GTEC has confirmed Deputies from the Public Service Management Advisory Committee (PSMAC) to Keynote GTEC’s final conference day on the topic of High Performance Government (our 2010 theme).

The Deputies from PSMAC, and its predecessor, TBPAC, have been engaged in GTEC for three years. As a senior committee of deputies, TBPAC has oversight over technology in the federal government. The Deputies will participate in the keynote, but the wider committee has also been invited to participate in a luncheon at GTEC with Keynoter, Tom Ridge. The former Pennsylvania Governor and first head of Homeland Security after 9/11 will be keynoting GTEC on Tuesday, October 6 at the National Arts Centre.

The PSMAC Panel is scheduled as the morning Kickoff Keynote on Thursday, October 8 at the Westin Hotel. The Panelists are:

Chair: Michelle d’Auray, Secretary of the Treasury Board, Treasury Board of Canada, Secretariat

Panelists:
Carole Swan, President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Ian Shugart, Deputy Minister, Environment Canada
Neil Yeates, Deputy Minister, Citizenship and Immigration Canada

When the Deputies were engaged for the Keynote, Michele d’Auray (who incidentally was formerly the CIO of the GoC) asked me to define what we meant by High Performance Government and identify what the audience might be interested in hearing from the deputies. The following is what I provided to her. Regardless of if the deputies speak directly to these questions or not, I am sure the panel will be insightful and speak to what government could look like, in their view, in the future.

GTEC 2010 and the theme of “High Performing Governments”

Since it began 17 years ago, GTEC has always focused on serving Canadians better through information and technology. In the early years, creating high performing networks meant automating government processes and delivering more efficient services on-line.

Governments in Canada were early leaders in “e-government”: delivering services to Canadians on-line. Today, consumers are demanding open access to government services, data and processes because collaboration is becoming a common feature of their business lives and social networks. The relationship between citizens and their governments has changed.

While the world is becoming more open, governments are managing service delivery under the lens of public accountability and transparency. Are we at a crossroads, or can governments be open and collaborative while maintaining public accountability? If so, then what are the policy vehicles available to serve Canadians better within this new paradigm?

Looking forward, what are the key components of high performing public sector organizations? Most governments maintain their own performance management and accountability frameworks, but how will performance be measured by citizens who are increasingly connected and informed.

Hope you can make it! The Session is included with your conference pass.

As you may know, we have moved the venue for the awards to the National Gallery of Canada, which is a spectacular site!

We’d like to present this video, which brings you through the layout and visuals for the awards ceremony and the celebration dinner. Since everything is “new” this year, I hope the video will help give you an overall visual for the evening and an idea of what you can expect as a guest.

For your information, ticketing is also different this year, and we have structured the event to offer better value so that more team members can participate. The pricing is as follows: You can attend the awards ceremony and the celebration dinner at a cost of $150, or just the dinner following the ceremony for $90. We hope you will take advantage!

Also please note, the seating for the ceremony is limited to 500, and the post event tickets are limited to an additional 250 guests, so please book soon as they are already going fast! For tickets, please contact Silvia Villon at 613-599-8880, ext. 102, or via e-mail at svillon@gtec.ca.

We look forward to seeing you at the Distinction Awards!

Tags: Distinction Awards, Gala at The Gallery, National Gallery of Canada

While not the mainstream, despite what advocates would like to think, web2.0 technologies are occupying more and more of government workers’ attention!  The potential of these tools to help in communicating and sharing knowledge with colleagues, and in engaging partners and citizens across the firewall has gotten a large number of us enthusiastic and passionate about their use, and has prompted some executives to exclaim “there is no going back”.   At the same time there is an emerging question as to whether the knowledge created in these technologies is valued and captured as a government asset.

Knowledge management and Web2.0

Knowledge management types are generally interested in social media, seeing them and often describing them as knowledge management tools.  There are a few good reasons for this. 

First of all Web2.0 tools are open and allow for broad participation and contribution.   Government departments can tap into the collective knowledge and intelligence of their workers on a much larger scale and share knowledge, whether its forestry scientists mashing up maps to plot boreal forest research or GCpedia users ‘crowdsourcing’  an issue of common interest. 

Second, and I think more fundamentally Web2.0 tools aim at capturing thoughts, considerations, decisions and points of view as they evolve and change.  A good example is a wiki page on a new policy that not only contains the policy itself but also the discussion page which records the background discussion and exchange of ideas.  Extend this out and there may be Twitter feeds and blogs that provide ongoing input and commentary on the same policy.    

Taken collectively not only do you have the final result but also a rich source of information containing considerations, discussion, debate and decision, in other words the stuff of knowledge management.  Contrast that with traditional office tools that are focused on the creation of final documents and not on valuing the in-between or ‘transitory’ versions.  While knowledge managers may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Web2.0 tools there is a significant challenge:

There is a little recognition given to the value of web2.0-created information and knowledge – few recognize, for instance, that a Twitter feed or a blog post would be considered a knowledge resource that needs to be preserved and managed as would any other record or document.  There are cases already of groups and individuals using the new tools and approaches to create communities and generate knowledge only at the end of the process to find that the results have not be considered as assets to be integrated into the government knowledge and information repositories.

Instances particularly worth noting are those where tools have been used to conduct conferences and internal consultations and at the end of the process it is not clear that the information and knowledge has been preserved.  In fact, in a few cases where external services have been used, rights to access this information may have been lost when the service is no longer under license.

While the government is taking steps to recognize the value of knowledge created through Web2.0 such as new policy instruments like the Government of Canada’s Directive on Recordkeeping, there is mindset that has to change.  What we should do first and foremost is recognize that we ARE creating valuable knowledge resources via these technologies and take steps to ensure that the resources be preserved as part of the government of Canada’s historical record.    

Tags: Crowdsourcing, Government, Knowledge Management, Twitter, Web 2.0, Wiki

Over the past two years Accenture’s Institute for Public Service Value has been conducting the Accenture Global Cities Forum in cities around the world to explore people’s perspectives on the role of government. This Global Cities Forum is part of an ongoing study into how members of the public define “public value” and what they expect of government. This year Toronto was included in the study with 70 residents of the GTA, randomly selected to represent the city’s demographics, participating in a day-long deliberative session. We found that while participants viewed Toronto as an excellent place to live, describing it as “friendly,” “clean,” “vibrant,” “exciting” and “diverse.”, they also told us that government is falling short of their expectations in a number of key areas. Among their top concerns: health, public safety, employment and ease of transport.

Toronto Forum participants provided clear “to-do’s” for government:

• Ensure quick, convenient and fair access to health care for all Toronto residents regardless of where they live or the treatment they need; increase system capacity; focus on preventing ill health; and improve efficiency, reduce bureaucracy and increase resources on the front line in health care organizations.
• Improve the accessibility and reliability of the transport system, adopt goals and plans for the city’s long-term growth, and make sure organizations are held accountable for offering taxpayer value for money.
• Invest in initiatives to prevent crime, rehabilitate criminals and address the root causes of crime, improve police effectiveness in enforcing the law, introduce stricter sentences for violent crime and ensure that all of Toronto’s residents are equally well served.

During the Forum we also asked participants to think and talk about public value from three different points of view: that of service user, taxpayer and citizen. In their discussions and role-playing activities, they acknowledged the tensions among those perspectives. But through deliberations, they were able to agree on the general principles of public value that they believe should guide government in improving quality of life for all Toronto residents. Those principles are a long-term outlook; coordination and communication; transparency and accountability; equality and fairness; and efficiency and value for money.

Accenture’s Public Service Value Governance Framework reflects all Global Cities Forum participants’ principles of public value and their desire to be more engaged citizens. It illustrates how to strengthen the relationship between people and their government through:

• Outcomes—Focusing on improved social and economic outcomes.
• Balance—Balancing choice and flexibility with fairness and common good.
• Engagement—Engaging, educating and enrolling the public as co-producers of public value.
• Accountability—Clarifying accountability and facilitating public recourse.

While all four components of the governance framework are important to citizens, we found that they warrant very different emphases depending on the issues with which citizens are concerned and the values that they hold in relation to each of the issues in the different cities. We asked Toronto Forum participants to think about the framework components as they relate to health, learning and education, and public safety:

• When thinking about health, participants indicated that government’s primary focus should be accountability, which is linked closely with outcomes. Participants believe government should address balance by offering equality of access and care. And they view engagement as another means of improving accountability.
• When thinking about learning and education, participants argued that government should focus on outcomes, followed by accountability and then engagement and finally accountability.
• When thinking about public safety, participants asserted that government should emphasize both accountability and outcomes, followed by engagement and then balance.

To learn more into citizens’ perception of the role of government, please visit Accenture’s Institute for Public Service Value homepage.

Tags: Outcomes, Public Service Value, Service delivery

I read an interesting post on measuring the value of social media by Nick Charney at his blog CPS Renewal. I found his post thought provoking as usual and, as usual, I loved that Nick issued a challenge to readers (mostly government employees I am assuming) to send him stories about social media experiences in government.

Nick presents his conundrum as follows:

“The more time I spend examining the use of social media within government, the more I think that measuring the value it brings is a near impossible task.”

I don’t agree that the task is impossible at all. At NRCan – and I appreciate the fact that our SM experience is going into its third year – we celebrated SM “successes” at every opportunity. By “successes” I mean, the innovative and sustainable ways employees are using tools like the Wiki, blogs, NRTube, Delicious, RSS Feeds, etc. to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across lines of business and to change the way they worked. We go to great lengths to profile the “value” that this new way of working brings to the department.

Nick goes on to state:

“…the more I reflect on the situation the more I realize that we can’t quantify the value because we still rely heavily on traditional empirical standards. Don’t get me wrong I am not advocating doing away with empirical approaches but rather simply stating that social media is still so new to government that it would be premature to expect to accurately capture its value in a spreadsheet.

Perhaps the spreadsheet is the wrong vehicle. I don’t think it’s premature at all to quantify the value of SM in government. But why would you want to? The SM tools speak for themselves – not through quantitative stats like page views and hits but as they are used to replace “traditional” approaches in the way we manage information. For the first time ever (well, certainly during my six years at NRCan) employees are truly in control of the information they create and share. I believe this is due mostly to the availability and ease of use of SM tools.

I suppose you could count the number of emails with Wiki links vs the number of emails with documents attached. You could count the number of videos viewed on NRTube. You could probably even count the number of NRCan employees with active Twitter accounts. But to what end?

If you are looking at this from a GC renewal perspective, then I suggest you look at the big picture. In my opinion, SM helps distribute decision-making and leadership amongst all users. I agree that this is probably easier to measure from a qualitative perspective. But if SM is contributing to GC renewal – it most certainly is at NRCan – then is that not measurement enough?

Nonetheless, count me in on your scheme Nick, I have a few NRCan SM stories to share.

Tags: Collaboration, GC renewal, Information Management, sm, Social Media

A performance measurement framework created specifically for your website shifts the focus from simply reporting last month’s site traffic, to obtaining actionable insights that can help you make informed decisions. Not convinced? Consider 10 reasons that make the case for adding a framework to your web strategy.

1. Define what success for your organization looks like – You may know why you need a website, but do you understand if it’s delivering results? You can only manage what you can measure.

2. Align your site with organizational objectives – Your Program Activity Architecture spells out the strategic objectives and associated activities for your department or agency. Determine how your current Web presence can support those objectives, and then frame any future content, information architecture or technological changes in terms of how they support your organization’s goals.

3. Identify the ROT and get rid of it – Measurement of site performance includes casting a bright light on underperforming content, or “Redundant, Outdated and Trivial” pages. This content is best archived in accordance with your IM policies, or backed up to portable media.

4. Monitor campaign effectiveness – For high-profile, public outreach programs, having an established method for monitoring traffic to special landing pages via site, e-mail or printed links will tell you if the chosen messages are working, or not.

5. Validate previous site design choices – Web metrics highlight which links on the home page or key landing pages received the most traffic. If traffic is flowing to your most important content and users aren’t abandoning your site, then the existing design is helping to meet both your goals and, hopefully, theirs!

6. Inform future redesigns – If you are contemplating a significant change to the site architecture, your measurement tools will help focus the design direction on research-based patterns of behaviour and further define user tasks and goals.

7. Identify performance benchmarks – If the core site functionality involves a particular online service, then comparing performance against successful organizations with similar mandates offers further insight into how your site measures up against industry leaders.

8. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) –. Ideally, KPIs are directly relevant to a business outcome (e.g., increasing the number of people who complete transactions on the web), or user outcome (e.g., successfully finding a specific piece of information).

9. Maintain evidence of key decisions – A framework document captures the decisions the management team has adopted, providing sustainability of the measurement program.

10. Adopt a research-driven approach to the web – Basing decisions on a continual analysis of evolving business outcomes, web statistical trends and regular user feedback affords management the ability to stay strategic and avoid tactical approaches to the Web.

Tags: eGovernment, Outcomes, Performance Measurement

Over the past several months we have used this space to share our thoughts on Gov 2.0 either by profiling the many initiatives NRCan is involved in or by taking you along on a personal rant just to make a point – which some might argue is the sole purpose of blogging.  In the spirit of collaboration, “we” (representing corporate) extended an invitation to a few business leaders at NRCan who are actively using collaborative technologies to engage and interact within their communities.

The following blog posting by Jennifer Hollington, a Director General in the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) and one of NRCan’s most prolific bloggers, elegantly demonstrates how she champions Gov 2.0 at NRCan.  This post first appeared in Café Jen (an NRCan blog) in February 2009.

A few months back, our ADM mentioned an idea for tapping into the knowledge of retired employees. He called it “Friends of the CFS”. It would be a network of retired staff, particularly scientists, whom current staff could contact with questions.

This brought to mind a passage from Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything:

[I]f you’re a retired, unemployed, or aspiring chemist, Procter & Gamble needs your help. The pace of innovation has doubled in its industry in the past five years alone, and now its army of 7,500 researchers is no longer enough to sustain its lead. Rather than hire more researchers, CEO A.G. Lafley instructed business unit leaders to source 50 percent of their new product and service ideas from outside the company. Now you can work for P&G without being on their payroll. Just register on the InnoCentive network where you and ninety thousand other scientists around the world can help solve tough R&D problems for a cash reward. InnoCentive is only one of many revolutionary marketplaces for ideas, inventions, and uniquely qualified minds that can unlock new value in their markets.

Even if government contracting rules got in the way of the full implementation of P&G’s crowd sourcing approach in the public service, the idea of being able to take advantage of the skills, knowledge and experience of retired scientists and professionals is appealing.

So, as I sat typing up this post, I wondered whether I could find examples of how the GC is reaching out beyond its borders to engage bright minds in addressing their challenges. I’m not talking public opinion research, in which the government seeks input on a particular topic for a certain period of time. I’m talking about an ongoing relationship with the general public or a particular constituency for the purpose of collaboration.

I found quite a few examples of how various government departments and agencies are using Web 2.0 technologies, such as Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. You can find a list of them at the Government 2.0 Best Practices Wiki, started by consultant Mike Kujawaski. Though the technologies are new and their application in the Canadian government even newer, this wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to find stories where government was interacting with people outside their organization.

The most impressive example I found of citizen engagement was Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s Citizen Voices Web site, featuring a blog (bloGG), including video installments (videobloGGs), and a forum.  Some blog entries carry her by-line while others are written by staff in her Office. On her September 3, 2008 post A New Season on Citizen Voices; she ends with this statement:

“To understand, we must listen. To act, we must include.”
The first comment to this post was made on September 30. The next one came almost 2 months later, on December 1 and began:

“This may not be the most appropriate means by which to contact you about our current parliamentary debacle. However, it is a means of contact – I apologize if it is totally inappropriate.”

What follows is quite amazing: more than 100 comments in the span of one week, centered on the political issues of proroguing Parliament.

Equally amazing is the Forums section of the site, enabling citizens to launch their own debates, rather than comment in response to an official post. Within a category called the Citizens Forum on the political situation, one person started a post entitled: “Devastated by your decision”, saying: “I had faith in our Governor General to see the wider view of these political matters. I am devastated by the decision to suspend parliament.” You have to admire the Governor General for embracing true citizen engagement, even when that engagement involves public criticism of her on her own site.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has a public blog, written by a group of staffers in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The blog’s mission is to increase contact between the Office and Canadians interested in privacy issues. Readers can make comments on blogs posts, which — based on my quick review of the site — generates responses from the staffers or other readers.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, a GC crown corporation, set up Workscape, a discussion board on occupational health and safety. To date, almost 450 members have created just over 200 posts.

Some sites to support discussions among public servants are unofficial, residing outside the GC domain. One such site is Common Look and Feel .ca. Its stated purpose is “a community space where those who work for and on GC Web projects can come together to share, learn and create.” The site is designed to help members learn how to incorporate new technologies and social media into their sites, while complying with GC Web standards.

But after several hours of searching, I couldn’t find much more than this. Which leads me to my question: are you aware of examples within the GC where departments have reached out to former employees or the public to tap into their knowledge?

Tags: blogging, collaborative technologies, community, Gov 2.0, NRCan, Social Media

Teri Takai, the CIO of the State of California is no stranger to change and transformation.  She was brought to California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to implement a vision of higher performing government through the use of technology, to improve government services and provide access and transparency to the state’s citizens.  With a budget crisis, an aging technology infrastructure and a vast, decentralized state government, California’s IT program faces a myriad of challenges.   Takai’s focus on adapting to citizen demand while confronting the political and cultural challenges brings a unique perspective.

This week, the state announced a major IT reform push which includes shortening the timeframe for implementation from 3-5 years to 24-26 months.  We are posting the press release below as some background and context to Teri’s unique challenge in California.

Teri Takai’s background is certainly diverse.  Prior to her appointment in California, Takai served as Director of the Michigan Department of Information Technology (MDIT) since 2003, where she also served as the state’s Chief Information Officer.  In this position, she restructured and consolidated Michigan’s resources by merging the state’s information technology into one centralized department to service 19 agencies and over 1,700 employees. Additionally, during her tenure at the MDIT, Takai led the state to being ranked number one four years in a row in digital government by the Center for Digital Government.

Before serving in state government, Takai worked for the Ford Motor Company for 30 years, where she led the development of the company’s information technology strategic plan.   She also held positions in technology at EDS and Federal-Mogul Corporation. In 2005, Takai was named “Public Official of the Year” by Governing magazine. She is Past-President of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and currently serves as Practitioner Chair of the Harvard Policy Group on Network-Enabled Services and Government. 

Please read on for interesting context on Teri Takai’s reform agenda, which will certainly be part of the context to her GTEC Keynote on “High Performance Government” in October.

State Launches IT Reform Push

Lower costs and greater efficiency expected

For Immediate Release

August 11, 2009

Contact:
Jeffrey Young or Eric Lamoureux
916-376-5037

West Sacramento, Calif. – State officials and representatives of the information technology industry gathered today in West Sacramento to begin the task of reforming the state’s IT purchasing process. Late last month, the Governor enacted a series of process and legislative changes included within the 2009-10 budget, that when implemented will greatly shorten the time it takes to get an IT project done, generate project benefits earlier, avoid costs and aid in the modernization of the state’s technology environment.

Today’s forum with the IT companies that currently contract or hope to do business with the state included State Consumer Services Agency Secretary Fred Aguiar, State Chief Information Officer Teri Takai and Department of General Services’ Chief Procurement Officer Jim Butler. Hundreds of companies are expected to attend to voice their comments and feedback, implementing the Governor’s goal to be as efficient and as transparent as possible in this process. It is being webcast live at http://www.dgs.ca.gov/Webcast.htm and is available for viewing at http://media.dgs.ca.gov/itforum.

“The Governor has made it clear to us all that we must look to cut the time and cost involved with our large IT projects in California while working to ensure we benefit from the latest technological advancements,” said Jim Butler, the state’s chief procurement officer. “We must work to stop the multi-year procurement process. The Governor’s plan will cut our purchasing time from five years to one, while also cutting costs and enhancing our ability to collect more revenues.”

The new program makes changes in a number of areas. The most significant improvement being reducing the total time it takes to implement a large IT project. Under the new plan, the process would be reduced from 3-5 years to 24-26 months, avoiding a large amount of workforce costs. Additionally, the plan also incorporates changes to allow multi-stage phased procurements-these allow a small number of winning first round bidders to create pilot or prototype versions of the systems they have bid on. This, a normal part of the IT procurement process outside of state government that was formerly prohibited. The opportunity to evaluate working version of systems should greatly improve the final products.

The IT procurement process improvements will also engage the IT community ahead of the state releasing Request for Proposals on new projects. This will allow the IT industry to provide much better input to the bid documents the government produces. Other improvements streamline the appeals process, drop some burdensome reporting requirements, and reduce mandatory financial withholding requirements for IT vendors.

“These reforms will strengthen our existing laws and help the IT vendor community partner with us to build projects that will operate more efficiently and effectively,” said Teri Takai, California’s Chief Information Officer. “As we overhaul our aging technology infrastructure, California has a golden opportunity to achieve Governor Schwarzenegger’s vision to reform, rebuild and better serve all Californians.”

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If you have been following me on twitter (@kdentremont), you’ll  know that I essentially follow topic areas connected to the annual themes of GTEC and re-tweet articles and interesting thoughts from opinion leaders. It’s not a very creative use of Twiter, but it’s working for me.

Tim O’Reilly is an uber-tweeter in my book and he has pointed me to a number of ideas and thoughts that are helping clarify my view of Web 2.0.  Recently, he pointed me to a column he wrote for Forbes on how “Government 2.0 – The promise of Innovation” (http://bit.ly/QWwfG). 

I expect we’ll see at GTEC that Tim likes to ask questions based on his copious reading and constant search for information.  In the column, he examines the juxtaposition of what exists online in terms of applications, searches and user communities against the goals and values of government services.  Government 2.0, for O’Reilly, is really “government as a platform”…. for engaging the public in a national dialogue and delivering on some of the age old premises of our democracies in the US and Canada.  Pretty cool stuff.

As cynical as we all can be, it’s hard to deny that Web 2.0 technologies promise to not only aggregate demand for government services, but to actually help manage the inner workings of government IT operations.  So many tools already exist to create social the social networks that government managers desperately need to create demand for on-line services.  Banks and companies have figured out online transactions and perhaps even mastered some of the security challenges around identity management.

Regardless of the constraints to adopting these solutions within government, the world is changing and governments are facing pressure to “keep up with the Jones” where IT is concerned.  Consumer expectations are being set by industry leaders are able to move at breakneck pace and are, let’s face it, motivated by the commercial value of adopting the technologies that drive their businesses forward.

I understand the issues governments face.  IT sustainability, reuse, protection of information and identity management are all huge technology issues that collide with the current policy directions around cost containment and public accountability.  Still, the Web 2.0 world will not wait around for us to figure these challenges out.

The latest tweet from Tim that had me thinking was this one on Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle Report: http://bit.ly/MM5Vx .  Gartner is pointing to major trends like Cloud Computing, greening data centres, virtualization and advances in mobility products, amongst other things, as trends that are growing at breakneck speed. These are signs of a technology landscape that is changing greatly and moving far away from the traditional models governments have been using.  At what point will these trends become part of the solutions to the woes of governments?  Is IT in government really a “problem” to fix, or is it the actually the “fix” for our current problems? Clearly, some of these concepts are shifting cost and business models around the world, and there is no reason to believe that they can’t do the same in the public sector. So if the debate is whether the IT community should be on the leading or trailing edge of next generation services and solving some of our current challenges, I say it’s the solution and we should be leading the charge.

At one point in the evolution of GTEC, the event was focused around leaders who blew open traditional models of service delivery by injecting new systems, processes and technologies into governments. Every signal I see points to an opportunity to leverage a huge wave of change, to change the way governments operate.  The IT Community was the pioneer and CIOs built an information highway in government long before it extended out to the rest of Canada.

The next wave of government 2.0 is a cultural challenge that requires governments to embrace new technologies just as they did in the early 90s when “e-government” was a wild idea.  If not the IT community, then who else in government has the know-how to start the discussion?

Keep talking and keep pushing.  IT is, and should be, the driver of positive change in government.

In our last blog, we discussed four ‘enabling practices’ that can help governments share responsibility for outcomes with their citizens, build more productive relationships between citizens and governments, and bridge the gap between expectations and reality.

Here are some examples of how Canadian governments align their policies and programs with these four principles. 

The principles, and supporting examples, are as follows:

1) Leverage insight into customers’ needs to improve equality of outcomes

To achieve the balance between equality of outcomes on one hand and choice and flexibility of service delivery on the other, public service providers should undertake detailed customer segmentation studies to understand their customer base better and use this understanding to inform all aspects of their services, including resource allocation, service design, channel strategy, and communications and engagement strategies.

For example, the Ministry of Labour and Citizens’ Services in British Columbia recently conducted extensive, needs-based segmentation among its large and growing new immigrant population, to understand better and respond to this population’s needs.   It then worked extensively with immigrant support organizations and community groups to develop the WelcomeBC portal (welcomebc.ca).  This portal is organized by broad customer segment (temporary workers, international students, etc.) and according to specific needs (for instance, ChooseBC; Come to BC; Settle in BC; Enjoy BC; Diversity in BC; and Regions in BC) with services in several languages.

2) Engage citizens, service users and other stakeholders to define outcomes and design services

At the federal level, Canada has also taken steps to improve and enhance the level of feedback and input it receives from citizens.  Its service charter outlines the government’s commitment to its citizens and describes the services offered to them.  Nine service standards establish the level of service to be provided, as well as the protocol for an annual performance scoreboard.

The federal government has also created an Office of Client Satisfaction, a neutral and autonomous body that receives, reviews, and implements suggestions.  The government also conducts feedback studies including a Public Awareness Baseline Study, which examines the service delivery expectations of Canadians.  In addition, the government conducts a Client Satisfaction Survey, which assesses clients’ level of satisfaction with services delivered.

3) Coordinate resources across and beyond government to deliver outcomes

In 2006, the Ontario government created ServiceOntario as a means of giving Ontario’s citizens and businesses an easier, more cost-effective way to access government services.  ServiceOntario acts as a one-stop shop for government services and information.  Everything from birth, marriage and death certificates to health card registrations and driver and vehicle licensing is now delivered through this one organization.

Coordination of resources is essential to ServiceOntario’s success.  ServiceOntario provides unique and integrated services, enhanced by the migration of services from different parts of the government.   Responsibilities were transferred, for instance, from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, which oversees ServiceOntario.  The migration plan deliberately started with the highest-volume services first, moving on to lower-volume services over time. 

The integration yields greater efficiency, but also provides opportunity for outreach and interaction.  Now, customers who go in person or online to register a birth will also be asked if they wish to apply for a Social Insurance Number at the same time.

4) Focus on improving transparency and accessibility of information, so that customers can hold governments accountable, and provide mechanisms for public recourse.

Service Canada demonstrates its commitment to excellence in customer service through its approach to managing complaints via a highly transparent, three-step public recourse procedure.  All Service Canada offices have client feedback cards (both physical cards and web-based forms) which customers can fill out to pay a compliment, make a recommendation or register a complaint.  If the customer does in fact have a complaint, it is the responsibility of the office manager to handle and resolve the issue, or to bring it to a level at which it can be addressed. 

Customers who feel that they are not getting redress at the local level can make their complaint or recommendation to the Office for Client Satisfaction (OCS) which has a commitment to respond to all complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within seven working days.  To date, both of these targets have been met 100 percent of the time.

Tags: Government, Outcomes, Public Sector, Service delivery