As Canada prepares for a new government led by either Mark Carney or Pierre Poilievre, its agenda will require a strong, dynamic public service to implement. A report last year by the Global Government Forum – https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com – offers a framework for “a modern, effective civil service”. Uniquely, this report is informed by interviews with a dozen public service heads around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom. Its recommendations seek to identify the common foundational elements for strong, dynamic civil services whether they are – in the words of the report – “already pioneering models of excellence or are in the earlier stages of government and service reform.”
The figure below sets out five pillars of a modern, effective civil service:
Within each pillar are a series of specific steps to reinforce them.
Pillar 1: Strong leadership with mutual respect and alignment between ministers and senior officials
A strong, trusting relationship between political masters and public servants is at the core of this pillar. There is a desire to have a closer affinity between short-term immediacy in political priorities and so-called poly-crises, and the longer-term goals of any government. Civil servants consider themselves stewards of well-functioning, non-partisan governance institutions and processes – ‘the system’. Populism and attacks on public servants and institutions – ‘the system’ – is challenging the ability of securing that respect and alignment.
Four areas are proposed to address this:
- Establish a clear understanding of political objectives and civil service stewardship – to maintain accountability, translate directions into action and results, and ensure impartiality in advice and conduct.
- Implement better training for ministers and civil servants – as to roles and responsibilities for each, to bridge knowledge gaps in how institutions function including legal and financial frameworks.
- Safeguard and reinforce the provision of impartial advice – to ensure officials can speak ‘truth to power’.
- Cultivate leaders who actively defend civil servants in public forums – having both political and civil service leaders able and willing to address shortcomings and attacks on integrity and impartiality.
Pillar 2: A highly skilled, inclusive and thriving workforce
Contemporary public policy and public service management problems require modern, trained, and properly skilled public servants to deal with them. Traditional policy development and civil service administration skills are insufficient to meet today’s disruptive policy environment and technology advancements, such as AI.
Four areas are proposed to address this:
- Revamp recruitment practices to be more effective – this means ensuring salaries are competitive, proactive talent spotting, and encouraging interchange between the public and private sectors.
- Reduce reliance on consultants by building internal capabilities – rebuild stronger internal capacity, save money, ensure proper skill sets within government.
- Prioritise staff wellbeing and mental health support – through flex working arrangements, managing workloads.
- Develop the next generation of leaders – understanding motivations of young recruits towards work, public service, and advocacy.
Pillar 3: An agile, digital and risk-taking culture focused on delivery
Ministers and the public at large both want government to act more quickly and effectively. Established institutional structures and processes, as well as traditional cultures of doing business, get in the way of this. Confronting internal risk-aversion cultures, being innovative in approaches, and using new technologies such as AI (cited as a “game changer”) are all seen as ways to do this. The pandemic underscored both the need and the ability of public services to respond quickly and effectively to meet the overwhelming public health crisis.
Four areas are proposed to address this:
- Champion innovation and supporting risk taking – dismantle risk-aversion cultural barriers, innovate internally through labs, identify innovation champions.
- Secure the digital, data and technology infrastructure necessary for transformation – invest in replacing antiquated, clunky IT systems.
- Lead the way with public sector AI utilisation – put in place AI tools and frameworks for its use across government, designated AI leads or champions within departments, develop courses to teach AI to civil servants.
- Design services with the customer in mind – improve customer experiences with government services through greater digitisation, focus on specific services and improve them one-by-one, integrate customer and policy design at the outset
Pillar 4: Collaborative working structures that transcend organisational silos
A modern civil service “needs to operate horizontally”. This pillar gets at the bureaucratic barriers preventing ‘joined-up’ government and the institutional pressures of acting in a siloed capacity. There is a demonstrated need for more integration of government departments and agencies for everything from policy making to data sharing. The pandemic required this to occur, and modern, effective civil services should make this the norm. Big issues such as climate change and getting to net-zero reinforce this requirement.
Four areas are proposed to deal with this:
- Empower a strong central authority to oversee and enforce collaborative efforts – move away from a ‘lead department’ model to a strong central authority to manage and direct,
- Integrate political and official decision-making to streamline processes – utilize cabinet committees or joint political/official decision-making groups
- Properly resource initiatives that facilitate cross-government working – to ensure full-time attention by designated officials on horizontality in government,
- Maintain a long-term focus to overcome the transient challenges of political cycles – make internal structural reforms and establish long-term goals to drive government funding and decision-making, invest in effective long-term policy making and capacity.
The figure below illustrates different models to accomplish this:
Pillar 5: A service that is trusted by its users and the public
Trust in government is being eroded by populism, disinformation, deepfake technologies, and social media. Governments need to reestablish and maintain trust in response. Effective public service delivery to citizens is central to the trust bond between governments and the governed.
Four areas are proposed to deal with this:
- Build trust by showcasing success stories – highlight where and how government has helped and served people well.
- Establish comprehensive strategies to tackle the spread of fake news – establish communications units and develop strategies to actively confront fake news.
- Maintain open and effective communication with all citizens to foster inclusion and transparency – particularly with digital services by ensuring data privacy and protection.
- Strengthen international alliances to bolster credibility and share best practices in civil service – ensure allied civil services are operating credibly and effectively with each other and sharing best practices.
Challenges Facing Civil Services
The Global Government Forum developed the following figure to identify the principal challenges facing modern civil services today in creating a truly citizen-centric form of governance.
