IV

Modernizing Service Delivery

Last year's report noted that one of the three key priorities for the Public Service of Canada would be to modernize service delivery. This would require delivering programs and services from the citizen's perspective and exploring new organizational models, including partnerships with other levels of government and other sectors.

Making progress

Public servants have shown themselves ready to meet citizens' expectations for improved service delivery and are responding with imaginative and innovative solutions. In every government, in many organizations and in all regions of the country, they are making progress in modernizing work methods, service provision, and the development of partnerships. Innovations are taking place at all levels; there are many champions of public sector reform.

While there is still a long way to go, it is important to recognize the progress that is being made and to learn from these innovations. The following is not intended to present all of the examples of reform, but to put forward promising avenues to improved service delivery:

1. Single-window services are being established to better serve a range of client needs by delivering a variety of services from the same location.

• Canada Business Service Centres, operating in all provinces, bring together the activities and services of federal departments, and often include provincial and private sector participation, to provide single-window service to clients wanting access to government programs for business.

• Over the course of the last year, Human Resources Development Canada introduced a redesign of its service delivery network, reducing costs and developing alternative service delivery arrangements. In some instances, services became highly integrated with provinces, as in the Canada­Alberta Service Centre in Calgary and in Edmonton where service is completely seamless in terms of jurisdiction, permitting citizens to shop under one roof for jobs, labour market information, Employment Insurance, social services, retraining, apprenticeship programs, pensions, and day-care subsidies.

2. Horizontal integration brings together the activities of two or more federal government departments to improve service to citizens and reduce cost to taxpayers and users.

• Work is under way to integrate the food inspection and quarantine-related activities currently administered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Health Canada. Over time it might also be possible to achieve vertical integration with provincial and municipal food inspection activities.

3. Vertical integration brings together the activities of two or more levels of government to improve service to citizens and reduce cost to taxpayers.

• The National Energy Board and the Ontario Energy Board are working to design a common system for electronic regulatory filing. This will permit participants in the regulatory process to use one system when dealing with both agencies, leading to greater efficiencies, reduced costs and more rapid settlement.

4. Opportunities are being created for citizens to have a greater say in the delivery of programs which affect them, in return for increased responsibility.

• Local airport authorities bring private sector management and greater municipal involvement to the management of airports.

5. Technology is being used to better serve citizens. This will free up people to work with clients who have more complex issues to resolve.

• In 1996, over 4.5 million income tax returns were filed electronically. And, in a pilot project in New Brunswick, 4,677 tax returns were filed by telephone.

• Through the Electronic Procurement and Settlement System at Public Works and Government Services Canada, the private sector can do business electronically with the federal government for the purchase of goods and services and the settlement of accounts.

• Canpass (Airport) uses advanced card technology to speed travellers through customs and immigration. It allows low-risk, preapproved, frequent travellers to use a card electronically encoded with their fingerprint to bypass the regular customs interview and use a kiosk instead. Duties and taxes are calculated by computer and charged to the traveller's credit card. Canpass (Highway) gives low-risk permit holders access to a similar system through a special gate.

6. Information technology is being used to reach out and better inform Canadians about government services.

• Thousands of children in more than 7,000 schools can learn about Canada via SchoolNet, an Internet service provided by Industry Canada.

• Businesses can access over 7,000 documents on Industry Canada's Strategis web site.

• Treasury Board's Information Management Subcommittee (TIMS) is exploring how technology can be used to improve services to Canadians and Canadian businesses. TIMS, which is composed of deputy ministers, has established three working groups to develop methods for a client-focussed approach to service delivery and to identify opportunities for streamlining service delivery by integrating services both across federal departments and with provinces. Each group has identified pilot projects to respond to specific client needs. The first of the three working groups is looking at how government delivers information to Canadians and to Canadian businesses; the second is looking at how government delivers services to Canadians; and, the third is looking at how government delivers services to Canadian businesses. More than 60 people from 16 departments are represented in these three working groups.

7. Internal service delivery initiatives are improving service to our internal clients.

• Under the sponsorship of the federal regional council, the federal public service in Nova Scotia has developed an Internet system that makes it easier to share resources such as fleet vehicles, boardrooms, training rooms and training courses. The Internet system in Nova Scotia also supports the Regional Joint Adjustment Committee by allowing employees to post résumés and search for jobs on line.

• Increased training opportunities and lowered costs are resulting from the sharing of training courses in the many Learning Centres established across the country. The Employee Development Centre in the Guy-Favreau Complex (Montréal), for example, offers training, career planning, and orientation services to employees from 15 departments. Training programs are also offered on the Internet.

• Six federal departments located in Les Terrasses de la Chaudière Complex (Hull) have organized collective arrangements for administrative services, resulting in cost savings and improved service. To date, they have collaboratively negotiated fees or leases for such services as postal rates, couriers and photocopiers. Savings of $6.8 million have been realized since 1993.

These examples have many common features. They are all public sector models. They are fulfilling a public sector mandate in accordance with public sector values and using public sector management practices. They are respecting the fundamental principles of responsible government and ministerial accountability. They are reaffirming the commitment to service. They are signalling that service can be improved by an integrated approach among departments and among governments. They are making use of new technologies.

Commitment to quality service

It is clear that the commitment to quality service is a fundamental responsibility of the public sector that is here to stay -- with each improvement that is made, public servants are regaining enthusiasm and pride in their work. Though there remains an impatience on the part of Canadians for better quality service from all levels of government, the recognition by the Public Service itself that service delivery must continuously be improved and the many examples of improvements that are being made bode well for the future.

The public sector serves citizens rather than customers. It is an important distinction. Customers in the private marketplace seek to maximize their individual advantage. If customers are not satisfied with a transaction, they are free to abandon their relationship with the provider at will. Citizens in a democracy are equal bearers of rights and duties in a community setting. That is, citizenship is not purely individual but rather derives from membership in a wider community of purpose, the democratic community to whose larger interests the Public Service is dedicated. A citizen is expected to work in concert with others, through democratic means, to alter an unsatisfactory situation.

Though service delivery in the public sector is and will remain different from that in the private sector, the public sector is, nevertheless, equally committed to service quality and value for money. Public servants want to meet citizens' expectations and are ready to remove barriers to more effective service delivery, but it must be done in a manner that is true to the roles and values of the public sector.

Moving forward

Through the Task Force on Service Delivery Models, a 1996 task force of deputy ministers, we have analyzed some of the barriers to more effective service delivery to citizens; and we have looked at best practices within Canada at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, as well as internationally.

Ministers have a collective responsibility through Cabinet. They also have individual accountabilities that push in the opposite direction. We have discovered that one of the principal difficulties to be overcome is the vertical stovepipes that divide government activities into separate domains of service delivery that do not reflect the interconnectedness of the real world. Pursuit of the public interest requires that ministers and officials rise above individual mandates and act together to meet the needs of citizens.

More often than not, however, the barriers to integrated service delivery are self-imposed. They result from bureaucratic rules and red tape, the protection of turf and a fear of change. When these self-imposed barriers are addressed, we are limited, more often than not, only by our imaginations.

The Task Force on Values and Ethics, a 1996 task force of deputy ministers, noted: "Truly integrated delivery will require an altogether new order of integrative competence at the front line of service delivery, and an altogether new mindset behind it, one that is truly capable of visioning government from the perspective of the citizen, and reconceiving the way we do things to meet the needs of real people."

• To achieve this result, experimentation and innovation need to be encouraged and supported. It is important to experiment, to learn, to make progress without the comfort of knowing all the facts ahead of time. For example, regional councils of senior federal officials in each province have often been incubators of change and experimentation. They are closest to the clients and their views on how best to meet client needs should be carefully considered. Their contribution is significant.

• It is equally important to accept that there can be no experimentation without risk. Ministers and senior officials must accept some of the uncertainty implicit in giving up a degree of control. Not every experiment will be a success. Some honest mistakes will be made. This needs to be understood and accepted. Our commitment should be to learn from these situations.

• We need leaders who will lead by example and who are prepared to move from control to trust -- from supporting systems to supporting values -- from the comfort of process to a commitment to results.

• We must relentlessly pursue the elimination of self-inflicted impediments to improved service delivery -- such as bureaucratic red tape, turf protection and the fear of change -- because these more than anything divert attention and energy from the goal of improved service to Canadians.

• We need to take a "whole-of-government" approach in service delivery which looks outward to the public interest rather than inward to the departmental interest.

• Finally, we need a commitment to partnership and teamwork.

There is no master plan -- nor can there be. Everyone must join in and make a contribution. We will learn from each other. In so doing, we will discover new ways of modernizing the public sector and the Canadian federation at the same time.

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