Public Sector Integrity Commissioner “The Office of the Public Sector Integrity

Commissioner of Canada is an independent Agency of Parliament created in 2007 under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (the Act).”

The Commissioner is an Agent of Parliament appointed by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons. He/she reports directly to Parliament.

Under investigation by the Auditor General, Public Sector Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet resigned in 2010.

December 2010, AG released her report critical of Integrity Commissioner.

Controversy over the Integrity Commissioner“Former Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet modeled many

of the behaviours that she was charged with driving out of the public service:

abusing her staff, taking reprisals against a former employee, and demonstrating 'reluctance' to find wrongdoing;

failing to do her job. The Auditor General reported that Ouimet failed to fulfill her mandate: in three years she found zero cases of wrongdoing and failed to protect a single whistleblower from reprisals;

when the Auditor General's investigation into her conduct was nearing completion, Ouimet negotiated a $500,000 settlement, including a gag order seemingly designed to protect her (and the government) from criticism or consequences;

displaying a disregard for our democratic institutions by refusing for months to respond to a Parliamentary committee as it tried to summon her to explain her actions.”

http://fairwhistleblower.ca/no-more-ouimets

Public Sector Integrity Commissioner News Release - Public Sector Integrity Commissioner makes

findings of wrongdoing by a Manager of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, March 8, 2011

Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR) news release - Whistleblower agency’s first report of wrongdoing is a small step forward.

“Integrity czar blasts bureaucrat’s bullying, spending habits” Globe and Mail

“Federal public sector integrity commissioner finally finds wrongdoing” Toronto Star

Collaborative Governance

Week 9

Collaborative Governance

Dutil et al., 2010 discuss:

Collaboration with non-governmental actors

Collaboration with other levels of government

Collaboration with non-governmental actors “In recent years there has been increasing

attention paid to the participation of non-state actors including citizens, non-profit organizations and firms in state decision making and service delivery” (Dutil et al., 2010: 86).

Two issues emerge

“the problem of establishing who is responsible for doing what”

“developing structures and processes for ensuring accountability”

Shared responsibility

“the particular need to seek long term partnerships with private sector IT firms to transform the related but separate face-to-face and phone based service delivery systems into an integrated, multi-channel system making significant use of the Internet” (Dutil et al., 2010: 89).

Governance and Accountability Challenge “progress on actually building new

governance regimes for cross-boundary service integration in Canada has been…modest” (91).

“the responsibilities of each party can be difficult to clarify” (93).

“transparency can suffer” (93).

Public sector dependency on private partner “there is a risk that government organizations may

become continuously dependent on the private sector players for the delivery of services as the latter takes control of front and/or back office functions essential to multi-channel service delivery” (93).

“This dependency and the accompanying hollowing out of the ranks of middle level managers can diminish the capacity of government organizations to understand what is being done in their name by their partners and, as important, reduces their capacity to enforce learning and consequences if shortfalls in service delivery become visible” (93).

Case study: BC-IBM Canada Agreement A master service agreement signed in 2005. There has been an ongoing legal battle to make the

complete agreement publicly available. In 2011, BC Health authorities signed “an

agreement with IBM to provide desktop management services that includes workstation support and a 24/7 service desk to all health authorities.”

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011HSERV0001-000012.htm

Crossing Jurisdictional Boundaries “Joined Up” approaches to service delivery “Integrated Public Governance”

The challenge

“tensions between political federalism on the one hand, and new and more integrative and cross-jurisdictional models of service delivery on the other hand” (Dutil et al., 2010: 107).

“Political leaders and federalism scholars have paid little more than lip service to the idea of extending the scope of the collaborative federalism model include cross-boundary activities of service delivery agencies” (Dutil et al., 2010: 109).

Creating a common infrastructure Late 90s saw creation of two federal councils; The Public Sector Service Delivery Council The Public Sector Chief Information Officer

Council

Institute for Citizen-Centred Service “The federal, provincial, and territorial

representatives of the Public Sector Service Delivery Council agreed to establish the ICCS as an ongoing centre of expertise in citizen-centred service. Supported by the Public Sector Chief Information Officers Council and incubated by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, the ICCS is working with governments across Canada (and around the world) to improve citizen satisfaction with public-sector service delivery.”

Signs of progress…

“Further evidence of the informal build-up of pressure for a common infrastructure has been a growing list of bilateral and multilateral cross-jurisdictional initiatives aimed at either sharing or integrating information including: portals for such client groups as senior citizens; business registration via BizPal and Business Registration Online; and vital events information sharing including the newborn registration service launched by ServiceOntario and Service Canada that provides quick and seamless access to parents for birth registration, birth certificates and social insurance numbers” (Dutil et al., 2010: 115).

…but limits.

“The stumbling block emerges in attempting to stitch a number of these like-minded innovations into a broader quilt (or architecture) for systematic information management and business model planning across the public sector as a whole” (Dutil et al., 2010: 115).

An identity management system For example: Canada Health Infoway: “Infoway is an independent not-for-profit corporation created by

Canada’s First Ministers in 2001 to foster and accelerate the development and adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems with compatible standards and communications technologies.

Funded by the Government of Canada, Infoway works with the country’s ten provinces and three territories to implement private, secure EHR systems, enabling best practices and successful projects in one region to be shared or replicated in other regions.”

eHealth Ontario was created in 2008, it ran into problems with consultant costs and highly questionable spending: the Ontario Auditor General issued a highly critical report in 2009

Forum of Federations – Roundtable on Joint Service Delivery“joint service provision can range from

coordination of delivery by different departments/agencies in one or more governments to real or virtual co-location and/or the integration of multiple channels (e.g. in-person, telephone, online).”

Joint Service Delivery in Federal Countries, by Tony Dean“Canada has earned an international reputation

for its success in developing a customer-focused and integrated approach to delivering transactional services.”

“Canada, and particularly its federal service delivery brand, Service Canada, is regularly mentioned in international reports as a world leader in integrated service delivery.”

Joint Service Delivery in Federal Countries, by Tony Dean“Canada’s political leaders tend to have taken a back

seat in this area of public administration, perhaps seeing it as the business of the public service.”

One exception occurred in Ontario: “it became necessary to tackle a 9-month waiting time for new birth certificates…The province’s Premier instructed that it be fixed. This resulted in birth certificate applications being moved securely on-line, with delivery time being reduced from months to days.”

Joint Service Delivery in Federal Countries, by Tony Dean“Ontario also initiated some of the first significant

integration efforts with the federal government and municipalities, such as the bundling of a one-time application for three services previously only available from separate offices: municipal birth registration, provincial birth certificates and federal Social Insurance Numbers. These are now available through a single on-line application process with a money-back service guarantee.”

Joint Service Delivery in Federal Countries, by Tony Dean“Canada’s track record in joining up services first within, and later

between, jurisdictional levels is a carefully studied success story that many countries seek to emulate.”

“It is notable though that for the most part this is a success story about the alignment and joining up of complementary transactional services.”

“There is considerably less focus at the federal and provincial levels on joint approaches to the delivery of human services such as those in the health, community, social and children’s services and justice sectors.”