Information Management in the Government of Canada - A Situation Analysis

3. The IM Issues

3.1 Introduction

The issues associated with the management of information in the Government of Canada were identified as a result of the consultations held with individuals and groups representing a wide variety of organizations from the public, private and academic sectors. The majority of those consulted were from the federal government and the majority of these were from the information management and information technology communities. While the perspectives of the IM and IT; communities were dominant during the consultations, the issues described in this section have been presented in a manner that attempts to respect the views of a wider audience including those responsible for program and service delivery.

They have also been presented in a manner that respects the multiple perspectives consultation participants brought to the issue of information management. For instance, during the consultation process, it was acknowledged that numerous examples could be found across government of the effective application of information management principles and practices. Those involved in managing health information, natural resources information, the sensitive personal information associated with licensing and social benefits programs, and other programs where the successful delivery of the program is dependent entirely on the existence of a high quality information management infrastructure, recognize the central role information plays in the success of their programs. The ability of the government to deliver information intensive programs and services on a daily basis in an effective and efficient manner is a measure of the extent to which the government has been able to address challenges such as those presented by new technologies, increasingly complex client demands, and emerging priorities such as Government On-Line (GOL).

Nevertheless, consultation participants identified a number of issues the resolution of which they felt would be necessary if government programs and services were to continue to be delivered in an effective and efficient manner. These issues are organized according to the proposed IM Infrastructure.

3.2 Awareness / understanding

Consultation participants generally felt that a common understanding of IM, its role in decision making, program and service delivery, and accountability had yet to be established. From senior executives to officers and administrative staff there was a concern that as the government evolves from a paper-based environment to one increasingly dominated by information recorded in electronic form, a shared view of IM concepts and vocabulary may be difficult to maintain.

There was also concern that the awareness by public servants of their responsibility for information (i.e. to record business activities, to support ongoing decision-making and for accountability purposes) could be seriously eroded as the government moves to the electronic delivery of its programs and services.

Participants in several IM groups as well as those representing policy areas indicated that in the rapidly changing environment associated with the conduct of government business public servants may consider information used only a few years ago as irrelevant; "new information is required in today's changed context". It was felt that this perceived lack of relevance of past information, especially in policy areas, could have a major impact on the level of attention paid to the way in which information is managed. It could also have a major impact on the quality and depth of the government's corporate memory and the ability of the National Archives and the National Library to acquire, preserve, and make available recorded information of long term value.

3.3 Ownership / Accountability

Consultation participants identified issues which may have an impact on the quality and extent of the accountability framework for IM. These are grouped according to both the government-wide perspective and the perspective of individual departments and agencies.

3.3.1 Ownership and accountability at the government-wide level

Many participants felt that the current accountability framework for managing government information needs to be enhanced to account for the direction government is taking in program and service delivery, especially in the emerging electronic environment. Concerns were expressed that the same level of attention being accorded to the enhancement of the accountability frameworks for personnel and financial resources is not being paid to an equally important government asset, information. It was felt that the failure to establish and maintain such an accountability framework would have a dramatic impact on the extent to which IM considerations are reflected adequately in the audits and evaluations of government systems and programs, or the appraisals of public servants.

Consultation participants in a number of groups and individual government institutions expressed concerns about the continued effectiveness of the government's accountability framework for IM in the face of challenges presented by the electronic environment. The key concerns expressed were the following:

• a TBS focal point for IM appears to be absent;
• IM considerations have yet to be established in TBS-led initiatives;
• the legislated roles of the National Archives and the National Library for supporting the management of government information could be better coordinated and positioned especially as they pertain to the management of electronic information, and;
• while the efforts of Government-wide IM groups are substantial, they are not well co-ordinated across the groups and they have little visibility at senior levels.

3.3.2 Ownership and accountability in government institutions

Many consultation participants suggested that the accountability frameworks for IM in government institutions would need to be adapted to account for the emerging electronic environment and the direction being taken by government programs and services within the context of that environment. There was concern that accountability for information may not be assigned to program managers in the same way and to the same extent as it has been for other assets.

Many also felt that there were few effective IM focal points in institutions and concerns were expressed that overall accountability for institutional IM infrastructures has been scattered among such disparate areas as records management, library services, data administration, etc. It was felt that this has led to confusion among program managers and staff about who is supposed to be responsible for the various information management functions.

Consultation participants generally felt that the lack of a comprehensive accountability framework and the absence of measurable standards were making it difficult to evaluate or audit IM within institutions. Questions were raised concerning what it meant to "do IM" in the emerging electronic environment. "How do we know that we have done IM to the level required (whatever that is)"?

3.4 Policy

The IM policy framework in government embraces the following policies: (MGIH); (ATIP), Security, Communications; Use of the Internet; and IT. Concerns were raised about how responsibilities for the policies should be coordinated. The government's primary information policy (MGIH) was felt to be in need of updating to ensure that it could account for the requirements and challenges associated with managing information within the context of electronic service delivery priorities.

Many expressed concern about the clarity of the MGIH policy and whether or not it was attempting to address too many issues ranging from public policy issues such as ATIP, information collections, and the requirements of the NA and NL on the one hand, and issues pertaining to the basic infrastructure institutions should have in place to manage the information they require for program delivery.

Beyond the MGIH policy, consultation participants generally felt that there were few policies in place which related program requirements and accountability requirements to the need for an information infrastructure. This was seen as a potential inhibitor to the development of effective information management infrastructures for electronic service delivery at both the government-wide level and within government institutions.

3.5 Standards and Practices

3.5.1 Information creation - activities to bring information into existence

Many participants expressed concern that in a complex environment featuring multiple forms of information from paper to electronic, public servants lacked the criteria for helping them determine what information needed to be created, received, collected, etc. to support or document what they were doing (i.e. some may create less information than required while others may create far more than what would normally be expected).

Concerns were also raised that as the pace and complexity of day-to-day work increases, public servants will not give sufficient attention up-front to what information will need to be created and maintained as new programs and new systems are established. It was suggested that system design methods and guidelines on program development and redesign were in need of an IM component which would help users identify and define their information requirements. Beyond meeting the information needs of individual public servants, concerns were raised that institutions were not paying sufficient attention to the longer term needs of their knowledge base, and the even longer term needs of the nation's memory. Both the National Archives and the National Library expressed concern about their ability to carry out their mandate for acquiring and preserving government information when such considerations are not reflected at the "front-end" of systems or program design. Particular concerns were raised about the long term preservation of electronic information which they argued could only be addressed effectively if the preservation requirements were reflected and applied when the information was being created.

Forms are part of the information creation process. They provide the context and structure for the information content received from citizens, other public servants, etc. in support of government program/service delivery. Many consultation participants in the IM/IT groups and in individual government institutions expressed concern that the absence of standards and guidelines on the use of forms would lead to confusion, increased costs and lost opportunities (i.e. the use of forms to achieve efficiencies and costs savings in the design of automated highly structured web-enabled business processes).

Consultation participants in a number of groups expressed concern that the acquisition of information subject to licensing agreements, the acquisition of information in a web environment, and the costs of acquiring published information were significant issues which needed to be addressed within a broader IM context.

3.5.2 Information use - activities done with information

As Canadians go on-line they will expect to navigate, locate and retrieve government information, regardless of its physical form, seamlessly across institutions and across information domains such as records systems, library systems, and other information based systems. They will expect this no matter where or how they first enter a government service channel. So too will public servants expect that they can access the information they will need to do their job.

The following highlights from the consultation sessions identify some of the challenges government is expected to face:

• information standards have yet to be established at the government-wide level and in several government program areas to express and define the key terms to be used in accessing government information and services;
• navigation tools, have yet to be established at the government-wide level and in several government programs to facilitate information access and retrieval;
• existing classification systems and schemes are fragmented among the library, records management, database administration, and other areas of government; they are also fragmented and lack consistency in their design across departments; new approaches to information classification will be required to support access and retrieval in an electronic service delivery environment;
• standards and tools for describing information to facilitate access and retrieval at the government-wide level and within individual institutions have yet to be established;
• standards have yet to be developed for establishing how much contextual information is needed to facilitate access and understanding of the information once it has been retrieved;
• citizens and public servants confront technology barriers (e.g., software and format incompatibilities) when accessing or exchanging information electronically;
• public servants are experiencing difficulty accessing and retrieving the information needed to do their jobs; much is already fragmented across user "C" drives, individual and shared server areas, paper-based file drawers, and other unique systems and databases.
• mechanisms to support dissemination of published government information to the general public through libraries could be enhanced;
• electronic information access and retrieval services provided for people with disabilities may be inadequate as government shifts to electronic service delivery;
• current institutional systems may become challenged to provide multi-lingual access and content;
• other "use" issues such as copyright, charging for government information, and electronic publishing have yet to be addressed within a broader IM context.

3.5.3 Information Preservation - activities to ensure authentic, reliable, available, usable, and understandable information over time

Preserving reliable information for as long as required is central to serving the information needs of Canadians and to supporting good governance. Many consultation participants expressed concern about the capability of government to maintain information (especially information recorded in electronic form) in an authentic and reliable manner for as long as required to meet a business or accountability requirement.

Concern was also expressed about the capability of public servants to know what information they should keep, for how long and what information they are permitted to dispose of and why.

Many consultation participants including those from lead agencies such as the National Archives and the National Library expressed concern about the capacity of government institutions to preserve electronic government information through time. The following illustrates some of these concerns:

• The relevancy, currency and trustworthiness of documents may be at risk because of the difficulty in tracking documents in multiple versions or in a variety of formats;
• Many government institutions lack strategies for preserving electronic information through time (electronic information is susceptible to loss because of the nature of the media, the obsolescence of the technology, the lack of documentation, and the lack of an effective accountability framework);
• The cost of preserving information through time may not be reflected adequately in the steps taken to cost and approve systems or to finance programs;
• The National Archives and the National Library face significant challenges with respect to the capacity of both themselves and government institutions to ensure the continued acquisition, organization and preservation of information which must be preserved through the long term;
• Issues associated with the preservation of security sensitive information through the long term have yet to be resolved especially in light of questions being raised about issues such as the preservation (or not) of certificates, digital signatures, encrypted documents, etc.;
• IM considerations (e.g. meeting identification, storage, protection, migration, and authenticity requirements) may not be reflected adequately in guidance developed for business resumption planning, emergency preparedness, etc. in an electronic service delivery environment;
• Policies and procedures for the devolution of government programs to other jurisdictions may not reflect adequately the stewardship of the information associated with such devolution initiatives.

3.5.4 The Standards Development Process

Many consultation participants expressed concern that a shared understanding of the concepts behind terms such as "standards", "best practices", etc. had yet to be established thus making it difficult to develop strategies for the development and adoption of IM standards.

A number of participants questioned the extent to which the Treasury Board Information Technology Standards (TBITS) program was continuing to be viable in the face of the emerging demands of GOL. There was a clear indication that a mechanism was required (building on existing standards endorsement processes connected with Government On-Line) to ensure the effective development and promulgation of standards addressing a wide range of IM issues from information content and information access / retrieval to information preservation.

3.6 Systems

There was general concern about the extent to which information management functionality (i.e., to support the information activities of "creation", "use", and "preservation") was being implemented in government information systems. Concern was expressed that the costs of these information activities, especially for "preservation", is generally not accounted for in the overall costs and management of systems.

While it is challenging enough to develop systems in support of highly structured work processes it is much more difficult to incorporate IM requirements into much less structured environments such as the so-called office environment where work processes, business rules, and assigned accountability may not be clearly defined. In such environments, e-mail messages, and electronic and paper documents are created, used, and stored in a seemingly ad hoc manner, some for internal use, others for external access. For example, the Records/Document / Information Management System (RDIMS) initiative (i.e. the TBS-led shared systems procurement initiative) and other systems procurement initiatives are attempting to manage multiple forms of information in this unstructured environment. In this context many of those consultation participants who were involved in document management in their institutions explained that major systems integration issues remained (developing relevant classification schemes; designing effective training programs; overcoming corporate culture issues, etc.) . Concerns were also raised that more innovative and forward looking approaches to the management of this form of information (e.g. incorporating record keeping rules in the design of workflow such that record keeping becomes nearly automatic) had yet to be considered.

3.7 People

The principal concern expressed by the consultation participants was "people". Questions were raised about the extent to which the Government had the people in place with the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to build and maintain an IM infrastructure - an infrastructure which acknowledges existing paper based work processes, but which is also sensitive to the existing and emerging electronic environment, and government priorities such as those expressed in the throne speech. Among the concerns expressed were the following:

• a government-wide perspective on the nature of the work required to build and maintain an IM infrastructure has yet to be established;
• The work of IM (e.g. building information access/retrieval and preservation tools and methods in an electronic service delivery environment) is expected to demand a higher knowledge and skill level than is currently reflected in existing communities such as records management;
• a shared view of what public servants need to know about IM and what skills and abilities they need to have has yet to be established;
• unlike for human and financial resources, the roles and responsibilities of public servants for managing the information resources they create, use and preserve to support their work have yet to be reflected in their job descriptions;
• job descriptions resulting from the Universal Classification System (UCS) initiative reflect the duties performed by the existing IM communities; the emerging requirements of the job of doing information management in an electronic service delivery environment have yet to be identified;
• an IM competency framework has yet to be defined and there is no mechanism in place for ensuring that whatever competency profiles are developed can be maintained;
• while it was not possible to assess whether or not existing IM training, education, and recruitment programs are relevant and effective, participants indicated that training and recruitment strategies within individual IM communities are fragmented, weak or non-existent;
• existing training, education, and recruitment programs for public servants have yet to reflect IM considerations adequately, especially at the senior levels;
• there are no government-wide champions for the development of an IM community and there is no IM community renewal or community development program;
• there is no system of rewards and sanctions in place for IM; there are few sanctions for doing IM badly.
• IM is not part of the performance appraisal process for public servants and it is ineffective for those involved in building and maintaining the IM infrastructure.
• the absence of effective records management and other support functions in a number of government institutions, has caused users in these institutions to become their own record keepers;
• concern was expressed that in those areas of government where there is an absence of expertise, standards and practices, systems, and rules of the road, users will resort to making up their own rules concerning the management of their information.
• as public servants retire or change jobs, valuable information and knowledge is being lost.