What an ignorant comment

On October 29, 2009 in the Toronto Star, their editorial page writer, Haroon Siddiqui wrote about a distinguished public servant Max Yalden. In the process of lauding Mr. Yalden for his many accomplishments, Mr. Siddiqui wrote the following:

"He used common sense, had a sense of humour and, rare for a bureaucrat, principles."

Well, excuse me, Mr Siddiqui....rare for a bureaucrat to have principles...WTF!! The vast majority of public servants in Canada have strong principles. In your comment, which I can only assume is based on ignorance (or is malicious?), you have slapped in the face the countless dedicated and principled public servants across Canada. These public servants are in their job because they believe in public service, they espouse the principles of public service every day in their actions. I would urge you to read IPAC's Statement of Principles Regarding the Conduct of Public Employees and IPAC's Public Servant's Commitments to acquaint yourself of the principles that public servants follow day in and day out.

All public servants across Canada await your apology.

New Professionals Conference - Halifax....WOW!!!

Well IPAC's 3rd New Professionals conference just ended...I can sum it up in one word...INCREDIBLE!! If you where not here you missed a great conference. The organizing committee organized a stellar program...and 530 delegates would agree. That's right, 530 New Professionals (and some not s.o "new") from around the country attended this conference in Halifax. If you missed it you missed a great opportunity to hear from keynote speakers, from concurrent session speakers, to debate issue at the forefront of public administration and policy and to meet your peers from all orders of government from across Canada and some from other countries as well.

I will be posting a little more on the conference once I catch my breath and organize my thoughts. The presentations from the conference will also be posted on the members section of the IPAC website very soon. I will let you know when they are available.

In the meantime, hats off to the Conference organizers....I do not want to miss naming anyone, so please view the organizing committee here.

BRIGHT Sunshine Law

As some people may know, the Government of Ontario annually puts out a "sunshine list" which provides a list of all public sector employees who make more than $100,000 per year. The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act was brought into effect in 1996 with that $100,000 threshold. Obviously as the years go by the list becomes larger as more employees enter into the $100K club. And every year, columnists and others comment upon the number of people on the list and use that to denigrate public service.

Imagine then what it would be like to have everyone publicly divulge their earnings. Well, there is a country that does that - Norway. Every year, the tax returns of all citizens is made public - and citizens can go online to see what their neighbours earn and the amount of their wealth. Read more about it here.

I'm not sure what public policy objective this law in Norway serves. What do you think?

Citizens demanding higher taxes?

You are probably thinking that I am smoking some funny cigarettes or have been hitting the bottle. Taxpayers wanting to pay more taxes? Are you crazy?

But yes, a group of rich Germans have started a petition asking the government to implement a 5% wealth tax for two years. This money would be used to deal with the social and economic needs during this recovery period. Check out the full article on the BBC website.

Now do you think that the wealthy in Canada would make the same request?

Fiscal Advice for Governments

The TD Bank reported today that the cumulative deficits of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments will add up to $90 Billion this year. And today, the government of Ontario announced a record-breaking projected deficit for this fiscal year of $24.7 Billion and projected deficits of $21.1B in 2010-11 and $19.4B in 2011-12.

These numbers are staggering and governments will not be able to return to balance in the next 5-10 years unless they take a different approach than has been done in the past. Past expenditure management initiatives have traditionally been "across the board" in nature with a strategic approach being an exception rather than the rule. But what is facing governments across Canada is quite different than in the past.

So what is a government to do today? Well here are some thoughts to assist in dealing with this situation to add to my previous blog....

1. Focus on the core activities of government - decide on what is the function of government.

2. Get out of activities that are not part of the core responsibilities of government. For example, is it a core function of government to issue cheques? Why can't that be done by the private sector under a stringent service level agreement?

3. Review remaining functions of government to ensure that they are being run as effectively and efficiently as possible. Implement a lean approach to these activities - there are lots of examples in the public sector of organizations that have implemented a lean approach to it processes resulting in higher productivity, quicker turn around times and increased through-put.

4. Ensure that the tax regime raises the funds required to deliver the services that society has decided is needed from government. It is a fallacy to believe that you can have gold plated level of government services with a very low tax rate.

5. Use evidence to make your decisions and set up measurable outcomes to track progress on your activities.

6. Don't spend your time on little nickel and dime amounts. Remember that it takes just as long to review a small program with very limited spending than it does to look at major expenditure areas.

7. Be careful of unintended consequences of your actions - take a systems approach when looking at spending as a reduction in one area may result in a new pressure in another area.

8. Continue to invest in your staff - put your money where your mouth is when you say that your staff are your best "resource". If you truly mean that, then they also need to continue to develop their skills and share experiences with peers across Canada.

This will not be easy and will require for government to act courageously (as Sir Humphrey would say) and look to the long term.

The Learning Organization and Leadership

Organizations keep talking about the importance of being a "learning organization". But what is a learning organization and are the ones that trumpet themselves as such, really learning organizations.

Let's start with a couple of definitions. Peter Senge defined a learning organization as "Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together."

Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell gave this definition: "an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and consciously transforms itself and its context".

But in many cases in the public sector in Canada, people have a very narrow view of what a learning organization is. To them it is merely an organization that provides learning opportunities to its employees. But that is not what a learning organization is. A true learning organization is able to learn from experience and adapt its behaviour to take into account these experiences. But too many times organizations do not learn and end up repeating the same dysfunctional behaviours over and over again. For example, how many times have organizations restructured or reorganized and when they do not achieve the outcomes that were anticipated, they do it all over again, time after time! How many of you have been a part of an organization that keeps reorganizing every 18 - 24 months. All organizational effort is focused on the reorganization which does not accomplish anything, other than angst. And yet, 18 months later the organization begins the same merry-go-round.

Learning organizations have 5 basic characteristics according to Senge. These are:

1. Systems Thinking;
2. Personal Mastery;
3. Mental Models;
4. Shared Vision; and
5. Team Learning

It takes real leadership to develop a learning organization, but organizations that have been able to implement this have seen significant and sustained improvements in productivity, staff morale and outcomes.

IPAC Leadership Conference

On November 5th and 6th, IPAC will be holding its 5th annual Leadership Conference at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto. The theme of the conference this year is Stepping Up to the Plate: Your A-Team in Action.

The theme, topics and conference format are designed help public servants to create and sustain an A-team. Today's leaders must understand the importance of shared leadership. Leaders must focus on the diverse talents required and available to deliver on the organization's vision.

The topics and format for the conferences are designed to build capacity to:

1) Identify and develop the talent required for today and tomorrow
2) Create the synergy: utilize the strengths of each team member
3) Develop collaborative relationships with multiple and diverse stakeholders
4) Motivate and inspire people and align the organization, its strategy, goals and values;
5) Empower and create accountability with individuals and teams.

The speakers line up is a stellar one and I would urge all to attend. For more information on the conference, check out the conference website

In addition to the two day conference, on the evening of November 5th, we will be holding the 2nd annual IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards Gala Dinner. At this dinner, the winners of this year leadership awards will be unveiled in an "Oscar like" evening full of suspense, entertainment (I might wear my mask & cape at the Pantages), and excitement. Don't miss this year's Gala Dinner - it is going to be a great evening.

New Professionals Conference in Halifax

On October 26-28, 2009, IPAC will be holding its 3rd New Professionals Conference in historic Halifax, Nova Scotia. For those who do not know a "New Professional" is anyone, regardless of chronological age, who has been in the public service for less than 5 years. I think that we should also extend the definition to those who are young at heart!

Anyway, the conference organizers have done an extraordinary job pulling this conference together. The conference is divided into 4 thematic blocks with a Keynote speaker and concurrent workshops for each block. These 4 themes are:

1. Creativity & Innovation;
2. The Role & Use of Technology in a Modern Public Sector;
3. Public Engagement; and
4 Sustainability & the Greening of the Public Sector.

And of course, as new professionals you can join the Conference Facebook page or follow the conference on Twitter.

In addition to the serious parts of the conference, I am sure that delegates will enjoy that legendary Maritime hospitality!

I will be providing some short opening remarks for the conference. Karl won't let me give a Fidel Castro type 3 hour address, so I have to keep may remarks to 5 minutes :(

It promises to be a wonderful event and I will be blogging from Halifax to let you know what you are missing.

If you want to register, you still can just go to the Winds of Change website.

See you all in Halifax!

The Rising Tide of Red Ink

I was going to title this blog “Can we part the Modern Red Sea to reach the fiscal balance promised land?”, but apart that it is maybe too long for a blog title, I really couldn’t see who would play the part of Moses. Though there exist a good set of fiscal rules (aka: the 10 commandments) it seems that most have been discarded during these economic times.

Fiscal balance has gone out the window as stimulus spending by governments in Canada and around the world are the order of the day to try to get out of this made in Wall Street greed based recession. In the USA, there have been bank bailouts, auto bailouts, mortgage lender bailouts, Wall Street investment firm bailouts…it is a wonder that there are any pails left to bail out all the companies under water. In Canada, what was once a land full of fiscal surpluses has turned into a sea of red ink. The federal Government is projecting a deficit of over of $50 Billion. the Ontario government is updating its forecast in its upcoming Fall statement – the last official deficit number was $18.5 B this fiscal year. Watch for it to be easily north of $20 B. Alberta is swimming in red ink ($7 B deficit) instead of oil and gas revenues.

In the first battle against the deficit of the mid-1990’s, the Federal government substantially reduced transfers to provinces as one of their deficit reducing measures. Provincial governments, in turn, reduced spending on health care, education, infrastructure and “non-core” government activities. Many governments reduced the internal administrative and policy functions in their operations and outsourced or eliminated public service positions and froze the hiring of new staff. Municipal governments, in many cases, had their funding from the provincial government reduced and thus had to reduce services to their population or increase property taxes (the most regressive forms of taxation in my opinion, but the subject of a future blog).

We are all cognizant of the impact of these measures………deterioration of our infrastructure, increased wait times for health care, reductions in social supports to the most vulnerable in Canada, elimination of cultural grants, and the list goes on.

Well, I guess we are at that point again. Though governments are presently in a spend mode, you can be sure that the guardians of the public purse are developing strategies and options on how to return to fiscal balance. At the political level, some have ruled out tax increases and reductions in spending. Logically all that remains to achieve balance is economic growth. But how long and sustained must that economic growth be before balance is achieved, especially given the fiscal pressures for more investment in health care (aging boomers) and in education and in maintaining our infrastructure. And this does not include government support to help develop the nirvana of the new economy.

Others will want to cut "fat, waste and inefficiency" in government and in the broader public sector. But governments have been through these processes ever since the 1990's. Many times, governments just implement across the board reductions (while exempting health care & education) that yield little in terms of sustainable savings.

What we need in this country is a new way to look at what government spends the taxpayers money on. We need to take a systems approach to programs and policies; determine what is the exact role of government; and coordinate between the different orders of government by taking a "citizen-based" view. Let me give you a small example. In British Columbia, the Provincial Health Authority has implemented a program called imProve that is looking at the processes in the hospital to make sure that they are focused on the patient. They have been able to streamline processes throughout their hospitals resulting in better patient safety and better quality. At they same time they are able to deliver more services to more patients with the same level of resources.

The old approach to budget constraints will not work. Now is the time for new innovative and bold approaches. Within an efficient and citizen centred provision of services, Canadians must decide what they want from their government and be prepared to pay the appropriate level of tax to sustain those programs and services.

Ministerial Accountability - part 2

I've been thinking some more on the issue of Ministerial Accountability as a result of the fallout of the eHealth debacle in Ontario and past issues in other governments across Canada that resulted in the resignation of a Minister as a result of what is in fact an administrative matter.

There has been quite a lot written on ministerial accountability and ministerial responsibility. One of Canada's preeminent scholars, Donald Savoie, has written on this topic. In his recent book Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (published as part of the IPAC Series in Public Management and Governance), Mr. Savoie writes about ministerial accountability and responsibility. He writes about the UK model, where "under the Minister, the head of the department, as the Accounting Officer, is also personally responsible and accountable to Parliament for the management and organisation of the department..." I would encourage anyone interested in learning more about this topic to read Mr. Savoie's book. (IPAC members get a 20% discount on these books - order here).

Another interesting read is the report from the Library of Parliament entitled"The Accountability of Deputy Ministers before Parliament"(March 2006). This short paper succinctly lays out the history and evolution of accountability of Deputy Ministers for the administration of their department as well as the concept of Ministerial Accountability. The paper provides a background on the role of the Deputy Minister at the Federal level and the debate about her/his accountability. The Lambert Commission (1979) recommended that the Deputy be clearly accountable for the administration of the department. The McGrath Commission (1986) echoed this recommendation.

It is only logical that the permanent public service be held accountable for the operational/administrative functioning of their department or agency. After all, they are the experts in terms of administration. A Minister often does not even have the subject matter background in the portfolio that has been entrusted to them. They rely on the professional public service and their Deputy Minister for advise on how best to implement their political direction. I believe that there is a need to clarify the roles of the Minister and Deputy Minister to ensure clear accountability.

The Limits of Ministerial Accountability

Today's Ontario Auditor's report on eHealth has got me thinking about the concept of "ministerial accountability". Under this concept, the Minister is held responsible for anything that happens in his or her ministry. If anything goes wrong, it is laid at the feet of the Minister. And critics call for the Minister to resign.

I think that the concept of ministerial accountability should be balanced to take into account the responsibility of the Minister and the Deputy Minister. In my understanding, the Deputy Minister (or Deputy Head - CEO, etc) is responsible and accountable for the proper administration of the ministry or agency. The Minister should not get involved in the day to day administrative issues of the ministry. The Minister is responsible for providing the broad policy (and small p political) direction of the ministry.

We get into trouble when this line becomes blurred and Ministers try to administratively run the operations of the ministry/agency. We have seen this blurring much too often in legislatures across the country and in the media. Whenever anything goes wrong that is operational in nature, critics call for the resignation of the Minister. But when we look at what went wrong and why, it is often an administrative matter that is the responsibility of the public service.

Unless there is complete incompetence or malfeasance that should be dealt with severely, a true learning organization learns from its mistakes and ensures that procedures and processes are changed to ensure better results.

As I was thinking about the role of the Minister and of the Deputy Minister, I remembered a classic episode from “Yes, Minister” about Government Policy. In this clip, Sir Humphrey is called in front of a Parliamentary Committee to answer questions on a government policy. His view is that the Minister answers questions about policy, while the civil service answers questions about administration.



Obviously this is a comedic view of the difference between policy & administration and having appeared in front of quite a few legislative committees I can testify that this is not how the public services answer questions - but I felt we all deserved a good chuckle!

I understand the politics that are at play in any of these issues across the country, but I guess what I am saying is that there should be a better understanding of the roles of the key players in government and that accountability must be tied to a person's responsibility and ability to affect change.

I will be coming back to this topic in the next while.

The Law of Uninteded Consequences

I am sure that many of you have been reading about the upcoming report from the Auditor General of Ontario on the administration of the eHealth file in Ontario. The report is supposed to be released tomorrow morning, but already leaks about the content of the report are to be found in the media (side note: wonder where those leaks are coming from? To quote my favourite sage - Sir Humphrey - "the ship of state leaks from the top").

In anticipation of that report and as a result of the slew of untendered contracts put out by eHealth and others, the Government of Ontario has laid down the law - all contracts, no matter what value are to be competitively tendered. Previously the rule (brought into effect in 1985) was that all contracts over $25,000 had to be competitively tendered. Contracts with a value under this threshold could be sole sourced (with appropriate rules around follow-on work).

So what are the implications of competitively tendering everything? Let me give you an example that I recently heard about. An RFP was sent to a number of consulting firms for work with an estimated value of $1000. That's right, for One Thousand Dollars. In addition, the recipients had to adhere to and send in all the paper work that went along with this RFP. The paper work is basically the same for $1000 as it is for $100,000.

This overreaction leads to unintended consequences.

And from Wikipedia, for those who like definitions: The "law of unintended consequences" (also called the "law of unforeseen consequences") states that any purposeful action will produce some unanticipated or unintended consequences.

This maxim is not a scientific law; it is more in line with Murphy's law as a warning against the hubristic belief that humans can fully control the world around them. Stated in other words, each cause has more than one effect, and these effects will invariably include at least one unforeseen side effect. The unintended side effect can potentially be more significant than any of the intended effects.

The unintended consequences will rear their ugly head in reduced innovation, slower implementation of key initiatives, and more and more red tape. The pendulum has swung to the rules based approach to government with approaches that do not fit within a predetermined and rigid framework are not even considered. The message this sends out is no more innovation, no more calculated risk-taking, just follow the rules.

In 1988, in a report for the Office of the Auditor General (Canada), Otto Brodtrick wrote:

“Well-performing organizations encourage risk taking. They are willing to try new methods when common sense dictates that better results can be achieved by following the spirit of a regulation, instead of the letter. However, staff must hold the values of stewardship, service and results, and they must consult with each other. When their people are governed by these values, the well-performing organizations encourage risk taking as a matter of strategy.”

What Otto put out in 1988 was true then and is even more so today! Let us not lose the spirit of innovation in the stampede to put rules around everything.