8 / Canadian Government Executive // WINTER 2025 FEATURE Two, how government operates. The pandemic experience reinforced the importance of efficient, effective delivery of government programs and services to Canadians. Ottawa stood up a myriad of comprehensive income support programs for people and businesses in record time. Add the public health guidance to deal with the virus itself, and federal public servants acquitted themselves well. Improvised innovation and superior effort combined to combat the massive economic and social impacts of the pandemic on Canadians. But as one former senior public servant stated in a report on lessons learned from the pandemic, “So if I had kind of one wish, I would want it to be that the public service starts to become boringly excellent, rather than sporadically heroic.” [Source: Resilient Institutions Learning from Canada’s Covid-19 Pandemic, pg. 34] True to form, as the virus receded so too did anticipatory governance in key aspects of operational delivery. Passports and airports became clogged, requiring new injections of money and people to rectify service failures. Work from home versus return to office became flash points for public service unions and employees themselves. It was if the federal government was discovering the vitality of good service delivery as a key determinant of public trust and approbation. As an institution, the federal government has privileged policy and ideas over operational delivery as the litmus test of both relevance and respect within the public service. ‘Climbing the greasy pole’ of a public service career meant showing political and personality chops in managing highly visible issues, rather than behind-the-scenes operational expertise. With significant deputy minister and associate deputy minister churn (some 100 shuffles since 2015 with more than 300 changes and an average serving tenure of under three years), operational stability at the top has been a lesser priority. Antiquated information management systems and a penchant for complexity in policy design with multiple objectives (let’s call it “customization”) has stretched the ability of some federal departments and agencies to deliver what is promised. Fuzzy accountability mechanisms focusing on inputs and outputs rather than goals and results, has allowed service delivery issues to slide under the radar – until now. The current federal government has had an ambitious policy agenda involving significant economic and social reform. From climate change to industrial policy to housing to immigration, this has implicated numerous departments and agencies across the breadth of government. Governance and operational delivery are central to successful achievement of stated policy goals. But both the capacity, ability, and skills of the public service to actually deliver value-for-money programs are all lacking, as recent Auditor-General reports have shown. Witness the December reports on the emergency support program for business or industrial benefits policy for defence procurement. Governance reform ideas exist. Designating chief operating officers in both the PCO, TBS, and in each department and agency would raise the importance and accountability of this need. Changing the budget process from a Finance-driven ‘sources and uses’ of funding to a combined Finance/Treasury Board process of ‘results and delivery’ would integrate operational considerations with policy goals. Revamping accountability measures to focus on missions and results, as the UK government is starting to do, would alter the culture at the centre of government. Whatever the prescription, operational service delivery issues will be climbing in public and therefore public servants’ attention. Three, government productivity. More public servants raise a companion question: what are Canadians getting for this outlay? Declining private sector productivity is increasingly cited as a brake on the country’s economic growth, leading to fewer jobs and lower incomes than Canada could have. Unsurprisingly, attention is now being paid to just how productive the federal public service really is, especially with public sector growth outpacing the private sector. The figure below from the C.D. Howe Institute illustrates the problem starkly. It shows that post-pandemic, the share of public sector employees in total employment has increased by 21.6 per cent but public sector labour productivity has actually declined. This is not just a federal government issue. Public service productivity is a notoriously complex concept. Evaluating productivity for national defence is radically different than for passport services, for example. Defining a suitable market price for outputs when none really exists, illustrates the problem. The figure below on “the public service delivery chain”, from the U.K. Productivity Institute, encapsulates the complexity of determining 02 03 Figure 3: Share of Public Sector Employees in Total Employment and Public Sector Productivity
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDI0Mzg=