Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 3

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4 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2016
It’s been a long time since a public administration theorist has made such waves in the
national capital, or in any capital, for that matter. As the throne speech was being read
late last fall, a flutter of wings and murmurs announced that “deliverology” was coming to
town. Sir Michael Barber landed a few weeks later to deliver the new tablets.
Just what is this new panacea? Does Ottawa have a serious case of implementation
inertia? How did we know we had such a problem? There’s no doubt deadlines are
missed. Fingers get pointed. At the same time, vaguest-of-the-vague program and poli-
cy outcomes are pronounced as “met” in some “result-based” strategic plan. No wonder
people—public servants and parliamentarians—get lost. Clearly, the new government in
Ottawa is concerned about this.
The approach proposed by Sir Michael has taken the town by storm. Who is he?
Michael Barber studied history before he received his teacher’s degree. This is impor-
tant—he has the habit of taking the long view and he’s curious about original intentions
and how programs shift priorities over time. He then taught, both in the UK and in Af-
rica. It’s not clear how long he actually worked in a classroom as his career took him into
the policy field, first with the teachers’ union, and then in the Labour Party. He ran for
parliament, unsuccessfully, some thirty years ago and turned to teaching.
He’s the epitome of a reflective practitioner, generously sharing his insights in many
books. The latest (both published in 2015), Deliverology in Practice and How to Run a Gov-
ernment, are very different. Where the former is practically a step-by-step guide on how
to get things done, the latter is more of an exploration of his international consulting
activities. Both books tell the story of what it takes to actually deliver.
Deliverology in Practice won’t be foreign to anyone who has done program evaluations
and/or managed a program. There’s actually very little, on a theoretical plane, that is
new here. Focusing on deliverables in the USA educational space, Barber and his two co-
authors discuss “defining aspirations,” “Review the Current State of Delivery,” and “estab-
lish a guiding coalition.” There are observations on “evaluating past and present perfor-
mance” and “understanding root causes of performance.” Then there’s talk about setting
objectives, solving problems early, communicating results and, my favourite, unleashing
the “alchemy of relationships.”
How to Run a Government, I suspect, gets a lot closer to the truth of success. Barber
was lucky enough to have attracted a prime minister that had a fetish for administrative
detail. Tony Blair noticed that the stories of success he was receiving from the depart-
ment of education (where Barber was a key adviser) were of an entirely different quality
than what he was getting elsewhere. The solution? Get Barber to move into 10 Downing
(2001-2005) and set the machinery so that more government departments actually move
towards improving delivery on policy decisions. He’s taught that principle ever since.
I strongly suspect that Ottawa knows the recipes; it’s the political glue that’s been hard
to find. In almost all the cases Barber discusses in How to Run a Government, one senses
the vital contribution of a political actor that is genuinely interested in getting involved
to resolve difficulties and open doors. It’s not an accident that Barber may have been suc-
cessful in London precisely because he had the Prime Minister’s sponsorship—a PM that
was willing to spend to get the results he wanted. The spending factor was key here—per-
haps far more than a new control mechanism. This experience was borne out in Ontario
where Barber’s ideas on educational reforms were applied, along with massive increases
in funding. You don’t achieve this sort of success from the bottom floors of the TBS.
Canada’s new prime minister has no record of management. What is new is a faith in
the bureaucracy, a willingness to spend, and a hope that with some political weight, the
right priorities will be addressed at the right time and in the right way. So here’s hoping
that Barberology’s lessons won’t be lost in Ottawa—both the administrative ones and the
political ones.
Sir Michael, I presume?
editor’s note Patrice Dutil
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