INDICATORS AND MONITORING

The Local Government Act requires a regional district to measure its progress on an RGS. Performance indicators selected for the South Okanagan RGS will allow the RDOS to monitor its implementation and progress towards the vision articulated by the community.

A set of 10 indicators was first developed as part of the RGS development in 2010. The selected indicators were based on the seven goals of the RGS. A long list of indicators, derived from a literature review of existing or proposed regional growth strategy monitoring programs from regional districts in British Columbia and other indicator programs, was refined based on how well they suited RGS goals, data availability, and reliability. Since 2010, some indicators have proven to be difficult to track, suffer from data challenges, or poorly represent the goal with which they are associated. These have been updated and replaced as necessary as part of the 2016 revisions.

There are now 16 indicators tracking the performance of the goals of the seven policy areas. Two additional context indicators show population growth trends against which change in other indicators can be made more meaningful. Indicators have been selected to balance fidelity to the goals with pragmatic concerns of data collection and reporting frequency. Data for all the indicators are available freely from trusted sources (including internal regional district processes), at least every two years.

The indicators will be used as regular reporting on progress towards RGS goals. A state of the region ‘Snapshot’ will be prepared annually.

RGS Snapshots