Wayne Reports & Social Media

At the end of March, Wayne Wouters, the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet of the Government of Canada (boy that's a long title), released the 17th annual report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada - it is also Wayne's 1st report as Clerk.

I found it to be a very interesting report on a few fronts. The first is in Wayne's introduction where he underscores the importance of values as a cornerstone of the public service. Values underpin everything that we do and how we do it. It does not matter what the issue is or what new technology exists, public service values matter.

in 1987, IPAC put forth its Statement of Principles Regarding the Conduct of Public Employees that underscore that the public services of Canada be seen as neutral, non-partisan, effective and innovative institutions that serve the best interests of the governments and citizens of this country. In 2005, IPAC, after a wide consultative process put forward the Public Servants Commitments which reflects the values of public servants. Both these documents reflect the values that underpin public service and are reflected in Wayne's report.

The second area that caught my attention was the discussion on the use of Web 2.0 technology to enable public servants to accomplish their jobs more effectively. These collaborative tools are changing the way we do business and I am glad that Wayne is embracing these tools. I have written in the past about the need for governments to embrace these technologies so as to engage in meaningful consultations and dialogues with citizens - what I termed as open source policy development. IPAC has just completed the 1st phase of a study entitled “Social Media and Public Policy Dilemmas” that addresses some of the issues related to Web 2.0 in the public sector.

We held a series of roundtables in cities across Canada to get the views and input of public servants, academics and other interested parties. It is evident from this first phase of the study that there is a need for a concerted and focused attempt to look at the impact of social media on government – from the management of information to how we run our organizations. We will be shortly publishing this report.

If you have not read Wayne's report yet, I would highly recommend that you do so. In future posts I will come back to Wayne's report, especially as it deals with Public Service Renewal.