Glossary
The parameters and requirements use some words that have a particular meaning in this work. This page explains each one in plain terms. Where architects have their own name for an idea, it is given in brackets, so you can recognise it in other documents.
- Accessibility standard
The rules a screen or form must follow so that people with disabilities can use it.
The Province sets a standard for how accessible its online services must be. It is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), an international set of rules. They cover things like text a screen reader can read aloud, colours with enough contrast, and forms you can fill in with a keyboard alone.
N15 asks for this from the first release, not as a fix added later.
- Active-active
Running a service at two or more sites at once, so either can carry the load if the other fails.
In requirements: NFR-A-004
- Adjudicability
Four facts recorded for each entitlement: whether it is granted under a statute, whether its decisions can be reconsidered, whether they can be appealed, and to whom.
In requirements: FR-006 · FR-030 · FR-033 · FR-056 · FR-063 · FR-092
- Adjudicating authority
A body allowed to decide or review a class of decisions. It can be inside the ministry or outside it, such as Pacific Blue Cross or CLBC.
In requirements: FR-056
- Administrative review
A review, under the regulation to the CFCSA, of a director's decision, act or failure to act, conducted by a review authority the director designates. A person who was involved in the matter cannot be designated, and the review authority recommends but does not decide the matter.
- Adverse decision
A decision that denies, reduces or ends assistance, or creates a debt.
- Aggregate
A cluster of data the system treats as one unit for changes, with its own rules that must always hold. Each aggregate has exactly one writer at any moment, per cohort (N05). Examples: an evidence succession set, a payment instruction, a disbursement, a repayable issuance.
In requirements: BR-011 · FR-006 · FR-041 · NFR-SEC-011 · DR-020
- API, REST, GraphQL
An API is how systems ask each other for data or actions; REST and GraphQL are two common styles.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-002 · NFR-I-003 · INT-003
- Appeal
Asking an independent body outside the ministry to look at a decision again.
If a client still disagrees after a reconsideration, they can often appeal. An appeal goes to a body outside the ministry, usually a tribunal. Not every decision can be appealed, and not every appeal goes to the same body. That is why N20 records this for each entitlement.
- Appeal record
Everything the ministry had in front of it when it made a decision, gathered for the client.
When a client challenges a decision, policy says the ministry must give them the appeal record. It holds all the submissions, information and records the ministry had when it made the decision. Before the client gets it, some protected details may have to be removed. That step is called severing.
N08 asks that the system can put this record together on demand, rather than staff searching for the pieces by hand.
Used in: N08
- Asserted negative
A question asked and answered "no". It counts as evidence, unlike a blank that was never asked.
- Assisted digital
A worker or representative completing an online transaction for someone, with the helper's identity recorded.
- Assistive technology
Tools people with disabilities use to work a computer or phone, such as screen readers.
Examples are screen readers that read the page aloud, software that magnifies the screen, voice control, and switches used instead of a mouse. Automated scans find only about 30% of accessibility problems. The rest show up only when a person tries the service with these tools, which is why N15 asks for real testing.
- At Home Program
A program for children and youth with support needs. Eligibility is decided on a qualified assessor's assessment and a Regional Eligibility Committee's recommendation, or by Direct Admit, and an eligible decision opens the child's Medical Benefits (FR-283 to FR-285).
- Automated check
A test that software runs by itself to catch a rule being broken.
Technical teams use several kinds. A lint rule reads the code and flags patterns that break a rule, such as one part reaching into another part’s tables. A fitness function is a test of the whole design, run again and again, that fails if the design drifts away from a goal. A compatibility check compares a new version of an interface with the old one and fails if the change would break anyone who uses it.
N18 says that wherever a rule can be checked this way, it must be. A person then only has to check what a machine cannot.
Used in: N18 In requirements: NFR-A-003 · NFR-M-004 · DR-007
- Availability target
How much of the time a service must be up and working.
It is usually given as a percentage over a month or a year. A service that must be available 99.9% of the time can be down for about 45 minutes a month. N16 asks that each service’s target be set by how much harm an outage does to a client, not picked the same for everything.
- Back end for front end
A small server behind each user interface that holds the sign-in tokens, so they never sit in the browser.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-001 · INT-005
- BCEA Policy and Procedure Manual
The ministry's published policy manual for employment and disability assistance. Under the source hierarchy it overrides procedures and job aids, and legislation overrides it.
- BCeID, BC Services Card, IDIR
Provincial sign-in credentials: BCeID for individuals and businesses, the BC Services Card for citizens with verified identity, and IDIR for government staff.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-001 · INT-005
- Benefit component
One part of an assistance payment, such as support, shelter or a supplement. Each component can take effect on a different date.
In requirements: FR-005
- Break-glass access
Emergency access to a restricted record outside normal rules, always logged and reviewed afterwards.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-004
- Business rule
A rule about how the ministry’s work is done, such as who qualifies for a benefit.
Business rules come from law, policy and practice. “A client must report income by the fifth of the month” is one. N04 asks that each rule lives in one place, with the data it controls, so there is never a question about which copy of the rule is the real one.
Used in: N04
- Byte-identical
Exactly the same, down to every character, with nothing that differs.
- Calendar basis
Which calendar a time limit counts in, such as business days, calendar months or the school year.
- Capture, states S0–S3
Moving a part of the service to the new system for a cohort, through four states: old system in charge (S0), shadow (S1), captured with write-back (S2), new system in charge (S3).
In requirements: DR-014
- Care provider
An extended family member or other person who has a relationship with, or a cultural or traditional responsibility to, a child, is not already the child's guardian, and agrees to care for the child in an out-of-care arrangement. A care provider is not a caregiver.
- Caregiver
A person with whom a child is placed by a director and who, by agreement with the director, is authorized to carry out the rights and responsibilities, under the agreement, of the director (CFCSA section 1). Often called a foster caregiver.
- Case context
One of the five program-family domain contexts (employment assistance, persons with disabilities, child care subsidy, employment services, child protection) that together form the Case & Service Delivery family. They share protocols, not a case model; the family name is never an owner (NFR-I-008; ADR-001).
- CFCSA
The Child, Family and Community Service Act, BC's child protection law. Section 96 lets child protection workers request information.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-013 · INT-013 · INT-027 · INT-031 · INT-038 · DR-023
- Channel
A way a person reaches the ministry: online, by phone, in person or by mail.
N15 asks that a person can finish the same task through every supported channel and get the same result. It also asks that every service has a supported way in that is not online.
Used in: N15
- Child in care
A child who is in the custody, care or guardianship of a director or a director of adoption (CFCSA section 1).
- Child in the Home of a Relative (CIHR)
A closed program supporting children living with relatives. It runs on rules frozen in 2010 alongside the current rules.
- CI (continuous integration)
The automated pipeline that builds and tests every change before it can be released.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-002 · NFR-U-002 · NFR-M-004 · NFR-I-002
- Circuit breaker, bulkhead, timeout
Protections that stop one failing service from taking others down with it.
- Client index
A single index for finding people and spotting duplicate records, with uncertain matches sent to a person to decide.
- Cohort review
Holding a large group of new debts that share one cause for review before any notices go out.
- Common tools
Tools almost every organisation needs, like sign-in and document storage, that can be bought rather than built.
N11 lists them: workflow (moving work between people), notifications, identity and sign-in, storing passwords and encryption keys safely, policy checks (software that decides whether an action is allowed), scheduling, document storage, search, and print and mail.
Good products for all of these already exist. Building one in-house is allowed only for a need no product meets, and someone outside the team has to agree.
Used in: N11
- Community agreement
Policy's name for an agreement a director makes under section 92.1 of the CFCSA with a First Nation, the Nisga'a Nation, a Treaty First Nation or a legal entity representing another Indigenous community. It provides for consultation and cooperation on named kinds of work or for the community to provide services, and it applies to all directors except in its services part.
- Component library (tiered)
Shared, reusable interface building blocks, split into tiers so accessibility logic sits in the shared lower tiers.
In requirements: NFR-U-005
- Conditional requirement
A requirement in groups CF15 to CF18 that applies only if a scope decision brings its area into the replacement: child and youth mental health (DEP-26), the Integrated Child and Youth teams (DEP-27) or youth justice (DEP-28).
- Considered but not retainable
Evidence that policy lets staff look at but not keep, such as tax information that must not be printed.
In requirements: DR-002
- Continuing custody order
A court order under the CFCSA under which the director becomes the child's sole personal guardian and the Public Guardian and Trustee becomes the child's sole property guardian.
- Control totals
Counts and sums struck before a run is approved and checked unchanged afterwards.
In requirements: BR-007 · FR-043 · FR-103 · NFR-C-003 · NFR-M-003 · DR-004
- Coordination agreement
An agreement contemplated by the federal Act among Canada, the Province and an Indigenous governing body, to coordinate the exercise of Indigenous jurisdiction over child and family services. A community does not need one to make laws, and the agreement must carry conditions on the use, disclosure and security of information.
- Copy
A fact one part of the system holds that it took from another part.
Parts of the system often keep their own copy of a fact so they can work quickly without asking the source every time. That is normal. The risk is that the source corrects the fact and the copy stays wrong. N06 asks that every copy records where it came from, so a correction can always find it.
- Corporate Accounting System (CAS)
The Province's financial system of record. All payments are posted and reconciled against it.
In requirements: BR-004 · FR-042 · NFR-A-005 · NFR-S-003 · NFR-C-008 · INT-001
- Correction
Fixing a fact that was recorded wrongly, as opposed to a fact that changed.
These two are easy to confuse, and they mean different things. A correction says the record was wrong all along: the income was never $900, it was $1,100. A supersession says the world changed: the income was $900 until March and $1,100 after.
Both can leave a client underpaid or overpaid in the past. The difference is who bears it. A supersession the client reported late gives an overpayment the ministry can recover. A correction is judged by whose error it was: a client who hid something is in a different position from a worker who mis-keyed a figure. The old system cannot tell the two apart, which is why N14 says that difference is lost if a group moves back.
See it at work: Evidence Used in: N01 · N02 · N06 · N14 In requirements: FR-012 · FR-051 · DR-001 · DR-015
- Correlation identifier
An ID carried through every step of a request so its whole path can be traced afterwards.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-010 · NFR-C-001 · NFR-M-001
- CPP, OAS, GIS, EI, SIN
Federal programs and identifiers: Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement, Employment Insurance, and the Social Insurance Number.
- Custodian
The organisation responsible for a record and entitled to decide how it is used.
Most records the ministry holds are the provincial government’s. Some are not. A record may belong to an Indigenous Nation or another organisation and be held by the ministry under an agreement. N13 asks that the system stores who the custodian is and acts on it, rather than relying on staff to know.
Used in: N13 In requirements: BR-008 · FR-084 · NFR-SEC-005 · NFR-C-007 · INT-027 · INT-029 · INT-032 · DR-005and 1 more
- Data load (migration)
Moving existing records from the old system into the new one.
Migration scripts copy large amounts of data in bulk. If a rule is enforced only by the screens staff use, a bulk load can skip right past it. N04 asks that the data enforce its own rules, so every route in is checked.
Used in: N04
- Data model
A part’s own description of the things it works with, such as a person or a payment.
Different parts of the ministry’s work need to know different things about the same person. Payments needs a bank account. A case worker needs contact details. A single shared model tries to hold all of it, and every change then needs everyone to agree.
N03 asks each part to keep its own model instead. The Domains page shows the nineteen parts and what each one owns.
- Data-sharing agreement
A formal agreement setting out what information one organisation may share with another, and why.
Today these agreements are usually signed documents. Staff read them and then set up access by hand. N13 asks that each agreement is also written in a form the system can read, and that the system grants access from the agreement itself. That way every access can be traced to an agreement and checked.
Used in: N13 In requirements: BR-006 · BR-008 · FR-085 · INT-027
- Database layout (schema)
The structure of a database: its tables, its columns, and what each one holds.
Technical teams call this a schema. When one part sends another a copy of its database rows, or relies on its layout, the two become tied together. Neither can change its layout without breaking the other. N02, N03 and N10 all guard against this.
- Date conflict (rule status)
A rule that the policy manual gives two different effective dates. It cannot be released until the ministry rules on which date is right.
- De-identified, synthetic, differentially private data
Data changed so people cannot be identified: identifiers removed, made up to look realistic, or blurred with statistical noise.
In requirements: FR-045 · NFR-P-002 · NFR-SEC-012 · NFR-C-004 · DR-017
- Decision (determination)
The system working out what a client is entitled to under the rules.
Architects call this a determination. The system takes the facts about a client and the rules for a benefit, and works out the result: eligible or not, and how much. N07, N08 and N09 are all about making that calculation something you can repeat and explain.
See it at work: Determinations Used in: N07 In requirements: FR-001 · FR-011 · FR-025 · FR-042 · FR-051 · FR-057 · FR-062 · FR-073and 11 more
- Decision class (A, B, C)
How a rule output is treated: A is an administrative decision needing reasons, B needs a human decision-maker before it is issued, C is an intermediate calculation never shown as a decision.
In requirements: FR-003
- Decision record
The stored account of a decision: what was decided, on what facts, under which rules.
Every decision the system makes is saved with everything needed to explain it later. That includes the version of the rules and of the engine that ran them, a full copy of the facts it used, its reasoning, and the version of the letter template the client was sent. It also records how far through the record of events the decision read (the watermark) and what kind of decision it was, so that a decision needing reasons, or a person’s sign-off, can be told apart from a working sum.
N08 asks that the record holds full copies of all of this, not links to other systems. That way it still makes sense years later, after those systems have changed or gone.
See it at work: Determinations Used in: N07 · N08 · N09 · N17 In requirements: BR-005 · FR-001 · FR-051 · FR-058 · FR-062 · FR-095 · NFR-A-006 · NFR-SEC-009and 1 more
- Decision trace
The step-by-step record of which rules fired and with what values, in a format the ministry owns.
- Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
The B.C. law that commits the Province to bring its laws in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Passed in 2019, often shortened to DRIPA or the Declaration Act. The UN Declaration recognises Indigenous peoples’ right to govern their own affairs, and that includes information about their own people. A ministry system that treats every record as the Province’s cannot honour that. This is the reason for N13.
- Deemed receipt
The date a notice is treated as received, set by rule. The client's time to challenge counts from it.
- Degraded mode
A planned, reduced way of working when a dependency fails.
In requirements: NFR-A-003
- Delegated agency
An organisation, including Indigenous agencies, authorised to deliver child and family services on the ministry's behalf.
- Delegation category
One of the cumulative categories policy sets, each carrying a stated set of a director's powers, duties and functions. The system holds what each category carries as versioned reference data (FR-107).
- Delegation of authority, delegated worker
The legal process through which a Designated Director entrusts statutory authority to an individual assessed as qualified and competent to carry out specific powers, duties and functions under the Act. A delegated worker is a person who holds such a delegation, in the ministry or in a delegated agency.
- Design freeze
The point after which the design is fixed and building starts. Several decisions must be made before it.
- Designated representative
The holder of a position the regulation lists for a First Nation, the Nisga'a Lisims Government, a Treaty First Nation or another Indigenous community, who is served with notice of hearings and receives copies of orders. It is not the same as a prescribed Indigenous organization, which the regulation lists to be informed of presentation hearings.
In requirements: INT-028
- Destroying records (disposition)
What happens to a record at the end of its life: destroyed, archived or handed over.
Records cannot be kept forever. The law sets how long each kind must be kept and what happens after. Architects call this disposition. A record may be destroyed, moved to the archives, or handed to another government that is its rightful custodian.
N12 asks that the way each kind of record ends is decided before the system stores anything, because the method shapes how the records are stored.
Used in: N12 · N13 In requirements: FR-072 · FR-096 · NFR-C-003
- Destroying the key (crypto-shredding)
Locking one person’s records with their own key, then destroying the key to make the records unreadable.
Each person’s records are scrambled (encrypted) with a key that belongs to them alone. When the records must be destroyed, the system destroys the key. The scrambled data can stay in place, but nobody can read it ever again. This lets a permanent history meet a legal duty to destroy.
N12 allows it for a small number of kinds of fact, each named, where a duty to destroy one person’s records can be foreseen. It is never the default. It needs careful planning about who holds the keys and how destruction is proven.
Used in: N12 In requirements: NFR-S-002 · NFR-SEC-005 · DR-004
- Director, Designated Director
A person the minister designates under section 91 of the CFCSA, with statutory responsibility for the director's powers, duties and functions. In the Mental Health Act the word means the person in charge of a designated facility, so those requirements say "the director of the facility".
- Discretionary determination
A decision a person makes using judgement, recorded with their identity, authority and reasons.
In requirements: FR-047
- Driver (DRV-)
The reason a requirement exists: a law, the policy manual, the nature of the work, or an aim of the architecture.
- Duty to accommodate
The Human Rights Code duty to adjust service for a person's needs, such as disability or language, unless there is a clear and justifiable reason it cannot be met.
- EA Act and EAPWD Act
The Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act, with their regulations. They set who qualifies for assistance and how much.
In requirements: FR-030
- Effective date
The date a rule, rate or decision takes effect. It is often different from the date it was published or made.
- Emergency issuance
A designed way to pay people when the normal decision process is down, using the same controls and settled later.
- Entitlement
A specific benefit or payment a client may qualify for.
A programme such as income assistance contains many separate entitlements: a monthly support amount, a shelter amount, and dozens of supplements for things like transportation, dental care or a special diet. Each can have its own rules, its own law behind it, and its own route to challenge a decision. Eligibility is whether a client qualifies for an entitlement, and from what date.
- Entitlement clock, service-standard clock
A breach of an entitlement clock changes what the client is owed; a breach of a service-standard clock does not.
In requirements: FR-061
- Error attribution
Who caused a recorded mistake: the client, the ministry, a third party, or unknown. It must be recorded with every correction.
- Event
A single thing the system records as having happened, such as a fact recorded or a decision issued.
The new system keeps its history as a long list of events, each added to the end and never changed. “The first event” means the first real record the new system stores. Several parameters must be in place before that moment, because once events exist in one shape they cannot be reshaped.
Used in: N01 · N21 · N09 · N12 · N19 In requirements: NFR-P-001 · NFR-A-006 · NFR-SEC-009 · NFR-M-001 · NFR-I-004 · INT-023
- Evidence programme
The first 90 days of the programme, used to test assumptions and settle early decisions. "Day 45" and "Day 90" count from its start.
- Evidence succession set
The stream of versions of one logical fact about one subject: the aggregate of the event-sourced Evidence & Verification context. Record, Correct, Supersede, Verify and Invalidate commands append to it; current state is a projection (DR-020).
- Evidence tier (E1–E4)
Levels of proof kept about cross-organisation exchanges, from basic attributable logs (E1) to signed messages (E4).
In requirements: NFR-SEC-010 · INT-022
- Excision test
Removing the product behind an interface and counting how many interface changes that forces. The target is zero.
In requirements: NFR-I-001
- Extended Family Program
The program under which a director makes an agreement under section 8 of the CFCSA with a person to whom a parent has given care of a child. It is one of the out-of-care arrangements, in which the child is not in the director's care.
- Fact (evidence)
A piece of information about a client that someone has claimed is true, such as their income.
In the new system a fact is never just a value like “$1,100”. It is a claim: who said it, what period it covers, and when the system learned it. The site mostly calls these claims evidence, because they are what a decision rests on. Where it says “fact”, it means a claim of this kind, never a bare value.
The Evidence page shows how this works, with a worked example.
See it at work: Evidence Used in: N01 · N02 · N08 In requirements: FR-014 · FR-073 · NFR-A-002
- Family development response
One of the two responses to a child protection report that needs a protection response; the other is an investigation. It is the primary response where there is no severe physical abuse or severe neglect and the parents are able and willing to take part in collaborative assessment and planning.
- Federal Act
An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families (Canada). Under it an Indigenous governing body may make Indigenous laws for child and family services and ask for a coordination agreement, and notice must be given before a significant measure is taken for an Indigenous child.
In requirements: INT-028
- FMEP
The Family Maintenance Enforcement Program, which collects court-ordered support. The ministry must disclose some debtor information to it on request.
In requirements: INT-024
- FOIPPA
The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, B.C.’s main privacy and access law.
It gives people the right to see records the government holds, including records about themselves. It also protects other people’s personal information. When the ministry releases a record, FOIPPA decides which details must be removed first.
- Group of clients
A set of clients moved from the old system to the new one together.
The new system will not replace the old one in a single day. Clients move across in groups, for example by programme or by region. Architects often call a group like this a cohort. Rules N05 and N14 are written per group, because for each group exactly one system must be in charge, and the group must be able to move back.
Used in: N05 · N14 In requirements: BR-011 · NFR-P-005 · NFR-A-008 · INT-023
- Hash, digest, hash chain
A digest is a short fingerprint of data that changes if the data changes; a hash chain links records by fingerprint so any tampering shows.
In requirements: FR-008 · NFR-SEC-009 · NFR-C-002
- Headroom factor
Extra capacity planned above the measured peak.
- Homestudy
The assessment the Adoption Regulation requires of prospective adoptive parents' ability to provide for a child's physical and emotional needs, set out in a written report. Each later update is part of the homestudy.
- Human decision-maker
A named person with authority who decides, as opposed to the system computing a result. Some decisions must have one by law or policy.
- Idempotent
Safe to repeat: doing it twice has the same effect as doing it once. Payment submission must be idempotent.
- Identity assurance level
How confident the system can be that a person is who they say they are. Level 3 means identity was verified in person or equivalent.
In requirements: FR-027 · FR-088 · NFR-SEC-001 · INT-005
- Indigenous authority
A body or entity, including an Indigenous governing body, that is authorized by an Indigenous governing body to provide Indigenous child and family services under Indigenous law (CFCSA section 1). It is not a synonym for Indigenous governing body or Indigenous community.
In requirements: NFR-A-010 · INT-026 · INT-027 · INT-035 · DR-022 · DR-028
- Indigenous child
Under the CFCSA: a First Nation child, a Nisga'a child or a Treaty First Nation child; a child below the age the Act sets who has a biological parent of Indigenous ancestry, including Métis and Inuit, who considers themselves Indigenous; a child at or over that age who has Indigenous ancestry and considers themselves Indigenous; or a child an Indigenous governing body or Indigenous authority confirms, by advising a director, belongs to an Indigenous community.
- Indigenous community
Used as each source uses it; no definition was found in the passages read. It is not the same as an Indigenous governing body or an Indigenous authority, and the duties owed to each differ. Agreements under section 92.1 of the CFCSA are made with a First Nation, the Nisga'a Nation, a Treaty First Nation or a legal entity representing another Indigenous community.
- Indigenous governing body
Has the meaning given in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (CFCSA section 1). It makes Indigenous law, may authorize an Indigenous authority, and receives notice of a significant measure where it has informed the director that it acts for the child's Indigenous group, community or people.
- Indigenous law
A law in relation to Indigenous child and family services made by an Indigenous governing body under its law-making authority (CFCSA section 1).
In requirements: INT-027
- Information Management Act, ARCS and ORCS
The law and the approved schedules (administrative and operational records classification systems) that say how long government records are kept and how they are destroyed.
- Interface
The agreed way one system asks another for information or asks it to do something.
An interface is like a published contract. It says what you can ask for, in what form, and what you get back. Other systems are built to rely on it, so it has to stay stable for a long time.
N10 asks that interfaces use the ministry’s own words, so that the product behind one can be swapped out without anyone who uses it noticing.
Used in: N10 · N16 In requirements: FR-086 · NFR-P-001 · NFR-A-001 · NFR-M-001 · NFR-I-002 · INT-020
- Invalidation, rescission
Invalidation marks an evidence assertion that should never have existed. A tribunal rescission is different: the panel's rescinded determination is recorded as evidence, the original determination stands, annotated with the rescission, and the ministry makes a new retroactive determination (ADR-004). (v1.3 read "Invalidation cancels a decision without replacing it, as when the tribunal rescinds one".)
- Issuance run
A scheduled batch of payments with a cutoff, an approval and control totals.
- Issuance Service (payment chokepoint)
The single service every payment must pass through. No other part of the system can send money.
In requirements: FR-042 · FR-100 · FR-060 · FR-097 · NFR-M-006 · INT-001
- Judicial review
A court's review of a tribunal decision, the last step after an appeal.
- Keeping personal details separately
Storing the details that identify a person in one place, and only a reference to them everywhere else.
Instead of writing a person’s name and details into every record, the history holds a reference number. The details live in one separate store. Deleting them there makes every record that points to them anonymous. Architects call this indirection. It is one of the methods N12 allows, chosen for each kind of fact.
- Lakehouse, analytics platform
One governed store for analysis and reporting, so consumers query data without making new copies.
In requirements: FR-096
- Legacy assertion time
When the old system recorded a fact, for records moved from it.
Records moved from the old system all arrive in the new one on the same day. If that day were used as the date the ministry learned each fact, fifteen years of history would look as though it arrived at once. So each moved fact keeps a third date: when the old system recorded it. It carries a confidence marker, because the old record often cannot show it. Where the date is unknown, the system says so rather than guessing.
N01 asks for all three dates on every fact: valid time, transaction time and this one.
- Legal time limit
A deadline set in law or policy, such as the time the ministry has to decide.
Many steps in the ministry’s work have a deadline. A client has 20 business days to ask for a reconsideration. The ministry then has 10 business days to decide, or 20 with an approved extension. Some limits count business days and some count calendar days.
Missing some limits changes what the client is owed. That makes them part of the entitlement, not just a service standard, which is why N19 asks the system to track them.
- Limit on use
A rule that the ministry may hold a piece of information but not use it for a particular purpose.
Holding information lawfully is not the same as being allowed to use it for anything. Policy sometimes bars a use: a detail that must not count in a calculation, content that must not be shared with a certain party, a subject that must not be raised. N21 asks that the limit stays attached to the information, so it goes with every copy and the system can enforce it.
Used in: N21
- Migration event
A recorded event saying a record was imported from the old system, rather than inventing events that never happened.
- Modern Treaty land
Land held by a First Nation under a modern treaty, where the Nation may run its own assistance program.
- Module (M0–M9)
A stage of delivery in the architecture. Each module is meant to be in use before the next is funded; M0 builds foundations and replaces nothing.
- MoSCoW priority
MUST_HAVE, SHOULD_HAVE, COULD_HAVE and WONT_HAVE: how essential a requirement is.
- Moving back (rollback)
Returning a group of clients from the new system to the old one if something goes wrong.
Any large change needs a way back. N14 asks that moving a group back needs no special data project, and that an approved statement lists what information would not survive the trip. The old system cannot hold some of what the new one records, so something is always lost. The question is whether everyone knows what.
Used in: N14 In requirements: FR-047 · NFR-A-006 · NFR-M-006 · DR-015
- Non-Crown participant
A party that is not the provincial government, such as an Indigenous governing body acting under its own jurisdiction. Its legal authority is described in its own terms, not as a provincial law section.
- Obligation (OB-)
Something the policy manual requires the ministry to do or not do. The 270 obligations are numbered OB-xx-nn and each is traced to a requirement.
In requirements: BR-013
- OCAP
First Nations principles of ownership, control, access and possession of their own data.
- OIDC, token exchange
OpenID Connect is the standard sign-in protocol. Token exchange (RFC 8693) passes a user's authority to another organisation; rich authorization requests (RFC 9396) carry the legal basis with it.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-001 · INT-005
- Openness agreement
An agreement between a prospective adoptive parent and another individual with a significant relationship with the child, setting out the type and frequency of contact after adoption. It is made in good faith and is not intended to be enforceable in court.
- Overpayment, administrative error
An overpayment is money paid that was not owed. When the ministry caused it (administrative error), different recovery rules apply.
- p95, p99
The response time that 95% or 99% of requests are faster than.
- Pacific Blue Cross, CLBC, BCANDS
Outside bodies that make some decisions for the ministry: Pacific Blue Cross (dental, optical and hearing supplements), Community Living BC (travel supplement) and the BC Aboriginal Network on Disability Society (on-reserve disability designations).
- Parameter
A rule the design must follow, written so a reviewer can check whether it does.
Each parameter comes with a question you can ask of the running system. If the answer is wrong, the design has broken the rule. There are twenty-one. Each has a code from N01 to N21, which matches the full statement in the architecture documents.
See it at work: Parameters Used in: N18
- Part of the system (domain)
One area of the ministry’s work, with its own data and its own rules, such as Payments or Overpayments.
The new system is built as separate parts, each responsible for one area of the work. Architects call these domains. Each part owns its own data. Parts talk to each other only by sending facts and decisions, never by reaching into each other’s databases.
See it at work: Domains Used in: N02 · N03 · N04 · N06 · N21 In requirements: NFR-A-009 · NFR-SEC-008
- Partition, partition predicate
Splitting a large table into parts (for example by date) so a query reads only the part it needs.
In requirements: NFR-P-006
- Payment instruction
The record of one payment to be made, linked to the decision it pays. It is never edited, only cancelled and replaced.
In requirements: BR-013 · FR-033 · FR-042 · NFR-A-002 · INT-017
- PCI-DSS
The card industry's security standard. Keeping card data out of ministry systems keeps them outside its scope.
- PCMS
The Provincial Contract Management System (on Salesforce), which manages service-provider contracts. It is a recent system, likely kept.
In requirements: INT-020
- Permanent history (append-only store)
A store where new records are only ever added to the end, and nothing is overwritten.
Instead of changing a record in place, the system adds a new entry saying what changed. That keeps a full history, which is what lets a decision be replayed. But it clashes with the legal duty to destroy some records, and N12 exists to settle that clash before the first record is stored.
Used in: N12
- Permanent transfer of custody
A court order under the CFCSA, made before or after a continuing custody order, that makes a person other than the child's parent the child's guardian. It cannot be enforced, modified or cancelled under the Act and has the same effect as a guardianship order under the Family Law Act.
- Plan of care
A plan relating to a child that contains the information required under the regulations and is prepared in accordance with them (CFCSA section 1). Policy and forms also call it a care plan.
- Policy-as-code
Access rules written as versioned, testable code instead of settings changed by hand.
- Post-adoption assistance
Assistance a director may provide under a written agreement after the adoption of a child the director has designated, on the income and asset tests the Adoption Regulation sets (FR-240).
- Practice run (recovery exercise)
Deliberately taking a service down to prove it can be brought back within its targets.
A recovery plan that has never been tried is a guess. In a practice run the team simulates a failure, restores the service, and measures how long it took and how much data was lost. N16 counts a recovery target as real only once a practice run has met it.
Used in: N16
- Practice-only
Said of a provision that rests on practice material alone (job aids, forms, user guides), with no legislation or policy held to support it. No requirement is written from it, and the missing authority is named.
- Pre-decision communication
A message giving reasons and a response deadline, stating that no decision has been made yet. An aggregate of Eligibility & Entitlement, outside the pure function, carrying a no_decision_made marker (FR-006; ADR-004).
In requirements: FR-006
- Prescribed class
A group of people the regulations treat as meeting disability designation without the usual application, often because another body has already assessed them.
In requirements: FR-030
- Presentation hearing
The summary hearing held soon after a removal or an application for a supervision order, at which the court makes an interim order.
- Prior contact check
A review of all previous records involving the individual who is the subject of the check, collected under the CFCSA or the Adoption Act. It starts only on that person's signed consent (FR-226).
- Program policy authority
The ministry role responsible for a program's policy. It approves how rule outputs are classified and accepts what a rollback would lose.
- Property guardian, personal guardian
Under a continuing custody order the director is the child's sole personal guardian and the Public Guardian and Trustee is the sole property guardian. During a temporary custody order the court may appoint the Public Guardian and Trustee property guardian.
In requirements: INT-035
- Protected A, B, C
Canadian government security classifications for sensitive information, with C the most sensitive. Protected C may only be stored on-premise.
In requirements: NFR-P-006 · NFR-A-009 · NFR-C-001 · INT-001 · DR-003
- Protection hearing
The hearing that follows the presentation hearing and decides whether the child needs protection. It ends or replaces the interim order.
- Provision (CL-)
One thing that children and family services law or policy states, reconciled from two or more register rows and numbered CL-Dn-nnn. Each requirement in groups CF1 to CF18 lists the provisions it meets.
- Pure evaluation
A calculation that uses only the inputs it is given, with no clock, database or network calls, so it gives the same answer every time.
In requirements: FR-090
- PWD and PPMB
Persons with Disabilities designation and Persons with Persistent Multiple Barriers designation. Each gives access to higher rates or different rules.
- RDSP, structured settlement
A Registered Disability Savings Plan; a structured settlement pays compensation in instalments. Both have special treatment in asset rules.
In requirements: FR-017
- Reconsideration
A client’s first step to challenge a decision: asking the ministry to look at it again.
A reconsideration is done inside the ministry, by staff who had no part in the original decision. A client usually has 20 business days to ask for one. Some decisions cannot be reconsidered, and N20 asks the system to record which.
- Reconsideration and Administrative Fairness Unit
The independent ministry unit that makes reconsideration decisions and decides whether reconsideration is available.
- Recovery targets
How quickly a service must be back after a failure, and how much recent data it may lose.
There are two. The recovery time is how long the service may be down before it must be working again. The recovery point is how much recent work may be lost: a recovery point of one hour means at most the last hour of changes. Technical teams call these the RTO and the RPO.
For payments the architecture sets the recovery point at zero: no payment data may be lost at all.
- Register row
One row of the children and family services register: an obligation (OB-), a rule (R-), a time limit (CK-), a record (RC-) or an authority (AU-), each pointing to the passage it came from. Ages, amounts and numbers of days are held in these rows and never stated in a requirement.
- Regression corpus
A set of test cases with known answers that every rules change must still pass.
- Release train
A fixed schedule of software releases that changes must wait for.
In requirements: NFR-A-002
- Removal
A director's removal of a child without a court order, on reasonable grounds to believe that the child needs protection and that either the child's health or safety is in immediate danger or no available less disruptive measure is adequate to protect the child. A presentation hearing follows.
- Repayable issuance
Money paid now against a signed promise to repay, which becomes a debt only if a later decision goes against the client. An aggregate of Financial Components, which decides nothing; interim assistance pending reconsideration or appeal is its principal instance (FR-041; ADR-005).
In requirements: FR-041
- Replay
Running a past decision again, from its stored inputs, to show exactly how it was reached.
If a client appeals a decision made years ago, the ministry has to show what it decided and why. Replay means feeding the same rules and the same facts back through the same calculation, and getting exactly the same answer.
That only works if the calculation used nothing but its inputs (N07), and if every input was saved (N08).
See it at work: Determinations Used in: N07 · N08 · N09 · N11 · N12 In requirements: BR-002 · BR-007 · FR-008 · FR-011 · FR-058 · FR-065 · FR-091 · NFR-P-003and 6 more
- Replay horizon
How long past decisions can be re-run, and what serves as the record after that.
In requirements: DR-008
- Reportable circumstance
A fatality, critical injury or serious incident involving a child or youth that meets the tests policy sets, and so must be reported within the time limit policy sets to the people and bodies entitled to the report (FR-337 to FR-339).
- Retention schedule
The official list of how long each kind of government record must be kept.
Government records are kept for set periods and then destroyed or archived. A schedule might say case files are kept for a set number of years after the case closes. Deleting a whole kind of record when its time comes is the default method in N12, and most kinds of record end this way.
Used in: N12
- Rules engine
The software that applies the entitlement rules to a client’s facts to reach a decision.
The rules for each benefit are written down in a form a computer can follow. The rules engine takes those rules and a client’s facts, and works out the result. Each version of the rules, and each version of the engine, is kept, so an old decision can be replayed exactly as it was made.
N07 asks that the engine is sealed off: it may use only what it is handed, never the clock, a database or another service.
Used in: N07 · N08 In requirements: FR-001 · FR-102 · FR-061 · FR-090 · FR-095
- Rules register
The list of every policy rule with its source page, effective dates and status, held apart from the requirements so that dollar amounts and day counts live in one place.
In requirements: BR-014 · FR-010 · FR-016 · FR-037 · FR-048 · FR-101
- Safety plan agreement
An agreement made under Division 1.1 of Part 3 of the CFCSA. Policy describes it as a voluntary plan to keep the child or youth safe until the assessment or investigation has concluded, or when a court order has been applied for but not yet granted.
- SBOM, penetration test
A software bill of materials lists every component in a system; a penetration test is an authorised attack to find weaknesses.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-007 · NFR-C-006
- Secure Data Exchange
The Province's gateway for sharing personal information between ministries. All cross-ministry traffic goes through it.
In requirements: INT-013
- Separation of duties
Making sure no one person controls every step, so each step checks the one before.
Policy sets three separations. The person who reviews a decision cannot be the one who made it. The person who speaks for the ministry at an appeal cannot be either of them. And working out a payment, approving it and releasing it are done by different people. N17 asks the system to enforce these, rather than leaving it to rosters.
- Service line
One of the eight areas of the ministry's work that each requirement is tagged with: child protection and family services, guardianship, adoption and permanency, youth transitions, children and youth with support needs, early years and inclusion, children and youth mental health, and youth justice. A requirement that applies to all of them is tagged ministry-wide.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-013
- Set-off
Recovering a debt by deducting it from another amount the ministry owes the same person.
- Severing
Removing protected details from a record before it is released.
A record given to a client can contain information they are not entitled to see, such as details about another person. FOIPPA says which details must be removed first. Doing this by hand on a large record is slow and easy to get wrong. N08 asks that the decision record can be severed on demand.
Used in: N08
- Shadow comparison
Running the new system's calculation on the same inputs as the old one and classifying every difference before switching over.
- Shadow root, shadow DOM
A browser feature that hides a component's inner structure. It can break links assistive technology relies on.
In requirements: NFR-U-004
- Shred-survivor set
The fixed list of facts that stay readable after a person's records are destroyed, such as payment totals and disclosure records.
- Significant measure
A measure for an Indigenous child that needs prior notice to the parent, the care provider and the Indigenous governing body. The federal Act does not define the term; policy lists the measures under the CFCSA that count, and the system holds that list as dated reference data (FR-136).
In requirements: INT-028
- SLO, SLA, error budget
A service level objective or agreement is a stated performance target; the error budget is how much failure the target allows.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-004 · NFR-M-001
- SOP (standard operating procedure)
A ministry procedure telling staff how to do a task. SOPs are evidence of current practice, not the authority for a requirement.
- Source (provenance)
Where a fact came from: who said it, and which record it was taken from.
Architects call this provenance. It is what lets you judge how far to trust a fact, and what lets a correction find every copy that needs fixing. Once a fact is passed on without it, it cannot be added back later.
- Source hierarchy (Tier 1, 2, 3)
The ranking of sources used to decide what the system must do: Tier 1 is legislation, Tier 2 is the policy manual, Tier 3 is practice (procedures, job aids, spreadsheets). A higher tier wins any conflict.
- Special needs agreement
A written agreement under section 7 of the CFCSA by which a parent keeps custody and gives the director care of a child with a special need. Policy defines a special need as a documented significant impairment that requires specialized care and support.
- Specified adult
A person at or over the age the CFCSA sets for whom services under the Act, or Indigenous child and family services, were provided while the person was a child (CFCSA section 1). A director may make an agreement with a specified adult who meets the regulation's criteria (FR-224).
In requirements: DR-028
- Statutory administrative decision
A decision made under a law about a person's rights or benefits. It carries a duty to give reasons and a right to challenge.
- Statutory basis
The section of a law or regulation that grants an entitlement.
- Statutory decision-maker
The person the law gives authority to make a program's decisions. Only they can approve a class of decisions to be issued without human review.
In requirements: FR-093
- Store
A place where data is kept, such as a database.
The new system has many stores. Some are built to answer questions quickly and are refreshed from the main history a moment after it changes. That short delay is normal, but it means a store can be briefly behind. N09 is about what a decision must do about that.
Used in: N09
- Subsidiary ledger
The ministry's own record of what it owes, pays and recovers, reconciled to the corporate financial system.
In requirements: FR-045 · FR-053 · FR-102 · FR-103 · NFR-U-002
- Supervision order
A court order under the CFCSA that the director supervise a child's care, with the terms and conditions the court attaches. The director may apply for one without removing the child (FR-184, FR-193).
- Support services agreement
A written agreement under section 5 of the CFCSA between a director and the parent of a child, for services or support to help the family care for the child.
- Synchronous, asynchronous
Synchronous means the user waits for the answer; asynchronous means the work is queued and the answer comes later.
In requirements: NFR-A-003
- System of record
The one system in charge of a record, whose version counts when there is a disagreement.
While the old and new systems run side by side, the same record may exist in both. N05 says only one of them may change it at a time, for each group of clients. The other system can read it, but cannot write to it.
Used in: N05 In requirements: FR-047 · NFR-A-009 · NFR-SEC-003
- Target architecture
The architecture document (version 2) describing the system that replaces ICM and MIS.
In requirements: FR-099
- Telemetry, observability, OpenTelemetry
Data a system emits about its own behaviour (logs, metrics, traces) so problems can be found; OpenTelemetry is the open standard for it.
- TEMPORALLY_UNVERIFIED, INDETERMINATE
TEMPORALLY_UNVERIFIED marks a determination answering a valid-time question from migrated facts whose old-system dates are unknown: it can show an amount but not what the ministry knew at the time. INDETERMINATE is what a knowledge-state question (what did the ministry know, and when?) returns on such a fact; it never substitutes the import date (DR-013; ADR-002).
In requirements: DR-013
- Temporary custody order
A court order under the CFCSA that places a child in the custody of a director or of a person other than the parent for a term. The Act limits each term and the total time a child may spend in temporary custody (FR-192).
- The old system (ICM and MIS)
The two systems that do the ministry’s case work today, and that the new system will replace.
ICM, short for Integrated Case Management, is a customer relationship management product adapted for government. MIS is a mainframe built in 1982. The two run side by side and share the core programs between them, so the site calls them together “the old system”.
For years the old and new systems will run side by side while groups of clients move across. The Current State page explains how the work is done today.
See it at work: Current State Used in: N01 · N03 · N10 · N14 In requirements: BR-001 · BR-011 · FR-095 · FR-098 · NFR-P-001 · NFR-S-001 · INT-013 · INT-023
- Threat model, runbook
A threat model lists how a part of the system could be attacked; a runbook is a written step-by-step procedure for operations staff.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-008 · NFR-C-006 · NFR-M-006
- Three dates (tri-temporal)
Each fact records when it was true, when this system learned it, and, for migrated facts, when the old system recorded it.
- Three-way reconciliation
Daily checking that the ministry's ledger, the bank's settlement files and the corporate financial system agree.
In requirements: NFR-P-002
- Tier-1 component
A service whose failure stops payments or decisions, covered by 24-hour on-call.
- TLS, mutual TLS, SFTP
Encryption for data in transit. Mutual TLS has both sides prove who they are; SFTP is secure file transfer.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-005 · INT-001
- Tombstone
A marker left in place of destroyed data, so replay knows something was there and was lawfully destroyed.
- Transaction time
When the system learned a fact.
This is the date the fact was recorded, which is often later than when it became true. Together with valid time, it lets the ministry answer two separate questions a tribunal will ask: what was true, and what did the ministry know at the time? For records moved from the old system, this is the date they were moved. A third date, legacy assertion time, holds when the old system recorded them.
- Transition
The years when the old and new systems run side by side while clients move across.
Replacing a system this size is done in stages. During the transition, some clients are in the new system and some are still in the old one. Most of the risk in a replacement sits here, and several parameters are written for it.
Used in: N05
- Translation layer
Temporary software that lets the new interfaces talk to the old system.
The new interfaces use the ministry’s words. The old system uses its own. The translation layer sits between them and converts one into the other. Architects call it an anti-corruption layer, because it stops the old system’s way of doing things leaking into the new design.
It is meant to be thrown away once the old system is gone. N10 asks that nobody mistakes it for something permanent.
Used in: N10 · N16 In requirements: NFR-P-001 · NFR-A-008 · NFR-I-001 · INT-023
- Tribunal
An independent body that hears appeals against ministry decisions.
For most income and disability assistance decisions, this is the Employment and Assistance Appeal Tribunal. Some entitlements go to a different body, which is why N20 records the body for each one.
A tribunal will ask how a decision was reached and what the ministry knew at the time. Several parameters exist so the ministry can answer from the record rather than from memory.
- True-up
Working out, once the real decision is made, the difference between what an emergency payment paid and what was owed.
- Valid time
The period during which a fact was true in the world.
A client’s income of $1,100 might be true from March to June. That period is its valid time. It is separate from when the ministry found out, which is transaction time, and from when the old system recorded it, which is legacy assertion time. Keeping all three lets the ministry recalculate the past correctly when it learns something late.
See it at work: Evidence Used in: N01 In requirements: DR-001 · DR-010
- Variant
A version of an entitlement with its own conditions, such as a supplement for one group of clients.
Some entitlements come in several forms. A variant can differ from its parent in who hears an appeal, or even in whether it can be reconsidered at all. N20 records these details for each variant, and never copies them from the parent.
- Voluntary care agreement
A written agreement under section 6 of the CFCSA by which a parent keeps custody, gives care of the child to the director and delegates as much guardianship authority as the agreement needs. The child is in care while it runs.
- Watermark
A marker recording exactly how far through the system’s history a decision read.
A decision reads its facts from a store that is filled from several streams of events, each updating on its own schedule. The watermark is the point in time up to which that store has applied every event from every one of those streams. It is set by the stream furthest behind. It is not the last event the decision happened to see, because a later event can arrive while an earlier one is still missing.
Writing the watermark into the decision record shows exactly which version of the facts the decision was based on. Setting a limit on how far behind a store may be stops a decision being made from an out-of-date view.
- Work item
A task assigned to a person or team, with a due date, priority and history.
In requirements: FR-009 · FR-014 · FR-028 · FR-038 · FR-044 · FR-101 · FR-059 · FR-067and 7 more
- Write-back
Copying changes from the new system back into the old one so its reports and interfaces keep working during the move.
In requirements: NFR-SEC-011 · NFR-M-003 · INT-023 · DR-014
- Youth agreement
A written agreement under section 12.2 of the CFCSA between a director and a youth, who signs in their own right and is not a child in care. It includes a plan for independence, and the Act limits its term (FR-220 to FR-222).