Government has to get better at doing the basic things well

Canada is struggling. Despite being a nation of great opportunity, our country is significantly under-performing. Poor delivery of core services by government and perplexing policy choices are a major contributing factor. The signs are obvious. Government procurement is cumbersome and risk averse, but the costs of the ArriveCan app somehow went from $80,000 to $60-million, with most of it flowing through a miniscule subcontracting firm that did no IT work itself. Incomprehensible, yes, but not unique in the annals of federal procurement fiascos. New ships and planes for the military are running massively over budget— 100 per cent, 200 per cent, and more—and arriving untold years late. And then there is the Phoenix pay system, the gold standard for botched procurements. At the same time, government spending is soaring, but delivery of essential government services is sputtering. Government debt costs are skyrocketing, but spending, deficits, and debt are still rising. Monetary policy is fighting inflation, but without help from fiscal policy. Immigration is skyrocketing, but Canada has a housing crisis and a frayed health care system. Ambitious climate change targets abound, but the government’s actual climate change policies are unclear to Canadians. Canadians are well aware of all this. People are increasingly sceptical of whether their government is working as it should. This is not a partisan matter: whichever political party is in power in Ottawa needs to pay serious attention to making government work more effectively and more efficiently—it’s in everyone’s interest. What can de done? Governments must fundamentally change how they operate. To provide Canadians with the quality of programs and services they expect and deserve, the federal government needs to do six key things. First, focus. The federal government is chasing too many issues and declaring too many priorities. This creates a fixation on press releases and issues management, and encourages endless consultation on any number of topics, often as ostensible proof of the government’s interest in a problem, or in a group of voters. The result is that effective provision of government services, across so many priorities, becomes nearly impossible. This over-promising and under-delivering leads inevitably to dashed public expectations. Despite pressures from social media and interest groups, the government needs to set a limited set of priorities, and deliver them effectively while maintaining a focus on providing core government services well. Second, return to cabinet governance. The excessive centralization of decision-making in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), including on how some programs and services are delivered, has sidelined both ministers and public servants. What should change? It’s time to restore collective decision-making and ministerial accountability. It’s time to return to the public service the responsibility and accountability for effective implementation of policy decisions. Third, prioritize lean and nimble government operations. Today, the provision of core services to taxpayers is much less efficient and consistent than it can and should be. The government’s operating mode has become slow, complex, and oriented more to process than results. Part of the reason is that government has become bloated, with federal program spending levels up 75 per cent since 2014-15, a federal public service growing by nearly 40 per cent—or over 100,000 employees—while government service delivery has slipped. Besides reigning in spending growth and right-sizing the Public Service, there is a need to streamline top-heavy management structures, and reverse the proliferation of government agencies. Fourth, fix the procurement morass. The proliferation of red tape and byzantine contracting rules, particularly in procurement, is a system-wide issue that must be addressed. For example, the seemingly innocuous Treasury Board policy on “standing offers” enables, paradoxically, departments to circumvent the Treasury Board’s own cumbersome contracting policies. This opens the door to unintended consequences where tiny firms—whose only function is subcontracting—receive enormous government contracts with little oversight. The contracting rules themselves have become part of the problem. Fifth, renew the public service. Today, too few public servants are hired for critical skills in operations, information systems and project management. Instead, the skills valued today have more to do with managing process, dealing with the PMO, and avoiding risk. Process becomes an end in itself rather than the means to accomplish results. Fixing government operations will require people with the critical skills necessary for 21stcentury government operations. It will mean empowering them to solve problems and instituting a management focus on results and accountability, rather than process and box-checking. And sixth, boost government policy capacity. The increasing complexity of the issues Canada faces has not been matched by greater policy expertise. Too often, external consultants have become the source of policy and operational advice to ministers and cabinet. Effective government is about more than taxes and spending: it requires organizations that are fit for purpose, and organizational capacity to anticipate and respond to uncertain events. In a volatile world, leading-edge government policy capacity matters, as does a willingness by ministers to listen to it. This agenda for more effective and efficient government operations is neither radical nor partisan—it’s an approach to governing that could be adopted by any of our major parties, as indeed it has been in the past. It is an agenda that would make a real difference by instilling a clear focus on results and accountability. And it is an agenda that would be welcomed by public servants who are frustrated by how hard it is to actually get things done these days. Canada is a success story. Successive federal governments and generations of public servants have played key roles in setting the nation’s direction, working productively with the private sector and provinces, and delivering for Canadians. But that’s not where we are today. It’s time to restore public confidence in government’s ability to get things done. If we can do that, everyone wins. Kevin Lynch is a former clerk of the Privy Council and deputy minister of finance. Jim Mitchell is an adjunct professor at Carleton University, and a former senior public servant. The Hill Times