Project Scope

In July 2024, the Public Service Agency (PSA) and the Ministry of Citizen Services (CITZ) collaborated on conducting research and analysis to provide recommendations for centralized administration of CORE.

The purpose of the concept paper is to support decision making about the future of the two CORE programs. This is a cross-government collaboration that strives to:

• Provide strategies to unify and enhance both EMCR and BCWS CORE programs, aiming to optimize administrative efficiency, simplify and refine operational processes, and ensure seamless and uniform experience for all members.

• Leverage current and untapped BCPS’ diverse talent pool by recognizing existing talents, discovering new skills, and matching abilities to needs effectively.

• Provide access to a larger, more diverse roster of public servants with a wider set of skills for rapid mobilization to augment provincial emergency response.

• Provide early insights on the program scalability by addressing needs of adjacent ministries that are involved in emergency response

Current State of the Programs

In November 2023, a team from CITZ was engaged to support the redesign of the CORE program formerly known as TEAMS.

There are currently two CORE programs in the BC Public Service: The Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR) and the Ministry of Forests (FOR). Adjacent to CORE, other ministries including Water Lands and Resource Stewardship (WLRS), Agriculture and Food (AF), Health (HLTH), Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) and Environment (ENV) are also involved in emergency management and have varying response protocols.

The overarching vision for the team was to identify the optimum model for a government-wide, coordinated approach to emergency management surge capacity. Before this could be fully explored it was necessary to address the immediate surge capacity needs of EMCR and BCWS for 2024. As a result, the first phase of the project was developing a platform to help identify and deploy CORE members during emergencies to ensure a modern, digital, and streamlined low barrier application process. The platform, delivered in March 2024, enabled EMCR and BCWS coordinators to search for CORE Team members and provides a new online intake form for public servants wishing to join both CORE Team programs.

Upon completion of the new tech platform, PSA and CITZ established a joint project team in July 2024 to develop recommendations for a centralized approach to emergency management surge capacity.