|
A report prepared for the
Federal Regional Councils and
The Treasury Board Secretariat
by
Professor Luc Juillet
Centre on Governance
University of Ottawa
September 15, 2000
Introduction
The complexity of contemporary social problems creates significant
challenges for the administration and coordination of public interventions in many fields
of activity. Many priority areas of government policy, ranging from drug addiction and
population health, ecologically sustainable development and homelessness to regional
socio-economic development, require the design and implementation of complex intervention
strategies involving a multiplicity of government departments, different levels of
government and even organizations from different sectors of society in order to be
effective. However, past experience has shown that traditional bureaucratic structures,
relying on an advanced division of labor, issue-specific departments and hierarchical
(vertical) lines of authority and accountability, are making the coordination of these
cross-cutting (horizontal) interventions difficult for contemporary administrations in
most democratic countries. This situation is increasingly leading public administrations
to examine how they can better deal with horizontal issues at the managerial and policy
levels.
The objective of this study is to examine the evolving role that
federal regional councils play in the management of horizontal issues in the Canadian
Public Service. While federal councils have been in place for many years, they have become
more institutionalized in the last few years and they are becoming more active across a
range of managerial and policy initiatives in the regions. At the same time, as the
Government of Canada is seeking to promote more effective horizontal management in the
formulation and delivery of public services, there seems to be growing expectations about
the potential contribution of the federal councils on this front. How are the councils
positioned to meet such expectations? What makes them effective forums for working
horizontally in the Public Service? What are the key factors that either promote or hinder
the effectiveness of federal regional councils?
This report explores these issues on the basis of a set of twenty
interviews conducted with councils' chairpersons, executive directors, and Treasury
Board Secretariat's representatives. Representatives of all ten federal regional
councils were included in the study. The semi-structured interviews were conducted mostly
by phone between August 9 and September 15, 2000. All interviews were made on the promise
of confidentiality and on a "not for direct attribution" basis. The author also
benefited from the comments and suggestions of the members of the New Brunswick Federal
Council following a presentation of the preliminary findings at one of their meetings. The
report begins with a summary review of the councils' structure and an examination of
the evolution of their role with regards to horizontal management. We then discuss the key
factors that were identified determinants of success as well as those seen as impediments
to effective horizontal work. We conclude with a discussion of the future of councils and
some of the challenges posed by their increasing level of activity.
The federal regional councils and horizontal governance
Federal regional councils were created about twenty years ago as forums
to facilitate the sharing of information among senior federal managers in each province.
While some councils emerged as a result of local initiatives to offer local senior
managers an opportunity for networking and dialogue, most of them were created in an
effort to improve the local coordination of regional economic development initiatives in
the early 1980s. However, in all cases, federal councils have progressively broadened the
set of issues discussed at their table and extended their activities beyond questions of
regional economic development. And the federal councils eventually outlived the regional
development policy that had fostered their creation.
Today, federal regional councils are generally composed of the most
senior officials of all federal departments and agencies present in the province. Their
membership varies from 23 members in Newfoundland to 44 members in Alberta. While
membership is attributed ex officio, participation in the councils' work
remains voluntary. Five of the councils are presided by a voluntary chairperson elected
from the membership and rely on a system of rotation with mandates varying from one to
three years. The other five councils are presided ex officio by the senior
executive of the regional economic development in the province. While since 1997 the
Treasury Board Secretariat has been providing federal regional councils with a core budget
that covers part of their operational costs, much of their budgets are composed of
voluntary departmental contributions made by participating departments.
The role of federal regional councils has evolved considerably since
their creation. While their primary function clearly remains the exchange of information
and the development of personal relationships among senior regional managers, the recent
evolution of the federal Public Service has lead them to engage increasingly in more
advanced forms of horizontal coordination. In particular, when the Public Service faced
substantial cutbacks during the Program Review period, federal councils became privileged
forums to develop and coordinate the provision of locally-shared support services in the
regions. In fact, their successes on this front won them greater support from the Treasury
Board Secretariat. Also in the 1990s, as Public Service renewal initiatives were launched,
the federal councils were increasingly drawn into the coordination of human resources
initiatives that cut across individual departments. Similarly, the councils have become
invaluable sources of input about the local implementation of government-wide
administrative policies and their views are now a regular item on the agenda of the Senior
Management Committee of the Treasury Board Secretariat. In recent years, councils have
played a growing role in the coordination of the communication efforts of the federal
government in each province, attempting to provide both a single message to Canadians and
acting as a unified interlocutors for some stakeholders.
In more recent years, as public administrations across the world have
become more concerned with their relative failure to approach complex, multi-faceted
social problems from an holistic viewpoint and to coordinate their interventions across
departments, more people are turning to federal councils for assistance in dealing with
the formulation and implementation of horizontal policies. Recently, the federal councils
have been asked to play important roles in the management of the government's
national homelessness and urban aboriginal policies. Recognizing the importance of
horizontal coordination of policy interventions, several councils have themselves decided
to collaborate on complex policy files in their region, ranging from industrial and
technology policies to environmental initiatives.
The continuum of functions, ranging from information-sharing and
relationship-building to cooperation on internal managerial files and finally involvement
in the coordination of horizontal policy initiatives, illustrates the multi-faceted nature
of the horizontal role played by the federal regional councils across the country. The
continuum illustrates both the evolution of most of the councils through time (moving from
simple information-sharing to more complex functions) but also the diversity of the
functions currently served by these institutions. It is also important to note that
councils vary substantially from one province to the other. Just as they differ in their
level of institutionalization (more or less developed institutional practices, committee
systems, etc.), they also vary in the degree of their involvement in complex policy files.
And while there is consensus that councils perform very well at the lower end to middle
range of continuum, there is also consensus on the fact that their growing involvement
into the higher end of the continuum raises a number of unresolved issues that will need
to be addressed if councils are to engage more significantly in the coordination of
complex policy files. But before discussing some of these issues in the next sections, we
now turn to the factors that explain the councils' relative success in fostering
horizontal collaboration.
Factors enhancing the councils' effectiveness
From the outset, many interviewees pointed out that, to some extent,
federal regional councils contribute to more effective horizontal management simply by
virtue of their existence. There is often no alternative institutionalized opportunities
for senior managers and executives from different departments in a same region to meet and
discuss issues of common interests. While one could hope that, even if the councils did
not exist, managers and executives would nevertheless regularly get together across
departments, there was widespread agreement that, by providing some impetus for these
regular meetings and a structured forum, the councils significantly contributed to the
development of the closer personal relationships that greatly facilitate
inter-organizational professional collaboration. In this sense, the mere existence of the
councils can be seen as a factor of success. Similarly, the creation of the secretariats
was seen as a development that clearly facilitated the work of the councils over the last
few years by providing a minimal infrastructure to support their operation. However, while
it is worthwhile to point out these preconditions, they do not explain or warrant the
councils' success.
During the interview process, we found a surprising level of consensus
about the key determinants of the councils' success in horizontal work. In probing
the underlying factors that lead to positive results, there was almost unanimous agreement
that the primary determinants of success were more cultural than institutional in nature.
Shared values and understanding of common problems and purpose were clearly considered at
the heart of successful horizontal governance. Leadership at several levels was also seen
as an essential ingredient for the councils' achievements.
Shared values and a sense of community
Federal regional councils are unique institutions because they rely on
the voluntary contribution and personal dedication of their members. This voluntary nature
of the councils' members' work was repeatedly stressed as a key factor for
understanding how they work as institutions of governance. The constructive engagement of
members rests to a great extent on their sense that their time and commitment are
important contributions for the achievement of objectives that are valued both by their
community of peers and themselves. In sum, the collaboration and level of exchanges that
are required for the successful advancement of horizontal initiatives, and that are often
successfully generated by the councils, seem to stem largely from a sense of community
shared by council members. In this sense, while the voluntary nature of the councils'
work is not in itself the source of successful horizontal collaboration, it was
abundantly clear to most interviewees that the level of engagement and commitment for
horizontal objectives generated by the councils' work derived from the members'
personal belief in the value of these common objectives for their community. In the
absence of formal hierarchical incentives, it is this voluntary personal commitment to
shared values that drives collaboration.
When questioning the source of these shared values and this sense of
community, a set of related answers were generally provided. Firstly, most interviewees
agreed that the council members' commitment and engagement partly derived from their
common regional perspective on issues. Common views on what national policies mean for
their regions, and how the federal government is perceived locally as a result, helps
members to agree on shared regional objectives that transcend departmental mandates and
get their commitment to collaborate even if the objectives fall only marginally within
their mandate.
Similarly, many interviewees spoke of a common "front-line"
perspective on service delivery that is found in the regions, where regional employees are
primarily concerned with the hands-on delivery of services and products. Because of their
front-line responsibilities and experiences, they are both typically more focused on
achieving results and more keenly aware of the practical difficulties created by vertical
structures and their associated "silo mentality" for meeting the needs of
citizens and clients. The combination of a focus on results and a practical awareness of
the limitations created by vertical practices helps to bring people together around
horizontal initiatives.
Finally, several interviewees spoke about the need for professional
camaraderie in the regions. As one interviewee put it, "it can be lonely at the top
in the regions. Participating in Council allows you to share some experiences, get some
advice and generally talk about your professional life with peers who go through similar
things". The result is the development of personal relationships which greatly
facilitate collaboration: managers know who to call upon for help and, because of more
developed personal relationships, it is easier to get other managers to collaborate on
common issues for which they assume leadership. Again, it is the sense of belonging to a
regional professional community, which implies both the possibility of calling upon
one's community for support and a sense of individual responsibility to
reciprocate with support when called upon, that begets collaboration.
Having recognized the importance of shared values and community in
fostering successful collaborative horizontal work among members, three points need to be
made about the dynamics of the councils' development. Firstly, whether one wishes to
stress the predominance of common regional views or the sharing of a professional
situation in explaining the presence of shared values and a sense of community, there was
also substantial agreement that the emergence of these properties had both endogenous and
exogenous sources. In the minds of many interviewees, common regional views or a sense of
professional community were already prevalent in members and the work of the councils only
allowed their expression by providing a supportive environment. But others also stressed
that, to a significant degree, the councils activities played themselves an important role
in fostering those common views and values. By fostering on-going dialogue on issues of
common interest, the councils meetings contributed significantly to shape "common
narratives" about what was needed or valued from a regional standpoint. Similarly, by
generating sustained interaction among members, the councils' work also develops
interpersonal trust and builds personal relationships that significantly strengthens the
members' sense of professional community. In other words, the councils both tap into
pre-existing values and understandings and actively contribute to their generation.
Secondly, while members are genuinely committed to common objectives
and collective results, there is also a general recognition that participating in the
councils' work brings a number of individual benefits that contribute to bringing
people to the table. Many interviewees pointed out that, by coming to their council's
meetings, they were having a privileged access to some information about government
operations that they would not receive elsewhere, such as details about the operations of
other departments or a privileged dialogue with central agencies' representatives
making presentations to the councils (including the Clerk of the Privy Council). In
addition to the personal relationships developed with colleagues, having access to this
information can make a council member more effective in her/his job. In this perspective,
private ends are also well-served by working for a collective purpose. Moreover, some
interviewees agreed that, in participating in council and taking the lead on some
collective projects, some members are motivated by raising their profile amongst their
peers and consequently potentially advancing their career.
Finally, it was very often pointed out that, because they rely on the
voluntary commitment and engagement of members, the high level of local autonomy
benefiting federal regional councils looms large in their success. The fact that councils
set their own priorities ensures that these are relevant and speak convincingly to their
own members. Serving regional priorities that members identified themselves (and that are
often seen as neglected by national initiatives) contributes significantly to ensure
buy-in and commitment. In this context, several interviewees feared that, if councils were
to become more centrally-directed forums for coordinating the implementation of national
horizontal policies in the regions, some of the commitment and buy-in at the root of their
effectiveness might be lost. We return to this point in the last section of this report.
Leadership
In addition to shared values, objectives and a sense of community,
leadership was widely identified as a key requisite for success. Firstly, there was
widespread agreement that the main central agencies' support over the last four years
has been a significant factor contributing to the success of councils. In particular, the
visible and continued support of the current and previous Clerk of the Privy Council as
well as the support and encouragement provided by the previous Secretary of the Treasury
Board Secretariat were often cited as important and positive contributions. Visible and
consistent high-level support contributed to enhancing the credibility of councils,
encouraged members' participation by recognizing the value of horizontal work, and
helped the councils' secure the cooperation of other managers in the Public Service.
The Treasury Board Secretariat's organizational assistance, in the form of core
operating budgets, a national coordinator and TBS representatives on each council, was
also seen as important contributions.
An even more important factor of success is the exercise of leadership
at the council level. Many interviewees argued that an effective chairperson was one of
the key elements of success. The ability to persuade and motivate members in the absence
of formal authority and vertical incentives and to rally people around common objectives
were seen as important leadership competencies. Some interviewees pointed out that
horizontal leadership tends to call upon skills and aptitudes that differ from leadership
in a traditional hierarchical setting. Some executives are better than others at mastering
those skills and competencies but, in most cases, it can take some experience in working
horizontally to develop such competencies. In this context, sufficiently lengthy
"terms of office" for chairpersons or more extensive experience in horizontal
work by members were often seen as contributing to greater effectiveness.
On this last point, many interviewees stressed that it was generally
necessary for a number of council members to assume positions of leadership on specific
files and initiatives. This form of "distributed leadership" proved to be
essential for councils to handle a larger set of horizontal files and to maintain a clear
sense that the councils' work responds to the members own needs and priorities. As
such, leadership should not be incumbent only on the chairperson and should be shared
widely among the membership. Some councils have even formalized this requirement and
decided to take on a file only when one member will commit to act as a
"champion" for the initiative and two other members will agree to support him.
Factors hindering the councils' effectiveness
While we found a widely shared sentiment that, in general, federal
regional councils were effective in their work, the study nevertheless identified a number
of factors that can hinder their performance and make their work more difficult. The
prevalent organizational culture still lead many people to refrain from engaging in
collaborative work beyond the organizational boundaries of their department. Narrowly
construed loyalty for your own department and minister can be seen by some people as
incompatible with engaging in horizontal work, especially when it means sharing credit for
accomplishments contributing your mandate or engaging resources to contribute to an
horizontal initiative that is not perceived as central to your responsibilities. The
prevalent framework of accountability tends to reinforce these attitudes by associating
performance evaluations and the rendering of accounts with narrowly-defined departmental
objectives and responsibilities. Councils were also generally short of organizational
resources and, sometimes, administrative rules developed to serve an hierarchical,
vertical structure created operational difficulties for sharing resources in the pursuit
of collective objectives.
Among these factors, the lack of adequate resources was clearly
perceived as the most significant problem in the short term, especially as councils get
involved more extensively in a growing number of files. There was almost unanimous
agreement among interviewees that the current core funding had become insufficient to
adequately support the operational requirements of the councils and tended to impair their
capacity for action. The strains placed by inadequate resources on the councils' work
were feared on a number of fronts.
Firstly, many interviewees argued that greater core funding was
essential mainly to support the continuing engagement of voluntary members. The voluntary
nature of the councils' work means that members must contribute to these horizontal
endeavors after they meet the demands of their formal positions. In other words, council
members' engagement in horizontal projects results in a "double burden",
which can place some strain on people's time and personal resources. In the absence
of sufficient support by the councils' secretariats, it could become impossible to
dedicate enough time and efforts to manage effectively some initiatives. More importantly,
many interviewees spoke about the dangers of burn out and disengagement facing some
members. Under pressure to meet unreasonable expectations without adequate support, some
voluntary members may simply decide to withdraw from council activities or refuse to
assume the leadership of specific projects. Some chairpersons believed that, without more
core funding, councils would have to scale back their activities and return to a more
limited information-sharing function.
In discussing the lack of resources, other interviewees argued that the
insufficient core funding often meant that the time and energy of the existing
secretariats were not always used efficiently. Forced to operate under duress, the
personnel of the secretariats was thought to spend unreasonable amounts of time dealing
with unnecessary complications. Different examples were provided as illustrations. Some
people talked about the inordinate amount of energy sometimes spent looking for funds to
cover basic operational needs, such as seeking "bridge financing" from
activities to cover core operational expenses or constantly having to juggle budgets to
meet obligations until all the departmental contributions come in. Other interviewees
talked about the difficulties created by having to rely on in-kind departmental
contributions for some essential operational infrastructure, such as a photocopier, a fax
machine or communication software. In some cases, staff end up spending a lot of time
dealing with the difficulties of sharing such resources, ranging from the mundane (e.g.
constantly going to other departments' offices to fax or photocopy) to the more
complex (e.g. dealing with different administrative rules and practices). In all cases, it
was felt that more stable and substantial core funding to cover operational needs would
free the secretariats to focus on more value-added work.
Finally, many interviewees considered that the current core funding was
insufficiently generous and stable to allow for adequate long-term planing, consequently
hindering the strategic capacity of the councils. Similarly, several people argued that
more core funding was required to provide councils with a minimal autonomous research
capacity. Such capacity was considered important to support all aspects of their work but
it was seen as particularly necessary to provide timely, high-quality regional input into
the national policy-making process.
While the question of resources was clearly considered essential by a
majority of interviewees, these concerns must be qualified by two points. Firstly, despite
calls for greater centralized core funding, there was almost unanimous agreement that
departmental contributions for specific projects were essential to ensure departmental
buy-in. Very few interviewees argued for centralized project funding. The commitment of
departmental resources was seen as reflecting members' own commitment to common
horizontal projects and these contributions also ensured that members would remain more
actively involved in these initiatives.
Secondly, there were also significant concerns associated with the
central provision of more extensive core funding. Many interviewees feared that accepting
greater funding by central agencies could result in a loss of local autonomy. "With
more money will come more expectations, more specific demands and the need for greater
accountability from the councils to the center. It is inevitable.", argued one
interviewee. Moreover, if greater control from the center resulted in a skewing of local
priorities, councils would run the risk of becoming less relevant to their members and a
disengagement of volunteers could ensue. In fact, more generally, some people were
concerned that, if too much work was taken on by the secretariats, members would come to
see the management of projects as the secretariats' responsibilities and reduce their
engagement accordingly. Some people even feared that, by taking on more of the work,
greater administrative support could also mean less opportunities for members to develop
the kind of close working relationships traditionally resulting from collaboration on
projects.
Interviewees embraced these concerns to various degrees. For a few
interviewees, these dangers were significant enough to justify advocating that councils
scale down their activities instead of accepting more resources. On the contrary, a few
other people considered these concerns to be clearly overstated and argued that councils
could easily preserve substantial autonomy despite more centralized funding. Most people
however seemed to believe that, while the loss of some autonomy was a risk, it was one
worth running in order to improve the capacity of councils and provide better support for
volunteers.
Among other impediments to successful horizontal work by councils, some
members deplored that smaller provinces often had to rely on a very limited pool of senior
executives, especially in the aftermath of the Program Review exercises. A smaller pool of
senior executives was thought to hinder the work of these councils in a number of ways.
Fewer people at the table meant that a greater burden was shouldered on members,
compounding the impact of inadequate administrative resources. More importantly, some
people talked about a lack of leadership on specific files because one could no longer
find available members to take the lead. Since managers at lower-levels of their
department's hierarchy typically have less authority and discretion to commit
budgetary resources, councils with a higher proportion of these members can have more
difficulties gathering sufficient resources to implement horizontal initiatives in their
region. Similarly, the regional offices of some departments are often too small to be able
to make substantial contributions.
From a leadership and accountability perspective, many interviewees
also stressed that the substantive and favorable support provided by the heads of central
agencies and the deputy ministers' community was not as forthcoming at the assistant
deputy minister (ADM) and Director General (DG) levels in departmental headquarters.
"The message does not appear to be trickling down", argued one interviewee.
"It is at these levels that you find the kings of the 'silo
mentality'", argued another. While some interviewees acknowledged that progress
was being made, many executives still appear to be reluctant either to accommodate council
members donating their time to horizontal work or to support the strategies/approaches
coming out of the councils' work. At a workplace level, this can mean a refusal to
acknowledge contributions to horizontal initiatives at the time of performance assessment
or even a critical attitude towards members taking some time "away from departmental
work" to attend council meetings. At the policy level, it can result in a resistance
to support collaboration to horizontal approaches to issues when it will mean having to
share credit with other departments or compromising on departmental preferences.
Finally, an additional category of impediments raised by interviewees
concerned the difficulties created by existing administrative rules and procedures.
Existing managerial frameworks for financial, human resources or equipment management were
designed to serve the traditional vertical structures and practices and, consequently, do
not facilitate horizontal collaboration. The result is that council secretariats can spend
considerable time and energy findings ways to serve horizontal projects while respecting
the prevalent administrative rules for accountability.
These difficulties can range from dealing with multiple and different
rules for financial management practices to the complexities of effectively sharing
information when each department has different information management systems. The impacts
of these difficulties also varied from making it more difficult to get at a clear overall
picture of what departments were doing on a specific policy file to spending inordinate
amounts of time tracking small sums of money contributed for a limited training activity.
While there was a clear consensus that the current administrative frameworks could be
modified to make collaboration easier, there was also a surprising level of agreement that
these difficulties were minor hindrances, complicating the work of the councils rather
than creating serious obstacles. "Once the commitment of people is there, we can
always find ways to make it work at the administrative level", was a common opinion.
Making some reforms to facilitate sharing resources was nevertheless advocated by many
interviewees, ranging from minor administrative changes to facilitate the transfer of
funds across departmental budgets to significant legal changes to allow departments in the
regions to created "temporary horizontal agencies" to manage specific horizontal
initiatives.
The federal regional councils at the crossroad
Throughout the interview process, the greatest source of both
enthusiasm and apprehensions were related to a widely shared sentiment that the federal
councils increasingly find themselves at a crossroad: amidst increasing expectations about
their direct involvement and leadership in national horizontal files, many interviewees
are wondering whether councils are adequately positioned to meet these expectations and
whether doing so might not cause them to lose some of the features that have been at the
roots of their success. In particular, the sense that councils will be facing greater
demands in the years to come has brought more attention to some unresolved tensions
resulting from the councils' unusual position within the federal Public Service. Two
key issues are considered particularly important: the relation of the councils to the
prevalent vertical accountability framework and the bureaucratization of the
councils' organizational structure.
The issue of bureaucratization is intimately linked to the need for
greater operational resources but the issue clearly goes beyond funding. In order to
properly manage some substantive horizontal policy files, many people thought that some
formalization of the councils' role in the federal Public Service could be required.
If councils became primary forums for the coordination of policy files, there might be,
for example, the need or desire to attribute them some formal legal authority. To deal
with growing formal responsibilities, council chairs might become permanent executive
positions. If they became more important instruments of national policy-making and
implementation, they would also have to be more fully linked to the work of central
agencies (and consequently losing some local autonomy and the ability to set their own
priorities). The end result, many interviewees feared, would be to turn the federal
councils into "regional quasi-central agencies" or, at minimum, to bureaucratize
their operations to the detriment of their current volunteer, autonomous, informal and
flexible character. Given that most interviewees attributed a good part of the
councils' success to the engagement and the dedication to collaboration seen to
result from the voluntary commitment of members to shared values and objectives, such
excessive bureaucratization was generally seen as threatening the effectiveness of the
councils.
As a result of these concerns, there are some apprehensions about the
appropriate ways to provide councils with the tools to further horizontal coordination
without significantly affecting the factors that underpin their success. Despite the
existence of a variety of views on the subject, there seems to be consensus on two issues.
Firstly, if greater involvement by councils in government-wide files is to be expected in
the future, there will be a need for greater core resources to support the efforts of
volunteer members. Secondly, the voluntary nature of the contributions of members and
departments will also remain essential to ensure buy-in and active collaboration. And
since the voluntary nature of the councils is an essential dimension of their success,
there is a real danger in excessive formalization resulting in a loss of effectiveness
and, consequently, there are real limits on the expectations that should be placed on them
as instruments of horizontal management.
The second important issue that was raised by most interviewees with
regards to the councils' growing involvement in horizontal policy files is the impact
of the current accountability framework. The prevalent framework, resting on the
constitutional doctrine of ministerial responsibility, establishes clear hierarchical
lines of accountability, going from public servants to Parliament through government
ministers, for the exercise of public authority and the use of public funds. This
time-honored framework, with strong constitutional foundations, tends to structure much of
the Public Service's operations. Unfortunately, this accountability framework does
not lend itself easily to working horizontally across departments and even provides
counter-productive incentives in this regard. In practice, public managers must account
for the use of their budgets and employees for fulfilling the mandate of their department.
Performance evaluations for executives and employees also tend to be narrowly tied to
departmental objectives and mandates. More importantly, ministers are individually called
upon in Parliament to account for the use of resources attributed to their department and
for generally bearing responsibility for the actions and performance of their department.
Sharing responsibility for horizontal initiatives, and sharing departmental resources to
jointly pursue common objectives, tends to blur these traditional lines of accountability.
For example, who will be held formally accountable for a shared horizontal initiative that
fails? Should public managers or ministers be held accountable for initiatives that they
do not fully control (since management shared with other departments)?
As a result of these uncertainties, horizontal initiatives can raise
problems of democratic accountability and go against deeply embedded incentives for public
managers. While these problems can be considered to be minor with regards to relatively
simple and limited initiatives (such as the provision of shared internal services), they
can become acutely important when managers are asked to commit resources and take
responsibility for complex, high-profile horizontal policy initiatives. As expectations
appear to be increasing for councils to get involved in such complex policy files (in the
areas of homelessness, sustainable development, or aboriginal affairs, for example),
members of the federal regional councils feel a growing unease about the uncertainty of
the current accountability rules surrounding horizontal management. There was widespread
agreement among interviewees that questions of accountability will need to be addressed in
the years to come.
However, while there was unanimous agreement on the fact that these
situations present unresolved accountability problems, there was no clear consensus on how
to approach this accountability problem. Some interviewees felt that accountability
problems were so significant that they should lead federal councils to avoid any further
involvement in the horizontal management of complex policies and programs. In particular,
council members should refuse to assume responsibility and formal leadership for
horizontal policies or programs. Other interviewees were positively enthusiastic about the
growing attention given to horizontal approach to deal with the complex socio-economic
problems facing Canadians. In their minds, the benefits potentially accruing from these
approaches should lead us to experiment with them without waiting for a definitive
administrative and constitutional resolution to the accountability conundrum. While the
difficulties should be acknowledged and more effort and ingenuity should be spent looking
for adapted solutions, the problems should not deter the Public Service from moving
forward.
In general, with few exceptions, interviewees also felt that the Public
Service should avoid working on the creation of an entirely new accountability framework
for horizontal initiatives and focus instead on how the councils' work could best be
reconciled with the existing framework of vertical accountability. In this perspective,
many interviewees stressed the need to continue to rely on a lead department for each
government-wide policy initiative. Councils were most often presented as important forums
for supporting lead departments, generating a shared vision, ensuring coordination across
organizations, and even getting local agreement on the most efficient way to allocate
resources relating to a policy initiative. But there was less enthusiastic support for
making federal councils assume formal leadership of policy files in the regions. In sum,
while the councils constitute essential vehicles for the management of horizontal files,
entrusting them with the formal responsibility to lead a file was not seen to be
necessarily the best way to proceed. The focus should be on enhancing their capacity to
provide support and act as a forum for the development of horizontal leadership.
Conclusion
Overall, it should be understood that the councils' effectiveness
is seen to rely essentially on their unique capacity to generate the commitment and
voluntary engagement of their members. Any effort to replicate the councils'
experience and to introduce changes to enhance their role in Canadian governance must be
respectful of their unique nature. In definitive, this conclusion seems to suggest that,
to preserve their effectiveness as forums facilitating horizontal governance, any reforms
or expectations about the councils' future contribution to government-wide
policy-making and operation must also ensure that control over local autonomy and
voluntary engagement are not adversely affected. As a result, while providing councils
with sufficient capacity to voluntarily engage more extensively in complex and sustained
efforts of horizontal governance, lead departments and central agencies should continue to
rely on persuasion to gain the councils' involvement in specific files. When such
voluntary adhesion is gained, targeted and adapted measures to deal with problems of
operation and accountability should be favored over universal, undifferentiated
approaches. When persuasion fails to win some councils' voluntary engagement, the
Public Service should respect local priorities and still recognize that councils are
important on-going generators of productive inter-organizational personal relationships
and information flows that are essential determinants of organizational effectiveness.
|
