were introduced as part of the Smart Communities Program to disseminate the experience and best practices developed by the projects; Resource Exchange, Tool Kit and Skill Development Program, and Recognition Program (in process of development).

The purpose of the study is to prepare a mid-term, or formative, evaluation focusing on the issue areas of relevance, success/objectives achievement, program design and management, and the question of future directions for a Smart Communities type program. The issue area of cost-effectiveness, dealing with the operational considerations of the Program, has been examined in an audit² conducted in parallel with the evaluation.

Our approach to this formative evaluation was to use a number of lines of enquiry to permit an examination of the evaluation issues. We undertook document reviews, interviews, case studies, surveys, financial data analysis based on claims made of the Program and a workshop to provide the broad base of information, observations, and analysis that we felt were needed.

Findings and Conclusions

The Smart Communities Program was intended to demonstrate the benefits of the smart communities approach within the selected communities, to the rest of Canada and to the world. While all the projects are launched, many of the sub-projects introducing the Smart Services are not yet fully up and running. But, in the coming months as they do come into operation, it is expected that they will more fully provide the demonstration that was intended. The projects have, in effect, constituted laboratories for community development and more time is needed to realize the results of the experiments.

Until now, the projects have focused on creating the organizational structures and implementing the sub-projects. In the process of doing this, the Program has:

Improved the level of telecommunication infrastructure, with almost all communities having greater access to broadband. Much of this infrastructure development was a result of the Program, though not necessarily funded by it.

Improved information technology service availability through the implementation of servers linked to broadband.

Raised awareness in the general population of the Smart Communities, and of information and communications technologies, and improved skills and comfort levels of citizens with computers and the Internet. These results are building a higher level of personal empowerment in these communities.

At the community level, the Program is catalyzing processes of community-wide planning and engagement that are linking disparate players that previously had little connection with each other (bridging of silos).

Overall, the review team concluded that these important interim results have created conditions propitious for achieving the Program objectives and outcomes. To increase the success and cost-effectiveness of the Program’s investments, a more proactive role in the governance of the Communities might be played by the Smart Communities Directorate, where necessary. Further, it was concluded that an extension of the three-year project timeline would permit the Smart Communities, that felt the need for more time, to bring their smart services, within the allocated budget, to the point where they could be sustainable.

Looking to the future, it was concluded that building on the successful experience of the Smart Communities Program and related federal initiatives, and improving coordination across a range of federal agencies operating at the local and community level, more communities in Canada could be reached to improve their delivery of information and services and engagement with citizens. New initiatives such as an innovative communities program could evolve from this experience. Industry Canada has an opportunity to play an important leadership role in this to ensure that the potential of the Smart Communities approach to creating a knowledge-based economy is realized.

Recommendations

Two sets of recommendations are made; those relating to the current program and those relating to future directions.

Recommendations For Current Program

Governance
1. Recognizing that the Smart Communities’ projects are, in general, running smoothly, the governance structures of Smart Communities should be reviewed by the Smart Communities Directorate, where necessary, to address challenges being faced by these Communities by providing:

Terms of reference for Boards of Directors that include providing strategic and policy direction, in addition to fiduciary functions.

Conflict of interest guidelines for board members, committee members, staff, etc.

Methodologies for assessing proposals for new smart services, e.g. business case approach (Section 5.2.3).

2. The Smart Communities Directorate should monitor the governance of Smart Communities, again where necessary, through the direct representation on the boards of the Smart Communities by Industry Canada regional representatives or other representatives appointed by the Directorate, and these representatives should meet regularly to share lessons learned and relay these lessons to appropriate communities (Section 5.2.3).

Project Implementation

3. The Smart Communities Directorate should examine the possibility of the Smart Communities sharing common software platforms for the delivery of Smart Services, where feasible, so as to avoid the cost of re-inventing software with similar capabilities (Section 4.4.3).

4. Industry Canada should consider amending the 10 % holdback provision in contribution agreements, on a case-by-case basis, consistent with Departmental procedures (Section 5.2.3).

5. Recognizing the limited time frame for the Smart Communities to fully implement their projects, they should be given the option of extending their project timeline, as appropriate, under the condition that this extension would not materially affect the project budget or deliverables (Section 5.2.3).

Marketing

6. Recognizing the limited capacity and time frame for the Smart Communities to conduct marketing efforts, the Smart Communities Directorate should assist the Smart Communities in directing some of the Communities’ marketing efforts to technology suppliers and potential users in the private sector, in order to attract more business participation in the projects and strengthen the Communities’ sustainability (Section 4.2.3).

7. Recognizing the limited capacity and time frame for the Communities to conduct marketing efforts, the Smart Communities Directorate should work nationally with Smart Community sponsoring organizations as well as private sector firms and others within Industry Canada with expertise in marketing to develop a more strategic and focused approach to the national and international marketing and showcasing of the knowledge and experience of the Smart Communities, with a view to creating market opportunities for the Communities and the Canadian firms participating in the Communities projects (Section 4.5.3).

Sharing of Results

8. A comparative analysis of the Smart Community governance models, strategies, and technology solutions implemented by the twelve communities should be conducted within 18 months of Program completion to garner best practices and lessons learned, negative as well as positive lessons, in these areas (Section 5.3.3).

9. The Smart Communities Directorate should revisit the Program’s communications plan, identifying targeted audiences and communities and the communications objectives for each, with emphasis on sharing best practices and lessons learned from the Program including those experienced after Program completion (Section 5.3.3).

10. Based on this communications plan, the knowledge transfer activities, tools and services, including the Program’s website, should be adapted and actively promoted, as required, to reach more communities throughout Canada (Section 5.3.3).

11. The Smart Communities Directorate should assist the Smart Communities in developing performance measures to enable assessment of their projects, where such assistance is required (Section 4.6.1).

12. Industry Canada should encourage the study of Smart Communities across the country, to foster adoption of the model and exploit the benefits the model provides (Section 4.6.1).

Recommendations For Future Directions

13. Industry Canada should champion the Smart Community approach within the federal government, and lead the process to broker the knowledge capture and transfer processes to communities nationally (Section 3.5).

14. Industry Canada should explore alternative service delivery mechanisms for advancing the Smart Communities movement nationally, and such mechanisms should be assessed according to their potential both to improve federal management of Smart Communities support initiatives and to engage regional community stakeholders to improve the alignment of community development strategies, programs, policies and initiatives (Sections 3.5 and 6.3).

15. Industry Canada should give consideration to developing strategies that would bring the benefits of the Smart Community movement to more communities in Canada, and announce the strategy before the completion of the Smart Community Program in order not to lose the momentum of the Program (Sections 5.1.3, 6.2 and 6.3).

¹ Smart Communities Program Guide, Industry Canada, 1999

² Smart Communities Program Management and Financial Control Audit, Audit and Evaluation Branch, Industry Canada, March 2003

Final Report (PDF - 466KB - 67 pages)

Management Response (PDF - 99KB - 7 pages)

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