As part of IPAC's knowledge sharing strategy, IPAC developed "Topical Briefs" on a number of different issues, that is:
E-Government;
Citizen-Centered Service;
Single-Windows and Integrated Service Delivery;
Codes of Ethics;
Performance Measurement;
Whistle-Blowing;
Alternative Service Delivery;
Conflict of Interest; and
Public Private Partnerships
These briefs were written by Ken Kernaghan and funded by the World Bank Institute and is part of our International work. These are wonderful short pieces outlining the key issues under all these topics. Take a look at these....there is much more on the IPAC website as well.
Showing posts with label Accountability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Accountability. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
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.
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.
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