Management in the Government of Canada: A Commitment to Continuous Improvement

INTRODUCTION

The Government of Canada has a significant impact on the lives of Canadians. Its policies, programs, and services support our economic competitiveness, our social and cultural infrastructure, the health of our environment, and the well-being of our communities and citizens.

The government is the largest organization in the country, with over $200 billion in annual expenditures, 1,600 programs and services, 200 organizations, and over 350 million transactions each year. It manages the biggest workforce-450,000 employees-and buys more goods and services than almost any other Canadian enterprise. Given the number of collaborative arrangements it has among its own institutions and with other governments, official language minority communities, Aboriginal communities, and non governmental players, the various ways in which it is held accountable are complex.

For these reasons, sound public-sector management matters. Good management is about being accountable and transparent. It is about building an integrated, responsive government that can leverage information and manage resources and relationships in innovative ways to deliver public value.
This is a plan to improve management in the Government of Canada, one that will require several years to implement and the investment of resources. However, as the government did in other large initiatives-eliminating the fiscal deficit, laying the foundation for a competitive economy, and ensuring the sustainability of social security-it will deliver public service excellence and meet the needs of Canadians with integrity.

WHY IMPROVE PUBLIC-SECTOR MANAGEMENT?

Over the years, the Government of Canada has made many advances in public-sector management. Like other organizations, both private and public, it has adapted its management practices to reflect changing circumstances. While the government has made solid progress in some areas (see Annex), in others it is lagging behind. A change in its management approach is needed to respond to the present and emerging challenges that Canada faces.

More transparency and accountability

A strong focus on transparency and accountability must underlie all of the government's efforts. In each of these areas, improvements are needed. For example, improvements to the quality, clarity, and timeliness of reports to Parliament are needed so that parliamentarians and Canadians can judge the government's performance for themselves. Streamlining its management policies would eliminate the overly complex web of policies that often confounds, rather than promotes, good management. Finally, more effort is needed to help ministers account for the performance of their institutions and to reinforce accountability relationships between ministers and their deputy ministers.

Stronger internal controls and oversight

Sound management requires strong oversight functions within departments and agencies and clear direction from the Treasury Board on expectations for management performance. Partly as a result of the government's determination to reduce spending over the past decade, it invested insufficiently in core internal control systems-such as internal audit-and in the professionals who do this work. This capacity needs to be rebuilt within departments and agencies, and the Treasury Board needs to provide stronger direction and oversight on management and expenditure issues, as well as the planning and managing of cross-cutting, horizontal programs.

Faster, more responsive service

One of the most profound transformations of the digital economy is the emergence of integrated and responsive services that offer consumers greater choice. When they deal with companies that provide everything from life insurance to software, Canadians talk to service representatives who can anticipate their needs and, if they have a problem, solve it quickly. Canadians expect their government to do likewise. The government has made advances in service delivery, but continuing to meet greater service expectations and provide Canadians with easy access to government information and programs through a variety of channels remains a pressing need.

Maintaining a professional public service

Addressing today's complex and interdependent issues demands continuous learning-by individuals and organizations alike. Developing skills so that employees can perform new tasks and take on new responsibilities is more important than ever. In this environment, the government recognizes that its human resources practices have become too complex and constraining. Extra efforts are needed to ensure the Public Service attracts, retains, and develops the workforce it needs for the 21st century. It must instil a culture of continuous learning and provide employees with career-long training and development, give managers more flexibility in hiring, promote constructive labour-management relations, and improve human resources planning.

Need for coherent planning and management to meet horizontal priorities

Many of the most pressing contemporary issues facing Canadians-for example, international trade, national security, environmental protection, and health care-cut across the mandates of several federal departments and agencies, and some cut across jurisdictions. This horizontality reflects the complexity of modern Canadian society itself. Being able to bring integrated order across policy and program issues is a challenge for all governments and requires the efforts of all responsible players to be co-ordinated - all with their own accountabilities, parliamentary appropriations, and legal responsibilities. The government is making progress in adopting a "big picture" strategic overview of cross-cutting issues in specific important sectors, such as public security and anti-terrorism, climate change, and programs for Aboriginal Canadians. However, too often departments still pursue priorities in isolation.

Managing information better and managing better with information

Reliable and credible information is essential to sound decision making, effectiveness, and accountability. The government must take full advantage of advances in information management and information technology to help it relate spending to results achieved. However, financial and performance reporting systems-and those that support other key administrative functions, such as human resources and materiel management-were originally established on a department by department basis.

These systems are often not compatible, making it difficult to generate an accurate, government wide view of key activities and therefore harder for government to plan horizontally, report on performance, and make rapid decisions. These problems frustrate managers and parliamentarians alike.

CONCLUSION

While it shares many of these management challenges with the private sector, a different approach is needed in the public sector. Although conscious of the need for efficiency and value for money, the government is not driven by the profit motive. Operating within the bounds of the constitution, it serves the public good and balances regional concerns with national imperatives, economic considerations with social benefits, and short term imperatives with long-term objectives. It manages a diverse array of organizational structures, international and federal-provincial agreements, and collective agreements with public-sector unions. It must do all of this in a transparent manner.

Nor are these management issues unique to Canada. As noted in a recent Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD) paper: "Governments in all OECD countries…face the challenge of responding to public demand for more responsive, efficient, and effective government. For most countries, this implies a need to transform government into what is often described as a network form of organization: interconnected agencies that retain their autonomy and flexibility, but operate under a 'single-enterprise' vision of government in which shared resources and common standards allow seamless communication and the efficient and effective pursuit of common objectives."[2]

Pressures to improve public-sector management are interrelated. Lack of horizontal integration impedes the government's ability to provide seamless, responsive service. The inability to aggregate data reliably makes it difficult for government to target resources in areas where it needs capacity. The absence of common performance indicators and the means to report against them undermines transparency and accountability across the full breadth of government operations.