Why We're Changing Our Fees

As a not-for-profit public safety regulator, we do not receive government funding. Our work includes administering safety legislation and regulation and overseeing the safe installation and operation of technical systems and equipment in BC.

What Are Fees Used For

Fees pay for the costs of administering our safety services, including recovering costs for services that do not have fees, and investing in long-term foundational improvements.

• Education & Tech Talks. Through our education programs, we share our technical expertise and the learnings we gain through field experience and research. This year, we re-introduced in-person Tech Talks. These popular education sessions include industry-specific topics such as code changes and top non-compliances seen by safety officers.
• Technical equipment and systems assessments. We use a risk-based oversight model that supports efficient use of our resources and those of our safety system partners. This model allows us to target the underground economy and other safety system work beyond physical inspections.
• Incident investigations. We follow up on all incidents and hazards we hear about through our confidential reporting line. Our learning-centred approach to investigating incidents focuses on finding out causes and contributing factors, and identifying what actions we and our safety partners can take to prevent future incidents. We publicly share our incident investigation reports to encourage others to learn from them.
• Prevention-based initiatives. We work with industry partners to build prevention-based initiatives that consider human behaviour and incorporate insights from our incident investigation. We recently developed an Ammonia Safety Awareness Program that gives facility owners and staff the tools and knowledge to support the safety of refrigeration equipment throughout its lifecycle. This year, we piloted a chairlift safety program to learn about rider behaviour and to help prevent falls from chairlifts.
• Enforcement. We take enforcement actions that promote an equitable safety system where all participants are compliant with regulations. Recent changes to legislation have enabled us to enforce against unlicensed individuals and businesses who advertise they can do regulated work. This is a step in the right direction to tackle the underground economy.
• Public awareness campaigns. We issue public notifications for recalls, hazard awareness, and safety alerts to educate communities about safety concerns and how they can prevent hazards when interacting with technical equipment. We bring awareness to the public and equipment owners of their safety responsibilities, such as the importance of hiring licensed contractors to maintain their equipment.
• Outreach and engagement. We connect with industry associations and communities to understand your realities, share knowledge, and find ways to innovate and improve our programs and services.
• Research. We conduct research to understand the hazards and challenges in our ever-changing social, economic, and environmental circumstances. We continuously evolve our programs and services to adapt to expanding technologies in the areas we regulate. We study the effects of climate change, including how extreme weather like floods and wildfires may affect technical equipment, and how we can mitigate the risks involved. Similarly, as the province shifts to more renewable energy sources and technologies such as hydrogen, bioenergy, and solar panels, we learn and educate others on how to install, use, and maintain this equipment safely.
• Training provider recognition. We recognize courses and programs that are required for certification and renewal. We review the course material, lesson plans, and instructor information submitted by training institutions, and work closely with them to ensure they meet a high standard of education. Certificate applicants can find names and locations of recognized training providers on our website.
• National code development and adoption. We connect regularly with other safety regulators and experts to keep up to date on what is happening nationally and how we can better harmonize standards. We contribute our expertise to provincial and national safety code development committees. Recently, we adopted the latest editions of the electrical and gas codes. In the coming years, we plan to review the national codes for elevating devices, railways, and boilers, pressure vessels and refrigeration.
• Indirect costs. We pay for costs that support the safety system, such as codes and standards adoption, rent, vehicle amortization, and support function costs.
• Operating reserve. We maintain an operating reserve so we can continue offering our services in emergencies and uncertain economic conditions.

Recent Improvements

• Digital systems and business transformation. We are replacing our legacy IT systems and moving to a new platform. As part of this work, we are evolving our business processes to address the feedback we’ve heard over the years, removing unneeded administrative barriers, and improving your access to your own safety data and records. Over the next few years, you’ll see new capabilities and ongoing improvements to your Online Services portal. The new digital platform will enable us to identify safety trends much faster than before, allowing us to prioritize how we improve and develop timely, impactful programs and services.
• Amusement devices safety program redesign. We’re working to regulate trampoline courts and newer innovations as amusement devices, and adopting a new safety code in BC. We’re also developing a Responsible Person course to increase education in the industry and introducing a program that helps facility owners and staff develop their own safety plans to provide a safe environment for the public.
• Contact centre phone system upgrades. Our contact centre provides helpful and friendly service options for those who conduct business through phone. To continue providing efficient phone service, we replaced our contact centre phone system software as the former system was discontinued.
• Website redesign. We redesigned the technicalsafetybc.ca website to improve accessibility for our clients and the public. Visitors can now find what they’re looking for faster through the improved navigation menu and a more accurate search function. We also enhanced accessibility by making the site viewable on all devices and by those with colour vision deficiency or low vision.
• Ammonia Safety Awareness Program. We collaborated with industry partners to develop a no-cost, specialized education and training program for safety in ice arenas using ammonia as a refrigerant. Our Ammonia Safety Awareness Program enables participants to establish formal maintenance and operational programs to manage risks and make informed budgetary decisions to support the safety of refrigeration equipment throughout its lifecycle.
• Licensed contractor registry. We redeveloped our online registry of licensed contractors, making it easier to use. This tool now includes recent enforcement actions, helping the public to find qualified workers and make informed hiring decisions.

Our Economic Outlook

We’ve kept our fee increases as low as possible to minimize the impact on your businesses and support you during difficult times.

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, we introduced payment plans for people and businesses for more flexible options.
• We deferred our 2021 fee increase to allow businesses time to recover from the economic downturn.
• We froze fees for the amusement devices industry in 2021 as they were disproportionately impacted by pandemic shutdown measures.

This year, with lower than usual installation permit volumes in 2022 and early 2023, we are projecting to have lower revenue than expected, which will challenge our operations.

Notes:

1. In Technical Safety BC’s potential budget scenario (as of May 2023), we take into account the lower permit volumes seen in early 2023 in our revenue projections.
2. In our projected revenue, we assume permit, certification, and license volumes will grow by 3% in 2024 and 2% in 2025.
3. In our budgeted expenses, we assume overall costs will increase by 6% in 2024 and 5% in 2025.

For a full view of our budget and finances, read our Business Plan and Annual Report.

How We’ve Reduced Expenses

We have had to make difficult decisions this year in order to offset growing costs and all have required careful consideration. We have made every effort to reduce costs in order to avoid substantial fee increases, including:

• Introduced agile budgeting practices. We review our projected expenses throughout the year, reprioritize, defer projects that require capital spending, and redistribute funds and resources where needed.
• Reduced operating budgets. We reduced our operational expenses, including travel, non-technical training, and closing offices.
• Eliminated multiple roles at Technical Safety BC. We reorganized a number of teams and eliminated several administrative roles.
• Closed underused offices. We reduced our rental expenses by reviewing where we were underusing our office spaces. Most of these locations were leased work stations at Service BC Centres, where there were no front counter services or safety officer appointments available. We found that local safety officers were able to work effectively from home rather than the office space.
• Deferred hiring. We value our employees’ unique expertise and talents and as our employees retire or move on, we review their role and consider whether to refill the vacancy or redistribute responsibilities to other teams.

For more information, read more about our fees on our website. If you have questions about the fee consultation, please reach out to our engagement team.