The COVID-19 pandemic reminded Canadians of the primordial importance of good program delivery at a time of massive crisis. Governments and, yes, bureaucracies, responded with as forceful a focus on service and results as we’ve ever seen.
From a public health perspective, those results were extraordinary. Vaccination, testing, and contact tracing programs were stood up from nothing within weeks and months. Public information dashboards on COVID cases and vaccination rollouts were triumphs of transparency with wide data collation and sharing. Income support programs for people and businesses were launched quickly, assessed, and expanded as the pandemic wore on.
‘Get ‘er done’, as we say in the Maritimes, seemed to be the common refrain driving politicians and public servants to privilege the right service at the right time in the right way.
So, why isn’t this an everyday occurrence? Why does it have to take a massive public health crisis to shake up the system?
Sadly, it isn’t, and it does, to answer the questions. Especially at the federal level. Operational excellence and good service delivery are talked about incessantly in official Ottawa but have never received the same ‘caring and feeding’ that policy and politics does at the top. Only when a problem or crisis emerges – like a pandemic or a funding scandal like ArriveCan – does bureaucratic business-as-usual give way to laser-like attention.
Trouble is, intermittent or episodic responsiveness is not a real solution. Bureaucracies respond to institutional cues and signals that are built in. Otherwise, there is insufficient accountability to make it that ‘everyday occurrence’.
So, what’s to be done about it?
Here’s two readings with two competing, yet complementary ideas. One by me, a former provincial Clerk, in the Globe and Mail last February; the other by a former federal Clerk, Michael Wernick, published in Policy Options last month.
I like what Michael wrote even though his suggestion is built around challenging mine. My idea is for a Chief Operating Officer or COO in the Privy Council Office and in each department and agency. Michael is skeptical of PCO being the right spot and suggests a revamped and renamed Treasury Board as better. There is merit in his approach. We both concur that institutionalizing a stronger focus on operational service delivery is needed and requires a machinery of government solution. I concentrated at the personnel level with designated COO positions; Michael focused explicitly on the central machinery and resulting oversight that a new Management and Implementation Board of Cabinet would bring.
Like I said, this has merit, and he makes a good case.
What do you think? Read the articles and let us know!
