TRANSFORMING PUBLIC SERVICE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY - … · 2020-02-07 · Transforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective iii I FOREWORD n September 1998, half-a-world

TRANSFORMING PUBLICSERVICE FOR THE 21ST

CENTURY:An Ontario Perspective

Ontario Public ServiceRestructuring Secretariat

Cabinet OfficeApril 2000

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CoverTable of ContentsForewardDedicationAcknowledgements

Chapter 1: Joining the Global RevolutionChapter 2: Three Decades of Change in the OPSChapter 3: Launching TransformationChapter 4: Building a Learning OrganizationChapter 5: An Outside-in Approach to Quality ServiceChapter 6: "Enterprising" The CorporationChapter 7: The Wired Public ServiceChapter 8: Simple Accessible Windows For Customer ServiceChapter 9: Alternatives To Direct Service DeliveryChapter 10: Setting the Course

Selected References

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iTransforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

Table of Contents

FOREWORD .............................................. iii

DEDICATION ..............................................vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................... vii

CHAPTER 1: JOINING THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION...................... 1Why Write This Overview?................................ 1The Public Sector Context in Ontario ......................... 2The International Context ................................ 4Forces Driving Change .................................. 5Conclusion ......................................... 7

CHAPTER 2: FROM MODERNIZATION TO MILLENNIUMTHREE DECADES OF CHANGE IN THE OPS .......................... 9

The Committee on Government Productivity .................... 9The Special Program Review ............................. 11Management Standard Program ........................... 12A Study of Management and Accountability ................... 12Managing Human Resources ............................. 13Strategies for Renewal ................................. 14The Tomorrow Project ................................. 15Ministry Reorganization and the Social Contract ................. 15A Brief Reflection ..................................... 16

CHAPTER 3: LAUNCHING TRANSFORMATION ....................... 19Planning the Business of Government ........................ 20Identifying the Core and Doing Business Differently ............... 21Refining Accountability in a New Context ..................... 22Developing and Disseminating a Vision ....................... 23Conclusion......................................... 24

CHAPTER 4: BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION .................. 25A Strategy to Revitalize the Workforce ....................... 26Supporting Leadership ................................. 28Reinforcing OPS Values ................................. 30Learning From and With Customers ......................... 31Organizational Learning: Changing the Way We Work .............. 32Learning As A Team ................................... 33Individual Learning .................................... 34Conclusion......................................... 35

Transforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

ii

CHAPTER 5: AN OUTSIDE-IN APPROACH TO QUALITY SERVICE ........... 37Background ........................................ 38The Quality Strategy ................................... 39Common Service Standards.............................. 41The Blue Pages ...................................... 42Cutting Red Tape ..................................... 43The Road of Continuous Improvement ....................... 45A Good Start ....................................... 46

CHAPTER 6: “ENTERPRISING” THE CORPORATION .................... 47

Background and Approach .............................. 48Shared Services Bureau................................. 49Enterprising Human Resource and Financial InformationSystems ........................................... 50Other Enterprising Initiatives .............................. 51Conclusion......................................... 52

CHAPTER 7: THE WIRED PUBLIC SERVICE........................... 53A New Information and Information Technology Strategy ........... 53Integrated Justice Project ............................... 56Teranet ........................................... 57Tapping The Potential .................................. 60

CHAPTER 8: SIMPLE ACCESSIBLE WINDOWS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE....... 61ServiceOntario ...................................... 62Ontario Business Connects .............................. 64Ontario Government Information Centres ..................... 66Northern Integration ................................... 67Community Care Access Centres .......................... 68The Next Wave ...................................... 70

CHAPTER 9: ALTERNATIVES TO DIRECT SERVICE DELIVERY ............... 71A Systematic Approach ................................ 71Agencies .......................................... 73Devolution ......................................... 74Purchase of Service ................................... 76Partnerships ........................................ 77Franchising/Liciensing .................................. 77Privatization ........................................ 78Conclusion......................................... 79

CHAPTER 10: SETTING THE COURSE ............................. 81Making Progress...................................... 81Outlook on the Future ................................. 83Conclusion......................................... 84

SELECTED REFERENCES ...................................... 86

iiiTransforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

IFOREWORD

n September 1998, half-a-world away in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Ontario competed for an“innovations” award from the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration andManagement (CAPAM), an organization dedicated to exchanging the experiences ofgovernments in public sector reform. The theme of the awards was “Service to the Public”.Ontario showcased initiatives to improve delivery through technological innovation,partnerships, and most importantly, a focus on the customer’s need for speedy, simple andseamless services.

It was the first time this international contest had been held, and the competition wasstrong. There were 121 submissions from 24 nations, including the United Kingdom,Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Barbados, Singapore and evenfour non-Commonwealth entrants. There were submissions from the Canadian government(which won a bronze) and from other provincial governments. The jury decided to givegold, silver and bronze medals to winners among both developed and developing nations,rather than having the economically advanced and developing nations vie for the samehonour.

From a field of 30 semi-finalists, the international jury chose 10 finalists and six honourablementions. The 10 finalists were invited to Kuala Lumpur to make presentations to the jury.The criteria used for evaluating submissions were: effectiveness (the innovation had to haveshown results); novelty (it had to be different); relevance (to the theme of service to thepublic); significance (to the recipients of service); replication (it could be done elsewhere);and appropriateness to the social and economic context.

Ontario brought home the gold.

Surprised? Those of us in the thick of restructuring in the Ontario Public Service (OPS)were not all that surprised, although we were extremely proud and gratified. Ontario hasreceived a number of other awards over the last few years, including several Institute ofPublic Administration of Canada (IPAC) awards for innovative management. But, natu-rally, an international award means even more.

This publication highlights how the Ontario Public Service is changing with the times. It iscalled Transforming Public Service for the 21st Century: An Ontario Perspective as amodest play-on-words to highlight two inter-related themes:

§ Ontario is transforming its service to the public so that Ontarians can obtain governmentinformation and services when, where and how they want.

§ Ontario is transforming its public service by focusing on core business and servicequality, becoming smaller and more flexible, integrating operations, and redefining andclarifying accountability.

Forewordiv

During the last 10 to 15 years of the twentieth century, governments around the world havebeen swept into a whirlwind of transformational change. Driven by economic and fiscalpressures, the political direction of the times, the rising expectations of citizens, and theimpact of new technologies, governments have embarked on major change agendas.Ontario started on this voyage later than some other jurisdictions in Canada and abroad, butit has moved quickly into the new era.

The change phenomenon is international, but Ontario, like other public service jurisdic-tions, has designed its own solutions – responding to the needs of its citizens, adapting toits socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic context, grappling with the challengesinherent in the Canadian federal system with three levels of government, and evolving itsstrategies out of the culture and history of the province’s public service.

There have been previous reform efforts in Ontario and elsewhere; in the past, governmentshave been reorganized; management practices have been revamped; and programs havebeen reviewed. This new era goes beyond that level of change to a rethinking of basicprinciples. The questions being asked run along these lines: What are the key roles andresponsibilities of government? What are its core businesses? What should public servantsdeliver? What are the best ways to provide different kinds of services?

Answering such fundamental questions has been an extraordinary challenge for the OntarioPublic Service (OPS). We are not finished our journey, but we have come a long way in ashort time. This publication is about what the Ontario Public Service has done to reinventitself to become the public service of the future – leaner, more focused, integrated, account-able and proud of the quality of our services to the public.

In January 1997, the OPS Restructuring Secretariat was created to coordinate, support andpromote organizational change in the public service, to develop restructuring models, tokeep track of where we were heading and how far we had come, to communicate goals andachievements within and outside the OPS, and to link our organization with others inCanada and around the globe. The Secretariat has prepared this overview of the OntarioPublic Service. This publication is intended to be informative for those who are interestedin public administration reform. We have tried to identify some challenges. We acknowl-edge that there is much left to be done, and there are major change initiatives that have yetto prove themselves. Mainly, this publication celebrates the progress that has been made.Like CAPAM, we believe that showcasing and sharing reform efforts is healthy for allconcerned.

Clearly, this overview is a perspective on the OPS from within. It is not a report of anexternal evaluator. However, we have endeavoured to benchmark ourselves, where possible,against national and international public service organizations. We have sought theperspective of the people we serve to find out what they expect of government service andhow we are doing in meeting the demands of quality public service in today’s complexworld. We have some results from opinion research and from our own monitoring ofcustomer satisfaction.

Chapter 1 sets the stage by providing the context – international, provincial, practical andtheoretical – for the rest of this overview, which concentrates on the period 1995-1999.Chapter 2 puts this period of transformation in the context of relatively recent history andthe changing practices of public administration and management. The longer-term per-spective is helpful in positioning the present as both an extension of the past and a diver-gence from it.

vTransforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

It is also important to note that, while one of the major drivers of change in the OPS wasthe political agenda of the day, this publication does not delve into political ideology or thecontent of public policy. In the tradition of a professional public service – a tradition heldin high esteem in this country – this publication leaves the political agenda to the politi-cians, and concerns itself with the challenges for the public service in identifying andimplementing new ways of working.

Chapter 3 describes the “visioning” that set the overall direction for change. It looks athow Ontario has adapted contemporary theory to meet current challenges, and the tools orstrategies we are using to enable change. Chapter 4 discusses how the OPS is building alearning organization. Chapters 5 through 9 describe our strategies in action – an outside-in approach to quality, an enterprise-wide approach to common services, the wired publicservice, single-window access for improved service delivery, and alternatives to directservice delivery. Chapter 10 reviews our strategic goals and looks forward to the future.

Throughout, there are members of the OPS talking about successes and challenges. Whilethis publication is written to be informative for other interested organizations and jurisdic-tions, it is also intended to provide a broad perspective for those of us who are part of theOPS. Because of the size and diversity of the public service and the pace of change, it hasbeen difficult even for people within the OPS to get a comprehensive view of the implemen-tation of our vision.

This publication is also written with the public of Ontario in mind. It is not an academictreatise; it is a readable description of our recent history, and presents some of our currentand future challenges. It is our hope that it may serve to counter, in some small way, thecommon suspicion that all government bureaucracies are resistant to, if not incapable of,real change.

While we have taken this opportunity to take stock of how far we have come in a short timein the OPS, the change process is continuing. If there is anything the public service haslearned in the 1990s, it is that there are no “time-outs”. It may even be that ten years fromnow, we will look back on this decade as just the prelude to even greater change. Buthaving gone through this transformation, we are confident that the OPS is ready for thefuture – whatever challenges the 21st century may bring.

From left: Linda Stevens,Deputy Minister of OPSRestructuring Secretariat &Associate Secretary of theCabinet, Centre forLeadership. Art Daniels,Assistant Deputy Minister,OPS RestructuringSecretariat, with the GoldAward. Rita Burak,Secretary of the Cabinet,Government of Ontario.

vi

TDedication

his publication is dedicated to all the innovators in the OntarioPublic Service.

viiTransforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

T he Ontario Public Service Restructuring Secretariat would like to thankall those who gave interviews and provided information, and who readdrafts to make corrections and comments. Several of them are namedin the text.

This book provides a cursory review of some weighty commentary andanalysis of public service transformation. At the back of this publica-tion, there is a selective reference list of books and articles that containvaluable insights into the evolving role of government. Of course, noneof the writers whose work we have consulted can be held responsiblefor the interpretations herein.

Acknowledgements

1Transforming Public Service For The 21st CenturyAn Ontario Perspective

Chapter 1

hy Write This Overview?

Aucoin’s observation that public servicereform has been revolutionary mainlybecause it has been designed “within” ringstrue for the Ontario Public Service, al-though Ontario was still only on the cuspof a fundamental transformation periodwhen those words were written. The pointis an important one because it provides atleast part of the explanation for whyTransforming Public Service for the 21stCentury: An Ontario Perspective waswritten:

First, there is a growing body of literatureon the revolution in public administrationthat attempts to define or characterize whatis happening inside governments aroundthe world. But because each jurisdiction iscustomizing its own solutions, the transfor-mation is playing out differently in differ-ent places. The reforms are not taken off ashelf, ready-made. Most of the analysis, aswell, has been focused on national govern-ments. This publication gathers togetherinformation on the strategies and chal-lenges of a major regional/provincial

government in transforming its publicservice for the new millennium.

Second, how change in the public sector ismanaged and implemented should be ofinterest to more than theorists and practitio-ners of public management. As DonaldKettl has observed: “Public managementmatters, and it matters because the qualityof public management shapes the perfor-mance of public programs.” 2 While publicservice restructuring per se is hardly a hottopic among the general public, the results itgenerates are crucial for the quality of theprograms that serve Ontario’s more than11.5 million residents.

Finally, there is a plethora of books andarticles on managing change in the privatesector in these turbulent times, and notnearly as much on the public sector. On-tario has benefitted extensively from privatesector expertise and experience. One of themaxims of “new” public managementtheory, in fact, is greater concentration oncost-effectiveness and customer satisfaction,

JOINING THEGLOBAL REVOLUTION

The new public management has resulted in a revolution in public admin-istration, primarily because much of its reform program has been designedwithin government. Advisers from outside government have played amajor role in some cases, but they have had to cast their ideas in ways thatmeet the essential character of public administration.

Peter Aucoin, The new public managementCANADA in comparative perspective, 19951

W

Chapter 1: Joining the Global Revolution2

two keystones of private business. But, asmany astute observers have noted, govern-ment is different. The features and condi-tions of government, including the impera-tive of democratic control by electedrepresentatives and the duality of thecitizen as both “customer” and “share-holder” of the institution of government,make reform in the public service acomplex process.

In summary, this publication is an attemptto shed a little light on the inner workingsof a public service in the midst of a funda-mental transition. This is no esotericexercise in rearranging chairs in depart-mental boardrooms. It is about “rework-ing” the OPS into a leaner, more inte-grated, streamlined, outwardly-focused,flexible public service that demonstratesexcellence in results. It is about respond-ing to a new environment for governmentand to changing expectations of its serv-ices. It is about striving to recapturegreater public respect for government, itsprograms and people.

The Public Sector Context inOntario

Our focus in this and the chapters thatfollow is on the Ontario Public Service orOPS. The OPS is the government’s in-house operation, its core organization.Public servants in the OPS are directlyaccountable to and work for the govern-ment of the day. We will have much to sayin this publication about how the OPS isorganized, what it does, and how it does it.But, to begin, the OPS must be distin-guished from what is known in Ontario asthe Broader Public Sector, which includes,in general:

The Health Care Sector

This sector includes hospital, physicianand other health care services, such aslong-term care. The Ontario Ministry ofHealth and Long-Term Care (which is partof the OPS) provides funding and servicesystem management. Physicians, who billthe Provincial health plan for their serv-ices, are essentially independent contrac-tors, but their association negotiates a fee

schedule with the government. Hospitalshave their own boards of directors; theyreceive operating funding from the Province,and often fund-raise additional money forcapital and other expenditures. Hospitalshave been going through a major Provin-cially-led restructuring initiative. Long-termcare for people receiving nursing and othertypes of care at home is managed by anewly-created network of 43 government-funded Community Care Access Centresacross the province, that contract for servicedelivery.

The Education System

This sector extends from kindergartenthrough colleges and universities. TheOntario Ministry of Education (part of theOPS) provides grants to 72 locally-electeddistrict school boards for elementary andsecondary education (the number of boardshas been reduced from 129 through legis-lated consolidations). In the past, schoolboards have had the authority to levy localtaxes through the municipality for additionalspending above their Provincial grants;under restructuring, the Province hasrecently assumed authority for all educationfunding and taken greater control overcurriculum. In the post-secondary system,the universities are independent institutionswhich receive Provincial grants from theMinistry of Training, Colleges and Universi-ties, and charge student fees. The Provinceadministers a student loan program. TheColleges of Applied Arts and Technologyhave their own governing boards, but aprovincially-appointed council negotiateslabour agreements with staff province-wide.

Municipal Governments

Locally-elected municipal governmentsreceive Provincial funding transfers from theMinistry of Municipal Affairs and Housing(which is part of the OPS) and levy theirown property taxes. A recent Provincialreview called “Who Does What” resulted ina major resorting of Provincial/Municipalfinancial responsibilities. The LocalServices Realignment has been the greatestchange in the relationship between the twolevels of government in a hundred years.Cost-sharing between the two levels ofgovernment has been reduced from 12


programs to three. The Local ServicesRealignment was enabled by the Provincialdecision to assume authority for educationfunding. Local Services realignment hashelped to eliminate intergovernmentalduplication and overlap.

Municipal governments provide a range ofservices to their communities, includinglocal roads, public transit, fire and police,local utilities, waste disposal, communityparks and recreation, and social services.Since the Local Services Realignment, theyhave assumed greater responsibility forfunding in several areas (such as socialhousing and public health). In someservices, they have also taken on a greaterrole in delivery (such as social assistance orwelfare). In addition to realignment, therehas been a concerted effort to make localgovernments more efficient through con-solidation; approximately 100 municipali-ties have been restructured since 1996. Thenumber of municipalities was reduced from815 in 1996 to 586 by 1999.

Social Service Agencies

The Ministry of Community and SocialServices (part of the OPS) contracts with anetwork of (1,800) agencies that are run byvoluntary sector boards and receive Provin-cial funding to provide services that areessential to the social service system. Forexample, by law, Children’s Aid Societiesprovide child welfare and protectionservices; there are 54 of them acrossOntario. Other parts of the social servicesnetwork include Associations for Commu-nity Living, which provide residential andother support services for children andadults with developmental disabilities.Community agencies have been subject tothe realignments that are taking placeacross the public sector. For example, someorganizations (e.g. child care resourceprograms) that used to be Provincially-funded have been transferred to the munici-pal level.

The people who directly deliver services inthe health, education and social servicesectors are generally not employees of theGovernment of Ontario. There are someexceptions; for example, large institutions

for psychiatric patients in the health sectorand for people with developmental disabili-ties in the social services sector werehistorically government-run OPS institu-tions. But over many years, these institu-tions have been closing or shrinking in size,and over the next few years, most serviceswill have moved to the community. Thetrend in Ontario and elsewhere has been tocommunity placements rather than institu-tional care.

There have been major restructuringinitiatives launched by the Government ofOntario since 1995 that have had majorimpacts on the health, education and socialservice sectors and the cost-sharing anddelivery of services between the Provinceand Municipal governments. It is beyondthe scope of this publication to examine inany detail the changes occurring across theBroader Public Sector. We refer to them interms of their effects – which have beensubstantial – on the Ontario Public Service,but we do not go beyond that.

Similarly, there have been changes in therelationship of the Province to the Federalgovernment, through the ongoing debatethat has become a hallmark of Canadianpolitics – the push-pull of national/regionalpriorities and capacities. Suffice it to saythat provincial governments are taking ongreater responsibility – sometimes withinprescribed Federal standards, mostlywithout – for many of the programs thataffect the daily lives of citizens. We domake reference, here and there, to thegradual progress being made to respond toa message from Ontarians, particularlythose who run small businesses, aboutgovernment cooperation. They mostly don’tcare which level of government delivers aservice or requires a permit, but would liketo see all levels of government get togetherto reduce the transactional burden causedby overlapping jurisdictions.

In this publication, we concentrate on howthe OPS has transformed itself, its ownoperations, structures and service delivery.It is a story that is not in the public eyemuch.


The International Context

Economist and policy analyst ThomasCourchene of Queen’s University, writingwith Colin Telmer, provides an eloquentdistillation of the impact of the Ontariotransformation. The CSR refers to the“Common Sense Revolution”– the platformon which a Conservative government waselected in June, 1995. The span of leader-ship of the Conservative Premiers JohnRobarts and William Davis, to which theauthors refer, extended from the 1960sthrough to the mid-1980s. “Queen’s Park”is the seat of government in Ontario; it isthe location of the Legislature where theelected Members sit, where Cabinet meets,and where the central agencies and topleadership of the public service works.

The CSR and the associated municipal/institutional revolutions are, far and away,the most significant transformations thatOntario has ever experienced. Indeed, onewould have to scour the industrializedworld to find anything similar. Perhaps theNew Zealand experience comes closest interms of magnitude, time frame andideology. In line with the economic-nationstate conception of the new Ontario,Queen’s Park has been transformed fromthe efficient but essentially passive, internalmanager of things Ontarian under[Premiers John] Robarts and [William]Davis to a pro-active, competitive-driven,co-ordinator and innovator designed toprivilege the province and its citizens in thenew global order.3

From the point of view of the averageOntarian, the municipal/institutionalrevolutions – the restructuring of thehospital and school systems, municipalamalgamations and new funding responsi-bilities of local government – are far andaway the most prominent transformations.But what has been happening within theOntario Public Service is also significant.It is part of an international changephenomenon that is widely regarded as thepublic sector equivalent of the structuraleconomic earthquake – much differentfrom the ups-and-downs of a normal

business cycle – that hit the private sectorduring the last quarter of the century.

Many analysts date the beginnings of thisreform movement to the 1980s in the UnitedKingdom under Prime Minister MargaretThatcher. But it is not exclusively identifiedwith governments of a ‘small-c’ conservativebent. Governments of all political stripeshave been restructuring their public services.There is some debate among experts as tohow radical the changes have been in onecountry or another, but there seems to begeneral consensus that significant publicservice reform is occurring around theworld.

The so-called “Westminster” parliamentarysystems of the United Kingdom, NewZealand and Australia have led the way,followed later by Canada.4 These reformshave tended to be grouped under the rubricof “new public management”. The“reinventing government” movement in theUnited States, popularized by the 1992 best-seller by Osborne and Gaebler,5 came to thefore in the early 1990s. It was given a majorboost when it was endorsed by Washingtonthrough the National Performance Reviewunder Vice President Al Gore.

While there is variation in the locus andfocus of reforms and there are differentnational motives and strategies, a scan ofOrganization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) statistics from 1993showed that many governments around theworld were doing some of the following:

§ implementing efficiency measures§ reforming financial and management

systems§ devolving and/or decentralizing§ privatizing or introducing market

mechanisms, and§ restructuring the civil service.6

It is not surprising that the reforms orrestructurings or reinventions – whateveryou choose to call them – vary across theboard. As Paul Thomas has observed,“...contrary to the popular stereotype of amonolithic homogeneous institution, thepublic sector is actually a vast agglomera-tion of very diverse organizations.”7


Governments have undoubtedly cherry-picked through the available options to findthose that best suited their fiscal, politicaland social environment.

Moreover, the strategies for change havebeen influenced by the politics of time andplace. Rethinking government is notsimply a bureaucratic exercise; it requiressustained political leadership to make realheadway. While analysts search for thecommon elements of the “new publicmanagement” or the “reinvention/rethink-ing” of government across jurisdictions,there is also general recognition that publicservice reform in practical terms rarelyfollows neat theoretical constructs.

Forces Driving Change

According to a report of the CommonwealthSecretariat, published in January, 1996:“... change in the public service is aninevitability.”8 A convergence of factors hascontributed to that inevitability. We sketchout the broad outlines of some factorsbelow.

Globalization

What does it matter to public service ifinternational and bilateral trade agreementstear down protective barriers, if informationtechnology crosses national boundaries, ifcompetitiveness in goods, services andfinancial capital turns global? Nick Man-ning’s analysis in the CommonwealthSecretariat report is that:

Globali[z]ation – the growing inability ofnational borders to restrict the flow of ideasor of capital – has changed the governmentequation for national economic andcompetitive success. It has ensured thatnational competitive success rests on aneffective public service. Previously regardedas a constant in the dynamic equation ofgovernment, the public service is nowwidely seen as one of the key variables.9

He contends that the public service hasentered the equation as a variable because itdelivers the policy-making and regulatorybasics that affect productive capacity and

attraction of capital. The public service alsoaffects how the public sector as a wholefunctions, which in turn affects competitive-ness (for example, education and trainingcontribute to creation of a highly skilledand creative workforce in the knowledgeeconomy).

Courchene goes beyond the analysis that theOntario government has been responding tothe “irreversibilities ushered in by globali-zation and the knowledge/informationrevolution”.10 He points to the emergenceof the “region state” as a powerhouse in theglobal economy – places like Silicon Valleyin California, known for its high-techindustries, or regions of Northern Italy,known world-wide for their design. Inregion states, location, including organiza-tional networks and social and economicinfrastructure, matters. It matters even in aworld in which national boundaries are saidto be increasingly irrelevant to globalcompetitiveness. Courchene argues thatthis province has already become a NorthAmerican region state, driven by theunderlying forces of the new economicrealities.

Fiscal Challenge

In the early 1990s, Ontario’s economy wentinto recession at the same time as itsmanufacturing sector, traditionally consid-ered the primary engine of economicgrowth in Canada, was going through majordownsizing and restructuring. The resultwas the worst economic bottoming-out sincethe Great Depression of the 1930s. Thedownturn was disastrous for Provincialgovernment revenues; annual deficitsmushroomed and the Province’s creditrating fell.

Ontario was certainly not the only jurisdic-tion to experience deficit and debt prob-lems. Canadian governments at all levelshad to institute austerity measures to puttheir fiscal houses in order. The U.S.government was also mired in deficits, aswere many other nations struggling toadjust to the new economic order. NewZealand is often held up as an example of anation that hit the debt “wall” and experi-enced a currency crisis. Not coincidentally,


New Zealand is also considered one of theleaders in public sector reforms, as itresponded to its fiscal problems withmassive changes.

In Ontario, it is well recognized that fiscalconstraints have played a role in galvaniz-ing public service transformation. Ontariocould no longer afford to do things the wayit had always done. Incremental change,piecemeal change would not do.

Political Commitment

Political leadership is essential for a majortransformation of the workings of govern-ment. There is some interesting commen-tary about why Margaret Thatcher is seento have achieved major governmentalreform, while U.S. President RonaldReagan did not. Osborne and Plastrik’sthesis is that Thatcher learned from hermistakes, had more time in office todevelop a workable strategy, and recog-nized that systemic change was needed inthe institutions of government to createreal change in bureaucratic processes.11

The government that came to power inOntario in 1995 had an agenda thatincluded cutting taxes, cutting spending,reducing bureaucracy and improvingservices. It was committed to balancingthe budget, eliminating red tape and otherbarriers to investment, creating jobs, andreforming major programs in welfare andeducation. The new government had aclear set of directions, and establishedspecific targets for results early in itsmandate. It also stated its intention touphold the tradition of a professional, non-partisan public service.

Technology

The advent of the information or knowl-edge age, based on computer technology, isgenerally recognized as one of thosemomentous changes that alter civilizations.Like the industrial and agricultural periodsthat preceded it, the information age ischanging the work people do and the waythey do it. It is changing the basis foreconomic growth, from resources and mass

production to ideas and innovation. It ischanging how we communicate with eachother and how we see the world.

Needless to say, governments have beenaffected by the new information age inprofound ways (see Globalization, above).In a more limited, but still important, sense,technology has been both a driver and anenabler of change in the public service. Forgovernment operations that are heavilypaper-dependent, harnessing technologyrepresents a major opportunity not only tolighten the paperwork within, but to providemany services to the public in new and moreconvenient ways. New technologies havecontributed to transformation not onlybecause they offer opportunities to deliverservices differently, but also because theyrequire reform of organizational structuresand processes to use them effectively.

Public Expectations

Surveys of citizen opinion in the 1990sconfirmed what many observers of publicpolicy had been saying for some time -overall citizen attitudes to government tendtowards the negative. Politicians fared farworse than public servants when Canadianswere asked how much trust they had incertain occupational groups, but neitherreceived strong approval ratings.

David Zussman, a co-investigator on theRethinking Government project of EkosResearch Associates Inc., a multi-year,multi-method research initiative with anumber of government and private sectorsponsors, has examined the issue of publicconfidence in government institutions inCanada and in a number of other nationsaround the world. In 1997, he wrote:

In an age of globalization, citizens arequestioning government’s ability to allocatescarce resources effectively, and they arelosing confidence in the usefulness ofgovernment and its ability to make the rightchoices. Without confidence in electedgovernments, it is difficult for publicinstitutions to be perceived as functioningeffectively. This situation is not unique toCanada.12


Interestingly, Zussman concludes thatdisenchantment in recent years withgovernment and public institutions is notnecessarily a negative development becausea better educated, informed and interestedcitizenry has contributed to “makinggovernment and its institutions moretransparent and accountable for both actionsand results.”13 To begin to address thedissaffection of the public towards govern-ment as an institution, he advises thefollowing:

In order to restore confidence levels to apoint where the government can regain itseffectiveness, it must first be perceived asperforming well. To do this it must, as aprecondition, learn to moderate expectationsby refraining from making promises thatcannot be satisfied and by setting realisticgoals for itself. 14

A follow-up report by Ekos in February,1998, stated that Canadians “seek a newgovernance which prominently includestargets, results measurement, fiscal disci-pline and partnerships. The public don’twant to reduce government’s role to that ofpurely an accountant. They also wantgovernment to help plan, coordinate andprotect. Despite reservations, Canadiansstill want government to help deal with thereally big problems that are too onerous forthem to manage on their own.”15

The Rethinking Government survey was oneof several reports in the 1990s that high-lighted public dissatisfaction, in varyingdegrees, with government, politicians andpublic servants. Another challenge identi-fied by the pollsters was the efficiency andeffectiveness of public services. Forexample, the National Quality Institutereported in 1997 that government servicesreceived a 40% rating from Canadians,compared to, for example, 92% for pharma-cies and 70% for banks.16

Later in this report, we delve further intothe service delivery findings. The Citizen-Centred Service Network, created by theCanadian Centre for Management Develop-ment and comprising service deliveryexecutives from federal, provincial andmunicipal governments, undertook a majorresearch project to find out more aboutattitudes to public services. The survey,conducted by Erin Research Inc., found thatapproval ratings for specific services, suchas municipal fire departments and provin-cial parks, were much higher than those forgovernment services in general.

Be that as it may, in the Ontario PublicService and in many other jurisdictions, theneed to improve the quality of servicedelivery in terms of timeliness, conven-ience, accessibility and simplicity is simplynow a given. And there is no mistakingthat public expectations have been a keydriver of change.

Conclusion

We reserve the final commentary for this chapter to Donald Kettl of the Brookings Institute,who is a frequent speaker in Ontario on the subject of the challenges facing public manag-ers in the new environment:

The sheer scale and scope of most government sector reforms are nothing short of staggering.Managers are being asked to do what they have never done before. Indeed, sometimes theyare being asked to do what no one has ever done before.17

Throughout the rest of this publication, we discuss how the Ontario Public Service hasventured into what is, for us, mostly uncharted territory. We date the time at which theOntario government moved aggressively into the new era with the election of a new govern-ment in 1995. But first, to put the current transformation in context, in the next chapter wedescribe major change initiatives in the OPS over the past three decades. These initiativesprovided a strong base from which the OPS could move forward and deal with the “seachange” that faced the public service in 1995.


1 Aucoin, Peter, The new public management CANADA in comparative perspective, Institute forResearch on Public Policy, Montreal, 1995, p. 8.

2 Kettl, Donald F., The State of Public Management, Kettl and Milward eds., John Hopkins UniversityPress, Baltimore, 1996, p. 1.

3 Courchene, Thomas with Colin R. Telmer, From Heartland to North American Region State: TheSocial, Fiscal and Federal Evolution of Ontario, Monograph Series on Public Policy, Centre for PublicManagement, Faculty of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, 1998, p. 213.

4 The term is attributed to Christopher Hood, from “A Public Management for All Seasons?”, PublicAdministration, Vol. 69, no. 1, Spring 1991.

5 Osborne, D. and T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transformingthe Public Sector, Addison, Wesley, Longman, Mass., 1992.

6 Cheung, Anthony B. L., “Understanding public-sector reforms: global trends and diverse agendas”,International Review of Administrative Sciences, IIAS, SAGE Publications, Vol. 63, 1997.

7 Thomas, Paul G., “Coping with Change: How Public and Private Organizations Read and Respond toTurbulent External Environments”, Rethinking Government: Reform or Reinvention?, F. Leslie Seidle,Ed., Institute for Research on Public Policy, Montreal, 1993, p. 32.

8 Manning, Nick, Current Good Practices and New Developments in Public Service Management: TheCommonwealth Portfolio, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 1996.

9 Ibid.

10 Courchene, p. 214.

11 Osborne, D. and P. Plastrik, Banishing Bureaucracy: The Five Strategies for Reinventing Government,PLUME, Penguin Group, reprint of hardcover by Addison-Wesley Publishing Inc., 1998, Chapter 1.

12 Zussman, David, “Do citizens trust their governments?”, Canadian Public Administration, Vol. 40, No.2, Summer, 1997, p. 249.

13 Ibid, p. 249.

14 Ibid, p. 252.

15 Ekos Research Associates Inc., Canadians and Government in the Late Nineties: Core Conclusions andEmerging Forces, Press Release, February 27, 1998.

16 National Quality Institute, November, 1997.

17 Kettl, Donald F., “The Global Revolution in Public Management: Driving Themes, Missing Links”,Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1997.

Chapter 2

A

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FROM MODERNIZATION TO MILLENNIUM

THREE DECADES OFCHANGE IN THE OPS

Management has aptly been called a situationaldiscipline – one where a wide variety of “tools” oranswers exist, and where the challenge is todetermine what tool is best suited to a particularsituation or context.

Timothy W. Plumptre, Beyond the Bottom Line:Management in Government, 1988 1

ccelerating social, economicand political changes have compelledprofound rethinking of public enterprise inthe 1990s. But, change, albeit at a moremeasured pace, has been a constant in theOntario Public Service since the 1960s.This chapter begins discussion with thelandmark Committee on GovernmentProductivity (COGP), appointed at the endof 1969, and takes us through some majorchange initiatives up until mid-1995. Ourpurpose is not to give chapter-and-verse onall these initiatives, but to provide somecontext for the more recent developments.The foundation of much of what has beenachieved in more recent years was set inthese earlier reviews and reforms.

The Committee onGovernment Productivity

Following the Second World War, Ontario’spopulation and economy grew enormously,

as did the size of government. From apopulation of just under 4.5 million in 1950,Ontario had grown to 7.5 million residentsby 1970. As the economy evolved from onethat was predominately agricultural into acentre of manufacturing, the Gross Provin-cial Product, in the brief period from 1960 to1970, grew from $15.3 billion to $35.0billion. More dramatic still, Ontario govern-ment expenditures, approximately $250million in 1950, reached $864 million in1960 and $3.5 billion in 1970. The Provincewas the direct employer of 32,000 people in1960, 62,000 in 1970.2

Beyond reasons of population changes andinflation, the growth of public expendituresreflected new public services and benefits,especially in the areas of income support andredistribution, post-secondary education, andhealth care, with the advent of universalhealth insurance.3


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Chapter 2 : From Modernization to Millennium Three Decades of Change in the OPS10

The Productivity Improvement Project wascreated in December, 1969. It consisted ofa mix of prominent business executives andsenior civil servants. Its mandate wasextensive: “To inquire into all matterspertaining to the management of theGovernment of Ontario and to make suchrecommendations as in its opinion willimprove the efficiency and the effectivenessof the Government of Ontario.”

By the time of its first interim report, theCommittee – now renamed the Committeeon Government Productivity (COGP) – hadacquired expanded authority, a role inhelping “in the implementation of recom-mendations ... approved while the Commit-tee exists” and recommending measures tohelp assure the implementation of finalrecommendations after the Committeedisbanded.4

Over the COGP’s 27 months of operation,the mandate to help ensure implementationof reforms proved significant, in that thegreat majority of the Committee’s manyand far-reaching recommendations wereapproved by the government. From theoutset, the Committee established a pattern– as each of the successive reports (10 inall, the final an overall summary) waspublished, approvals were mostly in place,allowing for the announcement of newdirections rather than merely recommenda-tions.

In its summary report of March, 1973, theCOGP explained its recommendations inrelation to seven major challenges for themanagement of the Ontario government inthe 1970s: heavy demands on the time ofMinisters; demand for services outstrippinggovernment revenues; growing interde-pendence of government activities; manag-ing in a rapidly changing environment;effective use of human resources; therelationship between citizens and theirgovernment; productive use of commonservices.

By that time, the Committee’s work hadbrought about the extensive reorganizationof Cabinet decision-making that becameCOGP’s best-known contribution. Asystem of formal committees of Cabinetreplaced the more ad-hoc approach that

had previously served. A Policy andPriorities Board, meeting bi-weekly, re-viewed business en route to Cabinet, andindividual Ministries were organized intopolicy fields (Social Development, ResourceDevelopment and Justice), to synthesize andco-ordinate policy development.5

Policy Ministers, dubbed “ProvincialSecretaries” were appointed to preside overthe Secretariats and, freed of line Ministryresponsibilities and conflicts, to serve on thePolicy and Priorities Board. IndividualMinistries were reconfigured into morecoherent collections of programs, Ministrieswere increased in number and renamed, andthe role of Parliamentary Assistant wascreated to assist Ministers with heavierworkloads.

Further COGP outcomes, in relation to thefuture challenges identified by the Commit-tee, included:

Demand for Services Outstripping Govern-ment Revenues: Management Board wascreated from the former Treasury Board andcharged with establishing suitable policiesand procedures to ensure the efficient andeffective delivery of public programs andinternal common services. Foreshadowingfuture directions of government, Manage-ment Board was also encouraged “to beginearly experimentation with widening the useof government contracts for service with theprivate sector”.6

Growing Interdependence of GovernmentActivities: Development of a policy andprogram to initiate a process of deliberatemovement of selected senior managersacross Ministries was recommended topromote acquisition of a corporate view ofgovernment activities.7 The expansion ofMinister’s Offices was recommended, inpart to develop an overview of programswithin Ministries in order to promote theirintegration.

Managing in a Rapidly Changing Environ-ment: The COGP urged variation, flexibil-ity and increased decentralization of Minis-try operations, all to be monitored byManagement Board. Heavy emphasis wasplaced on improvement in informationsystems. There was a recommendation to

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extend the use of the Programming,Planning, Budgeting System (PPBS)methodology throughout the government.

Effective Use of Human Resources: In thespirit of the Government of Canada’s 1962Glassco Report urging that “managers beallowed to manage”, the COGP called forgreater managerial discretion in the choiceand management of resources required toachieve objectives. Increasing emphasis onstaff training and development andparticipative goal-setting was recom-mended, together with encouragement ofrefined performance review processes.

Productive Use of Common Services: TheCOGP expressed concern at apparentinefficiencies accompanying the rapidexpansion of the government, in particularin relation to those programs servinginternal needs (personnel, communications,data processing, etc.). Numerous recom-mendations emphasized the role of Manage-ment Board in establishing policy for theefficient use of internal resources.

Relationship Between Citizens and Govern-ment: Improvements in Ontario’s commu-nications operations were recommended.The use of public consultation papers wasencouraged and implemented to limiteddegree. Community Information Centres,established and staffed by the Province,were recommended to enhance publicawareness and input around governmentservices.

Two decades after the wind-up of theCOGP, it was still referred to in the litera-ture of public administration as the touch-stone for all discussion of public servicereform in Ontario. It was portrayed as themodernization of the machinery and theoperation of government. The ambitiousscale of the project, the resource intensive-ness of its investigations and, especially, itsstrategic attention to adoption and imple-mentation of its recommendations ensuredthat the Committee would have a majorimpact.

Shortly after completion of the Committee’swork, it was described as the creature of aperiod of abundance and growth, “charac-

terized by a high degree of optimism at theelite level, a conviction that analytical andtechnological capabilities can transform thedecision-making process and thus vastlyimprove the quality and effectiveness of thedecisions themselves”. 8

The Special Program Review

In 1975, another challenge articulated bythe COGP – public demand for servicesoutstripping government resources – causedthe Government to launch the SpecialProgram Review. The Ontario economywas still experiencing healthy growth. In1975-76, Provincial government spendingof $11.1 billion had more than tripled since1970 (when it was $3.5 billion).9 Just adecade earlier, Provincial expenditures hadcome in at $2 billion. Federal governmentspending had climbed from $6.0 billion in1965-66 to $35 billion. The spending ofgovernments, at all levels, had come underscrutiny as a contributor to inflation, andOntario was projecting a growing deficitunless growth in expenditure could bereduced to match revenue growth.

By mid-1975, Ontario’s inflation rate hadbeen at double-digit levels for well over ayear. Even with two consecutive years ofreductions in numbers of public servants(3,300, in total), Provincial governmentemployees now numbered over 69,00010 andwage settlements had increased wages by 11to 22 percent in the preceding year.11 Thechallenge of dampening public expendituresand service demands was described ascalling for “leadership of the highestorder”.12

Established in June, 1975, the terms ofreference of the Special Program Reviewexpressed a need to ensure that public sectorexpenditures “not become an unnecessaryburden on the Provincial economy”.Specifically, the review was “to enquire intoways and means of restructuring the costs ofGovernment”.

Analysis of the structure of Provincialexpenditures, trends and vulnerabilities ledto an extensive series of recommendationsprojected to reduce those expenditures fromearlier projections by $1,520 million in

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1976-77 and $2,140 million in 1977-78.13

Proposed reductions were of two types:reductions in the rate of growth of expendi-tures by a variety of economy measures,and cost reductions resulting from shiftingexpenditure responsibilities to other levelsof government, program delivery agencies(including school boards) and individuals.

Among the economy measures proposedwas the further development of Manage-ment Board’s operational review andprogram evaluation capacities. Severalrecommendations changed directions thathad emanated from COGP: among them,further delegation of decision-makingdiscretion to managers was withheld“unless clear accountability can be estab-lished in the organizational unit to whichauthority is being delegated”;14 governmentstructure was to be reviewed for possiblemerger of Ministries and administrativeprocesses and consolidation of supportprocesses and central agencies; and furtherregionalization of services would bepostponed pending analysis.

Of a number of principles and strategicdirections adopted by the special ProgramReview, one stands out for its anticipationof subsequent Government directions:

The Government should act more in itsregulatory capacity and less as a providerof services to accomplish its objectives. Suchregulation should, however, be limited toestablishing the broad framework withinwhich private individuals and organizationsmay carry out their own activities withoutundue government influence or control.15

Management StandardProgram

Prior to the COGP, the Ontario PublicService had begun to respond to thechallenges of growth, complexity andaccountability through the introduction ofthe systematic planning and budgetingprocess known as PPBS or Programming,Planning, Budgeting System. By the timeCOGP completed its work, however,another management system was emerging,one that was easier to understand and

administer and with more far-reachingpotential. PPBS had focused on resourceallocation; Management By Objectives(MBO) emphasized results.

MBO was touted as more than a goal-settingprocedure; instead it was to be a totalapproach to managing, “the total manage-ment process of an organization”, encom-passing goal-setting and accountability,employee motivation, organizationaldevelopment and results measurement.Ontario soon began to experiment with avariation on the approach: Management ByResults (MBR). In 1973 ManagementBoard initiated a four-year plan to test theapproach on all government programs. TheSpecial Program Review, in 1975, noted thatall ministries were by then participating,with 111 MBR projects covering 17.4% ofProvincial expenditures. The Reviewestimated that MBR would prove capable ofmanaging up to 70% of the Ontario Budget16

and in fact, by 1978, 95% of the Govern-ment’s Budget was described in MBR’sResults Abstracts, outlining programobjectives and planned results.17

In addition, Provincial governments acrossCanada began to empower their respectiveAuditors to conduct “value-for-moneyauditing”. By 1978, amendment to theOntario Audit Act conferred a similarmandate on the Provincial Auditor, in effectreinforcing a results orientation in theOntario Public Service.

A Study of Management andAccountability

In 1984, the Provincial government founditself on the defensive over well-publicizedepisodes of bureaucratic rule-bending. Inresponse, Price Waterhouse and Associatesand The Canada Consulting Group wereappointed to recommend on the improve-ment of accountability relationships betweenMinistries and central agencies; manage-ment policies; relating administrative rulesand practices to goals of prudence, probityand efficiency; and management attitudesand the promotion of a working climatefostering adherence to rules, value formoney and innovation.18 If managers werebeing allowed to manage to greater extent

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than had once been the case, were the rightsystems in place to ensure requisite suitableattention to the rules? Were lines ofaccountability clear, controls adequate, andrules followed?

Advised by a steering committee composedof Deputy Ministers, corporate executivesand the former Provincial Auditor, theconsultants came forward in early 1985with a number of recommendations forstrengthening of the accountability structureand refinement of the rules in the Manual ofAdministration. Based on interviews withover 100 senior civil servants, the consult-ants noted a culture of pragmatism, “lessconcerned with process than with makinggood decisions”, “striv[ing] to maintainflexibility and reject[ing] bureaucraticextremes”.

The consultants acknowledged healthydimensions of this action bias, but notedthat “more attention needs to be paid tofollowing the rules as well as getting thingsdone”. Recommendations were made thatrules be clarified and the rule-makingprocess improved. Moreover, DeputyMinisters were charged with the lead role incommunicating and reinforcing govern-ment-wide values.

Finally, in the context of specifying a needfor full implementation of performanceappraisals across the civil service, theconsultants noted a tendency for the systemto provide feedback only when problemsoccurred. Instead, they suggested:

In times of constraint and a shrinkingsystem, there are limited opportunities forrewarding good performance. It is time tomove motivation back into the line and toshift the culture toward full and openrecognition for jobs well done. Properperformance appraisals will move thesystem part way towards this goal. Seniormanagement must show the way by givingpositive reinforcement its due. 19

Managing Human Resources

W. P. Moher was the Manager of ExecutiveDevelopment and Organization with

Imperial Oil Limited. Loaned to theProvince for a period of three months, hisassignment on behalf of the Chairman ofManagement Board was to review the roleand mandate of the Civil Service Commis-sion, in the context of new and innovativemanagement philosophy and techniques.

Moher’s report in 1986, Managing HumanResources stands in sharp contrast to thetraditional fixations of public administra-tion: government structure; policy proc-esses; expenditure control and accountabil-ity. Moher’s system of performance meas-urement and positive reinforcementsfocused on the senior managers of thepublic service, observing that:

Evolution must be driven by seniormanagers. Their beliefs and actions are atthe core of organization culture, and theirleverage is greatest.20

His conception of the potential of what herecommended was, however, more exten-sive:

The change to executive practices is an endin itself, but more importantly it is also anecessary precondition to broaden changeand to advance excellence in public service,through sound management of humanresources at all levels.21

As a consequence of the Moher Report, theCivil Service Commission was reduced tothe narrow purpose of ensuring governmentcompliance with the provisions of ThePublic Service Act. Separate from theCommission, a Human Resources Secre-tariat was established under a DeputyMinister, Human Resources, reporting tothe Chairman of Management Board. Tothe Secretariat went the responsibility forleadership, within the public service, onhuman resources policy, planning, employ-ment conditions and practices. Otherelements of the Commission’s former roledevolved to Deputy Ministers, in an effort toincrease their participation in humanresource management and effectiveness inrelation to their staff.

Executive recruitment, career developmentand succession planning were addressed in

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the establishment of an Executive Develop-ment Committee, chaired by the Secretaryof Cabinet. An Executive DevelopmentTeam was established, including anExecutive Development Institute and aPremier’s Advisory Committee on Execu-tive Resources, a body of private sectorexecutives constituted to advise the Premieron OPS executive development andperformance and on the sticky topic ofexecutive compensation.

From his extensive interviewing of Depu-ties, human resource specialists and othersenior managers within the government,Moher advised that deterioration inexecutive compensation was resulting inloss of key personnel, erosion of manage-ment capacity, difficulty in recruiting, andserious morale problems. He recom-mended an executive compensation planthat would provide annual performance-based pay bonuses to senior managersnearing the top of their classification level.

The Moher review, informed by contempo-rary thinking around organizationalmanagement, largely adapted from theprivate sector, represented a significantdeparture from the preoccupations oftraditional public administration. It alsoushered in an era of increasing attention tothe executive leadership of the OPS.

Strategies for Renewal

Moher had said that: “Excellence inmanaging human resources can be thefoundation of organization culture withinthe Ontario Public Service.”22 By late1988, the OPS culture had advancedsignificantly. The structural changesrecommended by Moher had beenoperationalized, numerous executivedevelopment initiatives were underway,and the performance incentive system wasbeginning to provide tangible recognitionand reinforcement of executive excellence.A leadership agenda included ExecutiveDialogues, an ongoing series of executivedevelopment events convened across theprovince, and an Executive DevelopmentInstitute, established to provide an in-housecapacity for the training and developmentof senior personnel.

Meanwhile, the OPS was undergoingdecentralization, to an unprecedenteddegree. Under the Northern Ontario Reloca-tion Program, over 1,700 full-time equiva-lent positions were being moved fromToronto to the North. Two Ministry head-quarters were being relocated, NorthernDevelopment and Mines to Sudbury andCorrectional Services to North Bay. TheRegistrar General Branch of the Ministry ofConsumer and Commercial Relations movedto Thunder Bay, as did the Student SupportBranch of Colleges and Universities. SaultSte. Marie saw the arrival of the ForestryResearch Group of the Ministry of NaturalResources and the Ontario Lottery Corpora-tion.

At the highest levels of the public service,however, the challenge was being redefined.Speaking to the Premier’s Advisory Com-mittee on Executive Resources at a retreat inthe Huntsville area, Cabinet SecretaryRobert Carman solicited the support of thosepresent, from both the private and publicsectors, to assist the OPS in achieving theorganization the Province would need forthe future. A different kind of organization.

Carman’s remarks revealed a growingrecognition that Ontario, fewer than 20years from modernizing its public adminis-tration, was involved in a race against time.The challenge, more than merely renewal,was “breakthrough to become a pace-settingpublic sector organization”.23

Drawing on Peter Drucker’s ideas of aninformation-based organization, the Secre-tary described an emerging vision, strategiesand practices for an OPS of knowledgespecialists. That OPS, managed by visionand co-ordinated by shared values, a flatterand more open public service, would “loseall the touchstones of traditional organiza-tion” as jobs were redefined, reward andpromotion systems were revised, and basicconcepts such as chain of command, span ofcontrol and supervision were rethought. Inthe place of those touchstones, “the kind ofpeople we recruit will change [and a]...culture that supports networking andsharing will have to be developed.”

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The Tomorrow Project

In late 1989, Peter Barnes, the new Secretaryof Cabinet began to grapple directly with thetask of redesigning the public service,through the Tomorrow Project.24 Headed bya Deputy Minister, and involving only asmall number of immediate staff, the projectoperated out of Cabinet Office and avoidedthe kind of high-profile, external “experts”approach of the past. In particular, theTomorrow Project rejected the FederalGovernment’s Public Service 2000 model,begun a year earlier, as too formal andpublic and too controlled by senior manage-ment.

The Project was primarily an attempt atchanging organizational culture to acceptand manage change. Three initiativesconstituted the initial phase of the Project:the reconsideration and restructuring of thethree central agencies, Cabinet Office, theMinistry of Treasury and Economics andManagement Board; an effort to learn waysto improve services to the public; and anexamination of potential service improve-ments and heightened productivity, throughthe use of technology.

In 1990, the government changed. Ifcommentators Georgette Gagnon and DanRath, in their book Not Without Cause25 arecorrect, the Tomorrow Project, inherited bythe new government, could have propelled areorganization and streamlining of thepublic service. However, while the projectcarried on for a time, it wound up formaloperations during the second year of thenew government’s mandate.

Some elements of the technology initiativefound focus in the 1992 Report of theAdvisory Committee on a Telecommunica-tions Strategy for the Province of Ontario.The service quality initiative led to aCustomer Service Task Force in 1991,which surveyed expectations around qualityof government services. An OPS-widereview of Best Practices in 1991 produced aplan for the systematic promotion ofexcellence and innovation. A compendiumof best practices was developed to encour-age others to emulate and adapt models ofexcellence and innovation in the public

service. The initiative’s thoughtful exami-nation of public service reward and recogni-tion systems led to the creation of theOntario Amethyst Awards in 1993 to recog-nize individual and team excellence in theOPS.

Ministry Reorganization andthe Social Contract

Ontario was gripped by a deep economicrecession in the early 1990s. By early 1993,any signs of beginning recovery remainedfaint and government revenues languished.In the months leading up to the springbudget, Provincial concerns rose about amuch larger deficit than had been antici-pated and the possibility of serious difficultyin meeting anticipated borrowing require-ments. In his pre-budget consultations, theTreasurer began to muse publicly about theneed for shared sacrifice, if serious worsen-ing of Ontario’s situation were to beavoided.

In February, a major reorganization andconsolidation of Ministries occurred. In anapparent effort to refocus the government’spriorities and to achieve savings throughmerged functions and OPS delayering, thenumber of Ministries was reduced to 20.Management Board and GovernmentServices were combined, three Ministries inthe business of education and trainingbecame the Ministry of Education andTraining; Environment and Energy werecombined, as were Municipal Affairs andHousing, and Solicitor General and Correc-tional Services. Treasury, Revenue andFinancial Institutions all became part of theMinistry of Finance, and a new TreasuryBoard was created.

In April, the Province announced majorcost-cutting, almost $4 billion for the 1993-94 fiscal year, through the ExpenditureControl Plan. The announced measures,among them an effort to restore some of thegovernment’s lost revenues, were wide-sweeping. As a proportion of total Provin-cial expenditures, the announced reductionsexceeded any austerity campaign since theSpecial Program Review’s restructuring ofProvincial expenditures in 1975.

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Along with the Expenditure Control Plancame announcement that Ontario’s fullrange of public servants, OPS and broaderpublic sector, would be asked to contribute,in an amount totalling $2 billion per yearover the next three years, under what wascalled the Social Contract. Throughsectoral (health, social services, education,municipalities, etc.) negotiations, planswould be developed for how each sectorwould arrive at cost reduction targets. TheProvince declared openness around manyof the particulars of how those targetscould be met, professing hope that thevarious sectors would identify ways to

A Brief Reflection

At the beginning of this chapter, it was observed that the task of managing is situational;context is of profound significance. Private enterprise or public service, good times or bad,in transition from an industrial economy to a post-industrial, knowledge economy – theissues and solutions vary tremendously. The literature of public administration and publicsector management contends that the challenges facing those charged with managingsociety’s public, shared enterprise are the most subtle and the most demanding.

Since the “modernization” of the Ontario Public Service with the Committee on Govern-ment Productivity, the OPS has demonstrated an adaptability and a resiliency that hasmeant public services of which Ontarians can be proud. Change truly has been a constant.A number of the initiatives that flowered in the period 1995 to 1999 had their early devel-opment in the preceding decades in such areas as accountability mechanisms, serviceplanning and one-stop shopping, and executive human resource strategies. In the nextchapter, we begin to discuss more recent changes and the emerging strategies and tech-niques employed by the OPS to meet new challenges.

restructure their services, allowing for servicelevels to be maintained and costs reducedwithout payroll reductions having to occur.Failing sectoral agreements with the Prov-ince, the reductions would be legislated,within months. In August, the reductionswere legislated.

An historic opportunity had been missed,perhaps inevitably. Required restructuringhad been postponed. Not only for the OPS,as Cabinet Secretary Carman had reflectednearly five years earlier, but for Ontario’spublic services in general, the need wouldonly become more acute.

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1 Plumptre, Timothy W., Beyond the Bottom Line: Management in Government, Institute forResearch on Public Policy, Halifax, 1988, p. 36.

2 Ontario, Committee on Government Productivity (COGP), Report No. 10, Queen’s Printer,Toronto, 1973, pp. 13 and 29.

3 Ontario, Report of the Special Program Review, Queen’s Printer, Toronto, 1975, p. 28.

4 COGP, Report No. 10, p. 1.

5 A fourth, de facto, policy field of finance was encompassed by a single Ministry, Treasury,Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs.

6 Among the presentations solicited by the Committee was an address by Senator Ernest Manning,who urged the Committee to consider use of “an innovative management technique, referred to asRequest for Proposal”. In the course of the Committee’s work, the technique was the subject ofextensive analysis and experimentation prior to its adoption for recommendation. COGP: ReportNo. 10, pp. 58-59.

7 In its Summary report, COGP cites a survey of 97 senior OPS administrators, averaging 17 years ofservice, which showed that only 30 had any prior experience in another Ministry or agency. COGP:Report No. 10, p.12.

8 Szablowski, George. J., “Policy-Making and Cabinet: Recent Organizational Engineering atQueen’s Park”, in Government and Politics of Ontario, Donald C. MacDonald ed., Macmillan,Toronto, 1975, p. 114.

9 The Report of the Special Program Review, p. 1.

10 Ibid., p. 37.

11 Ibid., p. 27.

12 Ibid., p. 2

13 Ibid., pp. 17-19.

14 Ibid., pp. 55-56.

15 Ibid., p. 37.

16 The Report of the Special Program Review, p. 59.

17 Management Board Secretariat, MBR Improvement Project, Manager’s Guide to Management byResults, 1982.

18 Price Waterhouse and Associates and The Canada Consulting Group Inc., A Study of Managementand Accountability in the Government of Ontario, Queen’s Printer, Toronto, 1985.

19 Ibid., pp. 128-129.

20 Moher, W.P., Managing Human Resources in the Ontario Public Service, Queen’s Printer,Toronto, 1986, p. 40.

21 Ibid., p. 40.

22 Ibid., p. 40.

23 Robert D. Carman, Secretary of the Cabinet, Notes for Remarks to the Premier’s AdvisoryCommittee on Executive Resources, Oct. 2-3, 1988.

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24 This section draws on the analysis of Lindquist and White in Canadian Public Administration, Summer, 1994.

25 Gagnon, Georgette and Dan Rath, Not Without Cause, Harper Collins, Toronto, 1991, p. 163.

Chapter 3

LAUNCHINGTRANSFORMATION

The distinction between an adaptive and a learning organization issubtle, yet profound. Both organizations operate in the present.However, the adaptive organization is slightly behind; it is just arrivingfrom the past. The learning organization is slightly ahead; it is justleaving for the future.

Otto Brodtrick, Organizational learning and innovation: tools forrevitalizing public service, 1988 1

hen a new government waselected in 1995, it came to power with anambitious change agenda. Given pastexperience and current culture, the OPS ofthe day was surely an adaptive organiza-tion. Among other things, the publicservice had adapted to three different

governments in the course of adecade – political volatility thatwas unheard-of since the 1940s.

It was clear fromthe beginning of thenew administration

that if the OPS weregoing to be able to

deliver on the govern-ment agenda andmeet its fiscal targetsto balance the budgetby the turn of thecentury, the public

service would have toundergo afundamental

transformation. Itwould have to become that

learning organization that Brodtrickdescribed, “just leaving for the future.”

All the management literature agrees that anorganization undergoing major changeneeds strong leadership and direction.There was no question that the new govern-ment was determined to make majorchanges in the public service. It intended todownsize government, reduce spending, cutred tape, reduce internal duplication, offerone-stop access to services, and improveservice delivery. The support of politicalleadership for an OPS-wide change agendawas never in question. This governmentwas not just supportive of change, it wasimpatient for change.

Over the three-year period of the SocialContract, savings had been achievedthrough the legislated restraint on thegovernment’s wage bill, but no fundamentalrestructuring occurred. Once the SocialContract expired, the government was facedwith wage pressures to make up for lost timeand demands for job security for the future.There was a province-wide strike by thelargest public sector union, the OntarioUnion of Public Employees (OPSEU) earlyin 1996. Although a settlement was reachedafter about five weeks, and labour peace was

W


Chapter 3: Launching Transformation20

restored (and a second contract wasnegotiated without a strike in 1999), thelasting impression was of a governmentthat would not be deterred from imple-menting its agenda.

To deliver on that government agenda, theOntario Public Service began a planned,multi-year effort to transform itself for thenew millennium. The fact of change wasnot new, but the pace was accelerated andthe scope was magnified.

This chapter provides an overview ofOntario’s approach to reform and ourvision of the public service for the future.

Planning the Business ofGovernment

The first priority of the government wasgetting the budget under control. Therewere major statements by the Minister ofFinance a month after the election andagain in the fall of 1995, setting out theoverall plan for spending reductions anddownsizing. The plan was to reduce adeficit of more than $11 billion to zero bythe year 2000. All Ministries were givenrigorous fiscal targets to meet, at the sametime as they began to put the government’spolicy agenda in motion.

Management Board of Cabinet was re-stored to its former strategic role of bothCorporate manager/employer and expendi-ture controller (replacing the short-livedTreasury Board). It initiated a number ofCorporate projects that began the task oftransforming the public service. Forexample, a comprehensive review andrethinking of all internal administrationfunctions was launched, with an accompa-nying commitment to cut the costs ofinternal support services by one-third or$300 million over two years. A regionaldelivery project began a review of govern-ment-wide field services across Ontario.

The government established two taskforces, each comprised of governmentMPPs to review and recommend therestructuring of agencies, boards andcommissions and the elimination of red

tape. The agencies review was supported bya staff team in Management Board Secre-tariat, and the red tape review by a staffsecretariat in Cabinet Office.

A new Business Planning process wasdesigned and put into practice. The Busi-ness Plans were annual reports, with multi-year commitments, on how Ministries wouldachieve their fiscal targets and implementnew policy directions and measure perform-ance. Business planning took on a wholenew importance and transparency in theOPS. Ministries were made accountable forproducing business plans, for implementingthem, and for accounting for the results theysaid they would achieve through specificperformance measures.

The Business Plans linked the government’spolicy objectives, the role of each Ministry,and their proposed program reforms.Through their Business Plans, Ministrieswere asked to develop and report on:§ Ministry vision and mission§ Key ministry strategies§ Core businesses and how organizational

structure supported these core businesses§ Performance measures for core busi-

nesses, programs and people§ Programs underlying each core business§ Changes proposed to implement the

government’s policy and operationalagendas

§ Plans for information technology.

The Business Plans continue to be usedinternally to track results in managingexpenditure reductions and implementingthe policy agenda. Externally, they are away to improve accountability to the public.Business Plans that set out, in simplifiedform, each Ministry’s vision, core busi-nesses, key strategies, and performancemeasures are made public. The first publi-cation of all the Business Plans of allMinistries, in May, 1996, was called DoingBetter for Less: Introducing Ontario’sBusiness Plans: A project to protect priorityservices within a more affordable, innova-tive government. The Plans have helped toput the “business” of the OPS on a morebusiness-like footing. The government hadpromised it would have “a significantimpact on the way in which the government


and its employees do business on a day-to-day basis, because it will demand thatgovernment does business like a business.In other words, in an efficient and produc-tive manner that focuses on results and putsthe customer first.”2

In the first set of Business Plans, Ministrieswere encouraged to find out more about theexpectations and satisfaction levels of theircustomers. In subsequent years, theydeveloped targets and standards for improv-ing those services and closing gaps betweencustomer expectations and service delivery.The Business Plans have become increas-ingly sophisticated, and as a public commu-nications tool, increasingly informative.They now provide the public with details onMinistry spending and staff numbers bycore business for the preceding and theupcoming budget years, and telephone, faxand e-mail contact numbers to get moreinformation on specific program areas orinitiatives.

Key performance measures have gone fromgeneral outcomes and “proposed” measuresin 1996 to a more refined and specific listof:§ goals and outcomes§ performance measures§ targets and standards§ annual commitments.

Identifying the Core and DoingBusiness Differently

The process of identifying “core business”was seminal to the OPS approach totransformation. Every Ministry had todefine what its core businesses were,identify which programs and services fitwithin that core and which did not, anddetermine ways to deliver services differ-ently.

In June, 1995, soon after the election, thePremier directed the public service toenergetically pursue new models fordelivering Ontario’s public services. Thegovernment’s Speech from the Throne inSeptember 1995, opening the first sitting ofthe Legislature after the election, stated thatthe government would be evaluating whichof its activities were unnecessary and which

would be better done by others (individuals,communities, business or public-privatepartnerships).

Management Board Secretariat developedan Alternative Service Delivery Framework,which was approved by Management Boardof Cabinet, to ensure that decisions on howto do the business of government differentlywere made on a consistent basis across theOPS. The Secretariat also provided Minis-tries with guidelines on how to evaluateservice delivery options and how to preparea business case for change.

Every Ministry went through a process ofprogram review that asked fundamentalquestions:§ Does the program serve a compelling

public need?§ Does the program contribute to achiev-

ing a government priority?§ Is the government legally required to

provide this program? If so, can thelegislation be changed or is it binding(e.g. constitutional)? How much wouldit cost to get out of this legal commit-ment?

§ If the government gets out of all or partof this activity, would the activity ceaseto exist or could someone else do it?

§ If it would cease, what is the financialimpact on ministries that may requireproducts, services or information fromthe areas being considered for termina-tion?

§ If it would cease, would there be anegative effect on Ontario as a whole?Would specific groups be affecteddirectly or indirectly? Is the negativeeffect on specific groups justifiable ifcontinuing this activity will causereductions in other programs?3

Once it had been established that a particu-lar program should not be terminated, thenext steps involved looking at the potentialfor program redesign to meet objectiveswhile reducing costs, and at options foralternative delivery. Alternative deliverywas viewed on a continuum from sellingthe asset/service to the private sector to thenext closest thing to direct delivery, anagency of the OPS. The range of servicedelivery options included: privatization;


licensing/franchising; partnership; externalpurchase of services; devolution; agencies;direct delivery.

Ministries used a business case model topresent their options to Management Boardand Cabinet for approval. Alternativeservice delivery became a key mechanismfor achieving fiscal targets, includingdownsizing the public service, reshapingthe organizational structure of the OPS,and moving the OPS from an emphasis on“rowing” (i.e. direct service delivery) to“steering” (i.e. managing service systemsdelivered by other agents).

Examples of alternative service deliveryoptions that have changed the way govern-ment operates in Ontario are included inChapter 9. The OPS has recently publishedits accomplishments in Alternative ServiceDelivery in the Public Sector, August1999.

Refining Accountability in aNew Context

Accountability in the public sector isalways more complex than the privatesector. The public servant at any level isultimately accountable to the DeputyMinister, who is accountable to the Minis-ter, the Premier and the Secretary ofCabinet. Public servants support theirMinisters, who are accountable to theLegislature, and ultimately to the elector-ate. Citizens are both users or customers ofgovernment services as individuals and“owners” or “shareholders” of governmentcollectively. They elect the government,which forms a Cabinet, passes laws in theLegislature, and implements a policyagenda.

The Board of Directors of the publicservice (Cabinet) doesn’t just meet theshareholders once a year; it is underconstant scrutiny and receives a regularbarrage of criticism in the Legislature, inthe media, and from various individualsand groups of citizens. The right tochallenge elected governments is a cher-ished democratic right in our society; italso leads to a lot of time spent on crisis

management within the public service.Some have argued it makes the risk-takingelement of so-called “entrepreneurial”government (part of the reinvention move-ment that is popular in the U.S.), next toimpossible because of the potential publicembarrassment to Ministers if their depart-ments make administrative decisions thatturn out to be wrong.

Now, added to all the traditional complica-tions of public service accountability, are the“new” complexities of transformed govern-ment. Because of alternative service deliv-ery, many public service managers arehaving to learn to manage externally-delivered services that used to be deliveredin-house by OPS staff. New public-privatepartnerships sometimes require governmentinvestment in a new technology or sharingwith a private partner the longer-termpotential of benefits or risks of a new way ofdoing business.

In this new context, Management Board ofCabinet issued a new Directive on Account-ability in 1997 to hold both public servantsand external service providers more clearlyto account for their actions. Building on theexperience of the OPS in such initiatives asManagement by Results (MBR) in the1970s, the Directive calls for:§ strengthening performance orientation by

moving beyond compliance to results;§ clarifying roles, responsibilities and

performance expectations of the parties tothe accountability relationship;

§ building effective accountability relation-ships based on mutual trust, respect andthe right incentive structure, and settingout obligations of the OPS and itspartners.

The Directive’s principles state that: “Publicservants uphold the public trust and providethe highest level of quality service, consist-ent with their oath of allegiance and oath ofsecrecy as stated in the Public Service Act.In carrying out their duties, public servantsare accountable for applying the followingprinciples: ethical behaviour; prudent andlawful use of public resources; value formoney; quality service; fairness and equity;openness and transparency.”


The OPS has no secret formula to ensureaccountability for the right results everytime. But it has recognized the challenge.

Accountability has also been built into theperformance agreements of Deputy Minis-ters and of the OPS executive cadre, knownas the Senior Management Group. Thesecontracts, which are discussed in thecontext of the Human Resources Plan forsenior management in Chapter 4, focus notonly on individual results, but on achieve-ment of Ministry and government-widepriorities. They also include expectationsfor cross-Ministry initiatives to supportintegration and coordination efforts acrossthe public service.

Developing and Disseminatinga Vision

During the first year of the new govern-ment, the OPS leadership began to work ona vision for the Ontario Public Service ofthe future. An external consultant washired by Cabinet Office to develop a changemanagement strategy. As a result of thework that was done, the Secretary ofCabinet established the OPS RestructuringSecretariat in Cabinet Office to coordinate,communicate, monitor, support and pro-mote transformational change. Threecommittees were also created: an ExternalAdvisory Committee chaired by the Pre-mier; a Deputy Ministers’ Steering Commit-tee on Restructuring; and a cross-MinistryAdvisory Committee, composed of seniorand middle-level managers. A vision of thefuture OPS was developed to clarify the keydirections and key enablers of change andthe Restructuring Secretariat began work ona quality service strategy for the OPS.

The OPS vision was communicated to thepublic service through a June, 1997 docu-ment called Building the Ontario PublicService for the Future: A Framework forAction. The Framework distilled the newdirections of the OPS down to five shortgoals. It envisioned an OPS that:§ is focused on core business§ ensures quality service to the public§ is smaller and more flexible§ is integrated and cohesive§ is accountable.

Progress towards the vision would beachieved through:§ business planning processes linking

Ministry plans into a strategic OPSframework;

§ alternative delivery options focusing onthe customer, rather than on the providerof services;

§ use of the latest technologies to linkcommon service networks and improveaccess to government;

§ major corporate initiatives to reengineeradministrative processes across govern-ment; and

§ performance measures to track results atthe level of the government, the Minis-try, the program, and the individual.

This vision, which has been disseminatedacross the OPS under the personal signatureof the Secretary of Cabinet, has helped tomaintain organizational focus. It has alsobeen used as a means to communicate withstaff on a two-way basis. All Ministriesheld meetings with their staff to discuss thevision. The Framework document includedsome early success stories in innovation,devolution, partnerships and initiatives thatput the customer first and improved thequality of services. It showcased some ofthe winners of the Amethyst Award, whichwas created earlier in the 1990s to recog-nize outstanding achievement in the OPS.Ministries were encouraged to share moreof their stories.

The 1998 Framework for Action was calledA Quality Service Organization andincluded examples of how the OPS wasimproving quality services – a key compo-nent of the vision. That document alsoannounced a new Quality Service Strategyfor the organization. (We discuss our“quality journey” in Chapter 5.) As withthe initial Framework document, OPS staffwere invited to share their views on theQuality Service Strategy, and were informedof the feedback received from staff on thevision.

The Restructuring Secretariat houses theQuality Service Strategy, which is leadingan OPS-wide effort to become a qualityservice organization. The Secretariat alsocoordinates the feedback from OPS staff on


the Framework documents and reports onthe response. It keeps staff informedthrough regular supplements in the OPS-wide newsletter, called Topical, andthrough an internal Intranet service. Itconducts research and manages externalresearch projects. And it promotes thechange process. Since 1997, the Secre-tariat team has made presentations ontransformation of government to more than30,000 people within and outside the OPS.

A consistent message from the workforcein response to the OPS vision has been“give us the tools to do the job well”. In

the feedback to the 1998 Framework onquality, staff said that investment in learningwas needed to help them continuouslyimprove service quality, make better use oftechnology, and adapt to new ways ofdelivering services. The 1999 Frameworkfor Action focused on learning. CalledBuilding a Learning Organization, itshowed how learning is integrated into theworking life of the public service. (Chapter4 describes how the OPS is becoming alearning organization.) Groups of staff werebrought together to discuss the Frameworkand relate its ideas and stories to their ownworkplace.

Conclusion

How far has the OPS come in achieving its vision of a smaller, more integrated, focusedand accountable public service that delivers quality services to the public? This overviewendeavours to document our progress.

A key theme that has emerged as part of the new vision for the OPS is the organization thatoperates from the “outside-in.” Gareth Morgan, of York University in Toronto, wrote inRiding the Waves of Change in 1988 that:

Many organizations are preoccupied with inside-out management. They approach,understand and act in relation to their environment in terms that make sense from internaldivisions and perspectives.... Other organizations try to build from the “outside in” – they“embrace” the environment holistically and shape internal structures and processes with thiswider picture in mind. They use the views and needs of customers and other key stakeholdersas a mirror in which they see and understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and theyact on these insights to shape their relations with the environment.4

In the OPS, we have endeavoured to implement our vision from an “outside-in” perspective– by opening up our business plans and performance measures to public scrutiny, by askingour customers how, where and when they want their services delivered, and by constantlylearning and adapting to new challenges and new expectations.

1 Brodtrick, Otto, “Organizational learning and innovation: tools for revitalizing public services,” InternationalReview of Administrative Sciences, SAGE Publications, Vol. 64, 1998. Brodtrick is identified as being with theCentre for Public Management in Ottawa.

2 The Common Sense Revolution, May 1994.

3 Alternative Delivery Framework, July 1996, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 1997.

4 Morgan, Gareth, Riding the Waves of Change: Developing Managerial Competencies for a Turbulent World,Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988, p.33.


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Chapter 4

BUILDINGA LEARNING

ORGANIZATIONThe organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the

organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment andcapacity to learn at all levels of the organization.

Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art andPractice of the Learning Organization, 1990 1

L earning at all levels of theorganization is essential as the OPS restruc-tures and as it responds to changingdemands on public service, the impact ofnew technologies, pressure for greaterefficiency and effectiveness, higher expecta-tions of customers, and the increasingcomplexity of public issues. Experts likePeter Senge note that the real value of thelearning organization is in the becoming.The learning organization is not a destina-tion to be reached; it is an ongoing processof change and renewal. As we movetowards our vision of a more integrated andaccountable public service, focused on ourcore businesses and improving the qualityof our services, learning is a constant.

Like many public sector organizations, theOPS faces a number of key human resourcemanagement challenges. A variety offactors, including downsizing and anextended restriction on recruitment outsidethe OPS, have contributed to skills gaps andshortages. Increasing demands are beingplaced on the workforce. Employee moralehas been affected. At all levels of theorganization, new competencies are re-quired to suit the new ways of working and

to ensure continuing success in a complexand changing public sector environment.

Especially in the senior ranks of managersand executives, the OPS is experiencing aloss of so-called “organizational memory” asmany seasoned senior staff have taken theopportunity of early retirement. At the sametime, the organization is significantly“greying”, along with the general popula-tion, as the baby boom generation (born1947-1966) ages. The “boomers” make upabout 70% of the OPS workforce. Theaverage age of the OPS workforce is now inthe mid-40s. Less than 5% of OPS employ-ees are under age 30. Moreover, publicservice in general tends not to be regardedas a preferred career path for most recentgraduates of the education system.

Until recently, our human resources (HR)policies and practices have lagged behindthose being used in the private sector.

The first step in meeting all these challengesis identifying them, making plans, andsetting goals to achieve the required results.We believe that the comprehensive, multi-year strategies that we have put in place will

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Chapter 4 : Building A Learning Organization26

meet these challenges as the organizationmoves into the new millennium. Ourstrategies include the Quality ServiceStrategy that is discussed in Chapter 5 andthe Information and Information Technol-ogy Strategy, which is discussed in Chap-ter 7.

In this chapter, we focus more than any-thing on the “people” side of change. Wedescribe human resource strategies for theworkforce as a whole and for seniormanagement, and our dialogue on sharedvalues. To illustrate the ways in which theOPS is a learning organization in-the-making, we have included selected storieson how staff are learning. These examplesof learning feature strategies led by indi-viduals, teams, branches, and Ministries.In the 1999 OPS Framework for Actionreport, the learning organization wascharacterized as a total system, including:

§ customer learning§ organizational learning§ team learning§ individual learning.

A Strategy to Revitalize theWorkforce

In the spring of 1999, a new HumanResources Strategy for the OPS, calledBuilding Tomorrow’s Workforce Today, waslaunched. It aims to promote revitalizationof the OPS workforce in order to achievequality service to the public and renewpublic confidence. It also aims to reaffirmthe value of public service and ensure OPScapacity to provide excellence in publicadministration now and into the future.The strategy recognizes the need to investin the learning and development of theworkforce. It focuses action on three keyareas:

§ understanding current and future workto ensure knowledge, skill and perform-ance requirements are met;

§ investing in learning and development;and

§ updating HR policies and practices.

It emphasizes that learning is more thantraining. Training usually refers to acquir-ing skills or knowledge specific to thetechnical or operational requirements of ajob. Learning happens on the job every dayand can occur in formal and informalsettings, in groups, or individually.

The approach to investment in learning anddevelopment includes:

§ Every Ministry is developing an annuallearning plan that is tied to its businessand human resource plans. The learningplans must show investment in stafflearning. Branch learning plans feed intoand reflect ministry plans.

§ A new Centre for Development inManagement Board Secretariat is devel-oping new learning programs, providingresources for self-directed learning, andidentifying and sharing programs devel-oped by Ministries that can be usedacross the OPS. The Centre is made up ofa long-term Advisory Committee onLearning and Development and shorter-term learning-specific panels, supportedby corporate funding and some HRplanning staff.

§ Staff development initiatives includeupgrading generic skills, developing keycompetencies, updating technical orprofessional capabilities, and improvingthe managerial and supervisory skills ofcurrent and potential managers.

§ Members of the OPS are encouraged toparticipate in planning their own careers,and to take the initiative in pursuingdevelopmental and learning opportuni-ties. There are a number of guides andworkbooks to help employees understandand develop capabilities that are impor-tant in our changing public service.


Based on the well-known research andexpertise of the HayGroup, behaviouralcompetencies have been defined for theOPS. A specific set of “enterprise”competencies has been defined. Theyinclude, for example, a commitment tothink about the ongoing and evolving needsof the business and to learn how new anddifferent solutions can be used, an ability toinfluence stakeholders and to build strategicrelationships.

To make inroads in the skills gaps andbring more youthful ideas and energy intothe workforce, a corporate internshipprogram, bringing approximately 100recent post-secondary graduates into theOPS every fiscal year for two-year place-ments, began in the spring of 1999. Inaddition, Ministries are being asked todevelop youth strategies to bring moreyoung people into contact with the OPS asan employer.

“The real significance of the HR Strategy isthat it provides consistent tools, competen-cies and learning supports to build for thefuture,” says Stephanie Merrin, whomanages the HR Strategy team. “The OPShas recognized that an ad hoc approach willnot meet the challenges of an agingworkforce, employee change fatigue, or theneed for new competencies and new skillsets. Those challenges must be addressedin a comprehensive way. We must alsoensure that this Strategy is made meaning-ful for staff through the actions of managersacross the OPS.”

The HR Strategy’s vision reflects suchvalues as integrity and protection of thepublic trust. It highlights the role oflearning and continuous improvement. Itrecognizes values as a living part of ourorganization. It says:

The OPS will be a community of publicservants who:

§ Continue to demonstrate dedication,integrity and excellence in serving thepeople of Ontario and their electedrepresentatives.

§ Earn renewed confidence, trust andrespect of the Ontario public and publicsector workers in other jurisdictions.

Example of a Competency

Customer service orientation implies adesire to identify and serve customers orclients. It means focusing one’s efforts ondiscovering and meeting the customer orclient’s needs.

Level 1: Follows upFollows through on customer inquiries,requests, complaints. Keeps customer up-to-date about progress of projects.

Level 2: Maintains clear communicationMaintains clear communication withcustomer regarding mutual expectations;monitors client satisfaction. Distributeshelpful information to clients. Ensuresfriendly, cheerful service.

Level 3: Takes personal responsibilityTakes personal responsibility for correctingcustomer-service problems. Correctsproblems promptly and undefensively.

Level 4: Takes action for the customerMakes self fully available, especially whencustomer is going through a critical period.For example, takes actions beyond normalexpectations or may change the process toensure accessibility to information orassistance.

Level 5: Addresses underlying customerneedsKnows the customer’s issues and/or seeksinformation about the real underlying needsof the customer, beyond those expressedinitially. Matches these to available (orcustomized) services.

Level 6: Uses a long-term perspectiveWorks with a long-term perspective inaddressing a customer’s problems. Looksfor long-term benefits to the customer.Acts as a trusted advisor; becomesinvolved in customer’s decision-makingprocess. Builds an independent opinionon client needs, problems or opportunitiesand possibilities for implementation. Actson this opinion (e.g. recommends ap-proaches which are new and different fromthose requested by the client).

© Hay Management Consultants, 1998

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§ Are motivated and able to adapt, learnand continuously improve.

§ Actively contribute to attracting andpreparing a new generation of publicadministrators.

§ Build challenging, rewarding andmobile careers spanning the public andprivate sectors.2

Supporting Leadership

The management literature, both popular/business and academic, is full of exhorta-tions on leadership. Without the drive andcommitment of leaders, organizational andcultural change is likely to founder.

In the public service, there are two types orlevels of leadership – one is political andthe other is administrative. We havealready discussed the political leadership’scommitment to transformational change.The OPS executive cadre, who are thepeople with the responsibility of translatingthe government agenda into action, havealso embraced the challenge of leadingorganizational renewal.

Support and development of the leadershipcadre, the Senior Management Group, isrecognized as an essential component ofgovernment transformation. The HumanResources Plan for the Senior ManagementGroup (1997) was developed by the OPSExecutive Development Committee, whichis chaired by the Secretary of Cabinet andincludes a rotating roster of DeputyMinisters, and the Centre for Leadership inCabinet Office. It aims to achieve thisvision:

The Ontario Public Service is in the processof major transformation. To maintain bothquality service to the public and a qualityworking environment for employees, theorganization must achieve a balance ofrenewal and sustainability.

Therefore, the OPS must develop and fostera community of capable public executiveswho have the talent, motivation, skills and

expertise to lead transformation and whocan provide public administration ofconsistent excellence. 3

One of the features of this HR Plan is itsemphasis on the Senior Management Groupas a corporate resource. Since the MoherReport in 1986 – which resulted, for exam-ple, in formation of the Executive Develop-ment Committee – the OPS had beenmoving towards greater corporate manage-ment of the executive group. The HR Planbuilds on the fundamentals established inthe Moher Report.

The [HR] Plan introduces new and consistentcorporate processes and practices across theOPS. Most executives have been developedto succeed within their home ministry. In thefuture, leaders must be prepared foropportunities throughout the OPS.Sometimes corporate needs and objectivesmay override those of ministries. 4

The Executive Development Committeemanages succession at the highest executivelevels. All Deputies meet annually as agroup to discuss high-potential candidatesfor senior positions, and cross-ministrymeetings of Assistant Deputy Ministers areheld to identify opportunities for candidateswho require experience in other Ministriesfor developmental purposes.

Performance and compensation are rated notonly on individual success in delivering onkey objectives, but also on the success of theMinistry in achieving the performancemeasures in its Business Plan, and thesuccess of the government as a whole indelivering on its agenda. Performanceagreements now also include cross-Ministryinitiatives – moving away from an exclusivefocus on the senior manager’s “home”Ministry.

The Secretary of Cabinet is responsible forsetting and communicating the direction ofbusiness planning objectives and perform-ance measures for the OPS based on keycorporate goals reflecting the government’spriorities; setting performance agreementswith Deputies, assessing their performance,


and making recommendations to thePremier on incentive pay for Deputies; andreviewing and approving Ministries’proposed performance ratings and compen-sation incentive awards for their seniormanagers.

The incentives are part of a new compensa-tion plan, based on a 1996 study by aPremier’s Advisory Committee, whichincluded chief executives of large and smallprivate sector corporations. The compensa-tion plan that was adopted includes:

§ a performance management programwith individual performance agreementslinked to key performance areas and theMinistry’s annual business planningprocess;

§ competitively positioned salary levels,based on performance;

§ variable performance-based incentiveawards for successful achievement ofresults; the OPS must achieve a thresh-old of performance before the awardprogram is funded (the total amount ofthe pool to be set by the Premier andCabinet); Ministry performance is basedon the complexity, impact and contribu-tion of the Ministry in any given year onachievement of key objectives, and thelevel of achievement of the MinistryBusiness Plan.

The HR Plan identifies mandatory corporatecore competencies for the senior manage-ment group. They reflect the need forongoing change management and supportfor innovation from leaders.

Ministries may add their own business-specific competencies. Whether you are anew senior manager or a high-potentialsenior manager identified through thesuccession planning process, there areexpectations for learning. For example,there is a program for new senior managersand another for newly-appointed AssistantDeputy Ministers.

The corporate core competencies are beingfurther developed for key leadershippositions in the OPS. The first study by theCentre for Leadership focused on the role of

the Chief Administrative Officer or CAO inministries. Three more functional compe-tency projects have been completed:Director, Human Resources, Director,Finance, and Assistant Deputy Minister,Policy. The purpose of these more detailedstudies is to develop descriptions of thecompetencies and skills required for thenew directions, and to identify suitablestrategies to address continuing andemerging challenges.

Core Competencies ofSenior Management

§ Prerequisite core competenciesfor those preparing to move intothe Senior Management Groupinclude: analyses and solvesproblems, leads team, developsothers, has a customer serviceorientation, and managesresources and financial budgets.

§ The entry level of Senior Man-agement is expected to have theprerequisites, plus the following:innovates, builds networks,negotiates/resolves conflicts,plans and achieves one-yearoperational goals, and makesoperational decisions.

§ The next level builds on thosecompetencies and adds: leadschange and organization man-agement, conceptualizes a one-to-three-year future for theorganizational unit, communi-cates and influencesstakeholders, influences policyprocesses and demonstratespolitical acuity.

§ The highest level incorporatesall of the above and adds:champions best models ofdelivery, manages medium-termrisk, synchronizes goals andresources to achieve both short-and medium-objectives, commu-nicates strategically and focusesin, out and across.

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The Centre for Leadership, which is led bythe Deputy Minister who is also an Associ-ate Secretary of Cabinet, was created in1995 as an in-house learning centre forsenior managers. It is a virtual organiza-tion, which leverages expertise andstrength through relationships with non-profit institutes of public policy, the privatesector, and the broader public sector.Through partnerships, it offers a range ofeducation, training and developmentopportunities related to the strategicbusiness directions of the government,Ministry business plans, and corporate corecompetencies. The Centre offers a range ofresources for senior managers throughelectronic mail or a fax-back system,including up-to-date information on keygovernment announcements and upcominglearning opportunities.

OPS values have been integral to leader-ship development, and the Centre forLeadership is continuing its series ofseminars that focus explicitly on values.“We are reinforcing the message thatvalues are part of our everyday workinglife, and that it is important for staff to seesenior managers modelling those values,”says Linda Clifford, Vice-President ofExecutive Development at the Centre forLeadership.

Reinforcing OPS Values

Values are an expression of our expecta-tions and our standards. Values can be apowerful influence on commitment andperformance. In a period of profoundchange, employees have to consider:

§ how certain fundamental values, likeintegrity and public trust, endure in apublic service that is professional andaccountable;

§ how certain operational values emergeor are reinforced by the priorities of theday, such as relating to partners andagents in an era of alternative servicedelivery; and

§ how we may change the way in whichwe interpret or “live” some values overtime; for example, OPS staff have

always been committed to providing goodservices - today, we are being moresystematic about assessing and measuringhow we are doing.

Ontario Public ServiceValues Statement

Members of the Ontario PublicService are committed to upholdingthe highest level of service qualityand public trust.

• We are open and honest inour behaviour, creative andresponsive to change, andcommitted to continuousself-improvement andintegrity. We will demon-strate these values withinthe context of a professionaland accountable publicservice.

• We are fair, consistent andcommitted to effectiverelations with the generalpublic, clients, customers,other staff within and acrossministries, and with electedofficials,

• In our relationships with ourpartners and agents, we areclear about expectations andcriteria for success.

• Within the structures andprocesses of government, wewill continue to exercisefiscal prudence; we valuetraining and organizationallearning; and we are com-mitted to consistency andfairness in our treatment ofcolleagues and staff.

Under the terms of the PublicService Act, and through an oath ofallegiance and secrecy, publicservants in Ontario are responsibleto the public through the electedgovernment and Ministers of theCrown.


The first two Framework for Action docu-ments referred to OPS values such asintegrity, fairness, effective relations withothers, and continuous improvement. TheSecretary of Cabinet asked a committee ofsenior managers to look at the whole area ofvalues and write a statement that wouldresonate with OPS staff and that could bethe focus of a dialogue with staff throughthe vehicle of the 1999 Framework forAction report.

Learning From and WithCustomers

The best way to improve services to thepublic is to find out what works best for theusers of public services, from their perspec-tive. Listening to customers is helping ustake an “outside-in” approach to qualityservice delivery. (See Chapter 5 on theOPS Quality Service Strategy). Rather thanconfiguring service delivery to suit govern-ment (inside), we are looking at servicedelivery from the perspective of the cus-tomer (outside).

We are also learning with our customers andservice delivery partners, as well as fromthem. There is a clear sense that realpartnership is needed, with give-and-take asboth partners learn from each other. Forexample, both Provincial and Municipalstaff have been learning together throughseminars and other learning opportunitiesabout how Local Services Realignment haschanged the working relationship of the twolevels of government.

Teaming Up With Customers to ImproveService at the Ministry of Transportation

On Joseph Denny’s first day on the job withOntario’s road condition informationservice, he found that a mere 6% of thepeople who called in the previous 24-hourperiod had gotten through on the automatedphone message system.

His first day as Manager of CustomerInformation Services for the Ministry ofTransportation (MTO) coincided with ahuge snowstorm – the first of 1999 – whenan unprecedented 98,000 calls came in on asingle day. The information system, which

normally provided timely and reliableservice, could not cope with this volume ofdemand.

But Denny and his team didn’t wait aroundto see what would happen during the nextbig snowfall. About two weeks later, whensouth-central Ontario was buried under awinter’s worth of snow in a matter of a fewdays, they were ready with:

§ a new phone system that re-allocatescalls and adds up to 20 more lines asrequired;§ enhanced updating of information on

the phone system i.e. four times a day,seven days a week, in both English andFrench;§ a website that provides the same infor-

mation to the public as the phonemessage system, updated with the samefrequency; and§ a new system of fax and e-mail service to

give media outlets timely and accurateroad information to pass on to thepublic.

How did it work? The percentage ofcustomers served rose from 6% to anaverage of 98.8%. The website receives anaverage of 2,000 visitors a day. At the sametime as service has improved duringextreme weather conditions, telephone andtechnology costs have decreased. How didthey do it? They analyzed what theircustomers wanted, and brainstormed newsolutions. But first, they did someteam-building.

Denny was the newcomer. He had justmoved to MTO headquarters in St.Catharines. The people who worked in theroad information service hadn’t reallyworked together before either. “It was avery individualized work environment,”says Denny. “We provide service sevendays a week, 24 hours a day. Staff workdifferent shifts and weekends. There waslittle communication between staff, nocollaboration between tasks, and no shar-ing of new knowledge.”

The team sat down together and worked ona mission statement: “placing the customerat the centre of our service.” They con-

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ducted a customer survey, and then imple-mented their action plan to improve theservice.

The team has taken its mission to heart.Customers are invited to make commentson the internet, by phone and fax. Custom-ers may talk to a team member directlywith comments or suggestions. The staffmember who talks to the customer oftenbrings a recommendation to the next teammeeting. There are daily brainstormingsessions.

“We are constantly focused on exceedingall customer expectations,” says Denny. “Ithink we have internalized the standards ofa learning organization within our team,with continuous improvement based on ourmission, open communications within acollaborative environment, direct customerinvolvement in making the service better,staff empowerment and stringent monitor-ing and measurement.”

Organizational Learning:Changing the Way We Work

This type of learning is the most difficult toidentify and probably the hardest one toachieve. It includes learning by individu-als and teams because an organization doesnot exist apart from its people. But it goesbeyond learning that affects the behaviouror knowledge of individuals. It is learningthat has an impact on how things are done,how the organization works. It is occur-ring as Ministries change how they dobusiness, how they relate to customers andpartners, how they use technology differ-ently, how they deliver services differently,and how they support staff to adapt to thechanges. Organizational learning involvesusing the tools for systemic change, andsupporting the change “enablers” identifiedin the OPS vision – people, technology,processes and service delivery.

A “Learning Revolution” at the Ministry ofNatural Resources

David Watton calls what happened to theMinistry of Natural Resources (MNR)

through the Lands for Life initiative “alearning revolution.”

Lands for Life is known as the largest landuse consultation ever undertaken in NorthAmerica, generating more than 60,000public contacts. Watton, recently retiredDirector of the MNR’s Land Use PlanningBranch, in Peterborough, thinks the learninginvolved in Lands for Life representssomething “really fundamental” for buildingthe OPS of the future.

Lands for Life was a planning processestablished to recommend the future of theCrown land base of Ontario, which coversabout 85% of the province. Unlike previousplanning exercises that were directed byMNR, Lands for Life took an outside-inapproach to consultation. Three regionalRound Tables were formed, each with 12 to14 members from diverse interests, such asthe forest industry, environmental groups,and recreational users, as well as the publicat large. There was one OPS staff memberon each Round Table.

The Round Tables directed their ownprocess. They decided how the publicconsultations would take place. Theydecided what issues would be explored.They developed their recommendations togovernment. MNR supported the process,and involved other ministries. The transfor-mational change for the Ministry camefrom:§ turning over what had been “our” job to

the Round Tables;§ adopting a new and more open approach

to information-sharing; and§ developing new ways to support

decision-making, includingtechnology-based analytical tools.

In order for the Round Tables to do their job,they had to have access to MNR’s informa-tion base. “The Ministry has a vast amountof information, traditionally for our ownuse,” says Watton. “Because this processwas so open, it put huge demands on ourinformation base. We had to make sure theinformation was in a format that peoplecould use. In the process, we had to developa whole set of new analytical tools, whichwe are finding are now much in demand.”


Another thing happened. When the publicknows as much as the public servants do,the relationship changes. “We can never goback to the old mode where we give thepublic a peek at the information we have.It’s now all out in the open.”

The Round Tables were not the end of theprocess. Their recommendations wereconsolidated, and in March, 1999, thegovernment released Ontario’s LivingLegacy, outlining its proposed land usestrategy. The Strategy extends the numberand size of protected areas, based mainly onthe Round Table recommendations, and ona unique agreement called the OntarioForest Accord. The Accord, which wasreached when the government sat downwith the forest industry and some environ-mental groups, represents another newrelationship, growing from one that hadbeen mostly confrontational.

“We’re not saying that everything is neatlytied with a ribbon, and there will never beany more disputes over land use, but wehave the basis for a new relationship,” saysWatton. “If we are all wise enough not toretrench, we can work together.”

Learning As A Team

Teams do not happen just because a groupof staff is called one. It takes work to builda team. One of the ways in which team-work comes about is through sharedlearning, when members acquire newknowledge and skills together, and thenwork together on how to apply that learningto meet the team’s goals. Teamwork is partof the learning process, and learning is partof building teamwork.

Building a Marketing Team for Ontario atthe Ministry of Economic Developmentand Trade

At the Ministry of Economic Developmentand Trade, learning is part ofteam-building.

In the fall of 1996, the governmentlaunched a major new initiative to “MarketOntario” to the world as a great place to

invest and do business. A new InvestmentDivision was created to spearhead the effortto attract more investment dollars and jobs.“We had a new organization and a newmandate; we had people who had cometogether from other units in the Ministryand elsewhere, and who had not all workedtogether before. And there was a lot ofinsecurity because of all the change over theprevious two years,” says GrahameRichards, Assistant Deputy Minister of theInvestment Division.

“We needed to build a team that worked asa team. We needed to acquire new skill setsand new mindsets. We needed to create areal culture shift to turn what had been, tosome extent, a financial assistance businessinto a sales and marketing business.”

An important part of the solution was atraining strategy where staff could “learntogether and share”. Staff members wereasked to identify their training needs.Staff-led project teams invited proposalsfrom training experts, and worked with thetrainers to pilot-test training and ensuredelivery. They also monitored and reportedon the feedback from participants.

There was some reluctance around the ideathat OPS staff were sales representatives forOntario as an investment destination. Itdidn’t sound like a public service role. Butmindsets are changing. Staff are recogniz-ing that sales and presentation skills areuseful in many aspects of their work, saysJohn Mitsopulos, manager of InvestmentSales and Marketing. “Part of what we arelearning is good relationship management.It can take anywhere from a month to tenyears for a company to make a decision onnew investment. We have to foster relation-ships over time so that when that decisionis made, we’re there and we have credibil-ity.”

Bill Anderson, manager of the Key Invest-ment Account Program, is leading a team,formed in 1998, to visit large corporationsin Ontario. To build teamwork, he says,there are weekly meetings where staff talkabout how they are doing, share experi-ences, and learn from presentations madeby other ministries on initiatives that have

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an impact on the business community. Thedivision is so convinced of the benefits oftraining, it has been sharing some sessionswith other divisions, other ministries, andwith municipal economic developmentofficials.

Individual Learning

Individual learning is at the heart of alearning organization because an organiza-tion is only as informed, skilled andmotivated as its people. Members of theOPS are increasingly taking more responsi-bility for their own learning and develop-ment. Technology, in particular, is sup-porting self-directed learning and develop-ment for many OPS staff. Going beyondindividual responsibility for learning,groups of OPS employees are gettingtogether to organize and design learningopportunities for themselves and theircolleagues. Their commitment to learningis changing organizational attitudes.

Learning Opportunities Created For andBy Staff at the Ministry of the AttorneyGeneral

When Brenda O’Marra joined the Ministryof the Attorney General in 1989, shenoticed what she considered to be a majorgap. In the Criminal Law Division, therewas continuous legal education andtraining for lawyers, who make up themajority of staff. But there was nothing foradministrative staff. O’Marra decided todo something about that.

A decade later, the initiative she startedand has continued to nurture is goingstrong. The annual administrative staffseminar drew more than 100 people thisyear. It is organized by and for administra-tive staff, and its agenda zeroes in oncurrent issues and practical learning.

It took some persistence on the part ofO’Marra and her colleague (now retired)Ann Russell to get the idea off the ground.They had to prepare a business case forsenior management. “We were well pre-pared and passionate about the cause.” Asmall working committee was formed, andthe first seminar was held in 1992.

“Our committee didn’t have experienceputting on seminars. We learned,” saidO’Marra, who is Regional OperationsManager for the Toronto Region. “Whatoften isn’t recognized is that we all haveskills from living our lives. I’ve put onopen houses, for example, at my home.That is an organizational skill. Our staffhave all sorts of capabilities. One of theimportant messages from the 1999 seminaris: Don’t shortchange yourself. You aremore skilled than you think.”

Taking part in the organization of theseminars has been a learning experience forRita Young and Bronwen Roberts. Both ofthem feel it was a “stepping stone” to a newopportunity – working as project analysts forthe Integrated Justice Project, which in-volves modernization of the businessprocesses of the entire justice system.

Integrated Justice is one of the huge changesthat are affecting staff in the justice field.One whole day, coordinated by Young, wasspent on it at the 1999 seminar. “I countlearning as part of life. I’m always takingcourses. Since joining the steering commit-tee for the provincial seminar, I feel I havebecome better-rounded,” says Young. Forher part, Roberts feels that involvement onthe steering committee and being a presenterat seminars has helped her with communica-tions and leadership skills.

O’Marra is hoping that, in the future, it willbe possible to put on more training so thatmore ministry staff across Ontario canbenefit.


Conclusion

An organization learns through its people, who understand how their individual perform-ance contributes to the goals of the team, the branch, the ministry and the public service asa whole. The OPS recognizes, in the Information Age, that people, their commitment andcapacity, are the key to a high-performing organization.

We also recognize that the challenges of human resources management, of developing andrenewing employees’ skills and capacities, never go away; they just change as the workenvironment and the people change. How will we know when the OPS as a whole isengaged in building a learning organization? Framework 1999 suggested a few indicatorsthat together represent what the OPS can aspire to in the new century:

§ All staff are aware of the vision for the OPS of the future and understand how their worksupports the vision.

§ People in the OPS strive to live its values every day.

§ The OPS invests in learning. Ministries have creative learning plans that support stafflearning and development in a variety of ways. The effectiveness of learning plans iscontinually evaluated.

§ We are becoming a quality service organization. People know their customers’ needsand have the flexibility to respond appropriately and quickly.

§ People at all levels of the organization feel that they have the knowledge and know-howto respond to work challenges and implement change.

§ People are equipped with the necessary tools, including technology, to do their jobs well,and the training to use those tools.

§ Staff are able to collaborate effectively across organizational boundaries with partnerswithin and outside the OPS.

§ People are recognized for their learning and their teamwork.

§ Individuals feel responsible for their own development. At the same time, they feelsupported by the organization in their efforts to learn and improve their skills andknowledge.

§ New ideas are welcomed, and the organization supports appropriate risk-taking.

§ The OPS is known as a workplace of choice – a place where people want to work.

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1 Senge, Peter M., The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Doubleday, 1990.

2 A Human Resources Strategy for the OPS: Building Tomorrow’s Workforce Today, Human Resources Division,Management Board Secretariat.

3 Human Resources Plan for Senior Management Group, Executive Development Committee, March 1997, p.3.

4 Ibid., p.4.

Chapter 5

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AN OUTSIDE-INAPPROACH TOQUALITY SERVICE

Government is not a business in the usual sense, but there is a businessof government that can be done well or poorly.

Bryne Purchase and Ronald Hirshhorn, Searchingfor Good Governance, 1994 1

hat is quality service?

What do citizens want and expect fromgovernment? How well are governmentprograms doing in meeting theneeds and expectations ofthe people who use ourservices?

To try to answerthose questions,Ontario partici-pated in thedevelopment ofa nationalsurvey by ErinResearch Inc. forthe Citizen-Centred ServiceNetwork.The Network, whichincludes more than 220officials from alllevels ofgovernment,as well asleading academics and outside experts inpublic sector service delivery, was created

by the Canadian Centre for ManagementDevelopment in 1997 “to accelerate the

modernization of service across thepublic sector in Canada.” 2

Ontario was one of thegovernment co-

sponsors of theresearch projectthat producedCitizens First inOctober, 1998. Arandomly selectedgroup of 2,900Canadians were

surveyed for theirperceptions ofpublic services.Highlights ofthe findingsincluded:

Canadiansrate the quality

of many government services as high orhigher than many private sector services.

37Transforming Public Service For The 21st Century An Ontario Perspective

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Chapter 5: An Outside In Approach To Quality Service38

For example, fire departments (78%),public libraries (75%) and provincial parksand campgrounds (64%) received highersatisfaction ratings than insurance agencies(55%) and banks (51%).

Overall, however, if citizens are asked ageneral question about the quality ofgovernment services, the rating is muchlower than if the question zeroes in on aspecific government service. Both Provin-cial and Federal government services ingeneral received a service quality rating of47% (municipalities were at 53%), whereasprivate sector services, in general, receiveda 60% rating.

Citizens understand that governments havea more difficult and complex role than theprivate sector, balancing efficiency with thepublic interest. However, they still expectservices to be as good or better than privatecompanies.

Their assessment of service quality is basedon five key factors:§ timeliness§ knowledge and competence of staff§ courtesy/comfort§ fair treatment§ outcome (getting what you need).

The survey notes that the chief constrainton achieving performance that will gener-ate high satisfaction is outcome. Publicservants cannot always give people theanswer they want to hear. For example,someone may be applying for a programfor which they do not qualify.

Having acknowledged the major constraint,the study found lots of room to improvehow citizens rate government services – bycreating and meeting high service stand-ards for telephone, counter, mail andelectronic mail services, and by providingmore one-stop shopping for a variety ofcertificates, licences and registrations.

Those who experienced services they didnot rate highly were asked to rank optionsfor process improvements. High on the listwere reducing red tape, reducing telephone

waiting times, simplifying forms anddocuments, and making information easierto obtain.3

Ontario’s Restructuring Secretariat partici-pated in the Citizens First project to learnmore about perceptions of governmentservices. Ontario-specific findings weregenerally comparable to the national results.In addition, the Secretariat wanted tovalidate directions that were already beingtaken. The findings of Citizens Firstindicated that we were on the right track bycreating and meeting high service standards,by providing more one-stop shopping for avariety of certificates, licences and registra-tions, by reducing red tape and generallymaking government services easier toaccess. In addition, the OPS has followedup with independent testing of its progressin meeting quality standards.

This chapter discusses the Quality ServiceStrategy that Ontario is pursuing. Itincludes the overall approach and thecommon service standards. It documentsprogress made through two other relatedinitiatives that speak to common concernsidentified in the surveys – making it easierto find services in the telephone book andreducing red tape. Finally, there is anillustration of an important lesson – that thequality journey is continuous.

Background

The beginnings of the Quality ServiceStrategy can be seen in the work of the 1991Customer Service Task Force, which wasestablished to find ways to improve govern-ment service. The mandate was to providecorporate direction and support for high-quality practices. The Task Force conductedresearch internally and externally oncustomer expectations and service gaps, andissued a report in 1992. Best Value for TaxDollars: Improving Service Quality in theOntario Government identified whatcustomers expect, at a minimum, of govern-ment services: timeliness, accessibility,reliability, cost, and responsiveness. Manycustomer complaints fell into the area oftime – how long and how many separatecontacts it took to get information.

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Service quality gaps included: the publicservice’s understanding of its customers,service design, delivery, and communica-tions. All of these areas were targetted forimprovement. Some Ministries used thefindings to improve services by surveyingcustomer preferences, redesigning proc-esses, training staff, and developing per-formance standards. But the Task Force’srecommendations were not implementedconsistently across the government.

In 1997, recognizing that becoming aquality organization would be an importantpart of the reshaping of the OPS, theSecretary of Cabinet established a QualityService Project in the Restructuring Secre-tariat.

The project team used the work that hadalready been done by the Customer ServiceTask Force and by Ministries that hadcontinued to work on their own qualityinitiatives. In addition, as part of the newBusiness Planning process, all Ministrieswere conducting surveys and focus groupsto get to know their customers better. TheQuality Service project team consulted withpublic and private sector organizations forinformation on best practices and qualitybenchmarks, and searched the literature onquality standards and strategies for the bestideas around. They also consulted withmore than 1,300 public servants in allMinistries, at all levels, and in all regions ofthe province.

The OPS launched a Quality ServiceStrategy, including common service stand-ards, in 1998. The major difference be-tween this effort at improving qualityservice to the public and previous initiativesis its scope or “reach” across government,and how it is leveraging cultural change.The aim is to create an organization thatmotivates, supports, and enables qualitymanagement in all activities.

The Quality Service Strategy will applyacross the public service. Corporatestandards are mandatory. From relativelymodest beginnings – standards for phoneanswering and mail service in high-volume,high-profile offices – the standards willmove into more complex areas, such ascomplaint resolution. Development of

Ministry plans to improve quality serviceand regular monitoring and reporting onresults are becoming part of the annualBusiness Planning cycle.

Lois Bain, director of the Quality Serviceinitiative, puts the current efforts in per-spective:

The OPS has been on a quality journey for along time. It’s important to recognize thatwe haven’t suddenly discovered ourcustomers or the need for excellence inpublic service. But we are being moresystematic about it than ever before. Wehave a vision of an organization thatdelivers quality from the outside-in, that is,from the perspective of the customer. Weare striving to embed a quality serviceculture in the OPS –a culture that issupported by a cycle of planning, continuousimprovements, feedback from customers andstaff, performance monitoring, and ongoingleadership commitment to a qualityorientation.

The Quality Strategy

The overarching goals of the QualityService Strategy are to: increase publicsatisfaction with OPS service; have the OPSmeasure up to external benchmarks in thepublic and private sectors; and to set thebenchmark for quality among similarjurisdictions. Its principles are expressed asfollows:

Quality Service§ is customer/citizen focused§ is everyone’s business§ is valued and recognized§ respects the diversity of OPS businesses,

customers, and stakeholders§ is measured against standards§ is achieved through ongoing learning

and ongoing improvements§ requires sustained commitment and

leadership.

Consultations held in 1997 providedguidance for the development of qualitycornerstones and criteria that define how

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well-performing Ministries will operate.The OPS endorsed seven quality corner-stones to provide the basis for futurebenchmarking. They are based on interna-tionally-recognized standards. For eachkey element, evaluative criteria have beendeveloped.

The Quality Service Strategy was an-nounced as part of the 1998 Framework forAction document issued by the Secretary of

Cabinet. Each Ministry held discussionswith staff on A Quality Service Organization– on the framework, cornerstones, standardsand their own best practices. The discus-sions were an opportunity to identify workunderway and areas for future focusedattention. Results were reported in minis-tries’ 1999-2000 Business Plans.

The Quality Service Project hired XeroxQuality Services and Strus Associates Inc. to

OPS QUALITY CORNERSTONES

Leadership – The OPS, through its Ministries and staff, exhibits leadership in establishing a culture ofexcellence, setting direction for the organization, directing work through effective management, and buildingresponsibility and accountability for improvement throughout the organization and in all its relationships.Key elements: quality culture, strategic direction, leadership involvement.

Customer/Citizen Focus – Ministries clearly understand their overall public service responsibility, identifyinternal and external customer needs, and convert this information into measurably improved services andproducts.Key elements: service delivery, measurement of customer satisfaction.

People Focus – Accountability and responsibility for leadership in quality services is shared by all OPSemployees. In partnership with employees, Ministries ensure that all human resource policies, proceduresand practices support the achievement of excellence in public service.Key elements: human resource planning, participation in the organization, a learning organization.

Planning – The OPS through its Ministries has strategic and operational plans in place supporting its visionand delivery of core business. Staff and customers have a clear understanding and input into these plans andexpected outcomes.Key elements: effective planning processes, assessment.

Processes – The ability of the OPS through its Ministries to provide quality services to customers depends onthe quality of the organization’s internal processes. The Ministry continually reviews its processes to addvalue for its customers and the organization. Design, monitoring, analysis, review and continuous improve-ment of the Ministry’s processes are key to the achievement of excellence.Key elements: linking processes to business, monitoring and improvement of processes.

Partners/Delivery Agents/Suppliers – External relationships with partners, delivery agents and supplierssupport the OPS commitment to be a customer-focused organization, providing excellence in service to thepublic. The OPS, though its Ministries, routinely applies principles of customer service in its relationshipsand management of partner/supplier relationships (includes vendors and service providers). This includesaspects of the relationship such as vendor selection, contract management, communications, input andfeedback, relationships with customers, monitoring and assessment.Key elements: focus on the customer, selection/partnering.

Results - The Ontario Public Service serves Ontario through its Ministries and is dedicated to ensuringOntarians receive high quality, customer focused public services. All OPS staff have a clear understanding ofthe internal and external customers they serve and the outputs designed to meet each of their customerrequirements. The results of the work are regularly measured and extensively communicated both internallyand externally. Results are regularly analyzed to share successes and determine opportunities for improve-ment. Plans are developed based on the analysis of result data.

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help develop assessment tools and trainingto assist five Ministries pilot an organiza-tional assessment against the OPS qualitycornerstones. The objective of the exerciseis to set a baseline for sustained organiza-tional improvement using the qualitycriteria. Ministries participated in jointtraining and orientation sessions on qualityand in individualized sessions for their pilotteam members and assessors. DeputyMinisters, who volunteered on their Minis-try’s behalf to participate in the pilot,provided guidance and leadership in theplanning and conducting of the assess-ments.

Assessments included one-on-one inter-views with all levels of management andfront-line staff across the province. Focusgroups were held with staff. Staff wereasked a wide range of questions, including:What is working well in your Ministry?What isn’t working? What are three thingsyou would do if you were Deputy Minister?In addition, key documents were examined,such as Business Plans, Ministry Opera-tional Plans, Human Resource Plans,Executive Committee minutes, customerand employee surveys etc. Findings andkey recommendations were developed bythe Ministry assessors.

Ministry senior management reviewed theassessment report, which identified organi-zational strengths and weaknesses measuredagainst the 19 quality criteria. Threepriority improvement areas, determined tobe areas that would have major impact onthe achievement of ministry business goals,were identified. Each Ministry has devel-oped a quality plan, with performancemeasures. The process and the results haveenergized their ministries. They have plansfor building capacity in their organizationsthat can be directly tied to their ability todeliver results. Staff and senior manage-ment are enthusiastically moving forwardon their quality plans.

Each year, Ministries are reporting onprogress on their quality plans in theirannual Business Plans. As part of the cycleof ongoing improvements, future assess-ments will be undertaken to track progress

and determine strengths and further areasfor improvement.

In 1999-2000, six more Ministries begansystematic organizational assessments andthe development of quality plans. Allministries will begin quality planningwithin the next two years.

An independent evaluation of the QualityService Strategy found the quality planningprocess to be sound. In their report,consultants Carr-Gordon Ltd. and ErinResearch Inc. noted that quality servicerequires at least five years of continuouseffort to launch and expand in an organiza-tion as large as the OPS, and that resultswere already showing within one year.4

The report, called Evaluation of the QualityService Pilot Projects and Common ServiceStandards, made a number of recommenda-tions to improve the process. Thoserecommendations and feedback from thepilot Ministries are being used to improvethe Quality Service Strategy.

Common Service Standards

The common service standards that are partof the Quality Service Strategy gave a clearsignal that the Ontario government wascommitted to improving services to thepublic. They reflected key areas for im-provement that were identified by theCitizens First survey. The standardsrepresent minimum service levels in fourkey areas: telephone, including voice mail;mail, including fax, letters, electronic mail;walk-in service; and customer feedback/complaint resolution. Implementation ofthe standards is being phased in.

The first phase of implementation in 1998included the standards for telephoneanswering and call-backs on high-volumetelephone services (e.g. call centres, generalinquiry numbers, 1-800 numbers), and themail standards for letters, faxes and elec-tronic mail addressed to Ministers andDeputies. Planning for phase two imple-mentation began in late 1998. This phasecovers the balance of telephones and mail,and the walk-in and customer feedback/complaint resolution standards. Fullimplementation of phase two will becomplete by March, 2000.

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Telephone Standards

When you contact the Ontario governmentby telephone, you can expect eight timesout of ten that:§ Your call will be answered by the third

ring, during core business hours (8:30a.m. to 5:00 p.m.).

§ Your call will not be redirected morethan once.

§ You will always have the option ofreaching a person.

§ All calls will be returned within onebusiness day.

§ A common telephone protocol will be inplace (elements of the protocol couldinclude: identification of the Ministryand program, name of the personanswering, courteous introduction andfollow through).

§ There will be redesigned Blue Pagelisting in all directories.

Mail Standards

When you contact the Ontario governmentby fax, mail or electronic mail, you canexpect that:§ Correspondence will be answered within

15 working days of receipt.§ If a conclusive response is not possible

within that time, an interim acknowl-edgement with an anticipated date ofresponse will be sent within five work-ing days of receipt.

Walk-In Standards

If you visit one of our service locations, youcan expect that:§ Core business hours for staff-assisted

service will be at least 8:30 a.m. to 5:00p.m.

§ You will be served in order and will beadvised as to the expected waiting time.

§ Best times to receive speedier serviceare posted.

Complaint Resolution/Feedback Standards

If you have comments or concerns aboutour services, we encourage you to let usknow and provide us with details at yourearliest convenience. You can expect that:

§ Each Ministry will have a complaintresolution process in place.

§ Your complaints will be acknowledgedwithin two working days.

§ There will be a follow-up with anyrequired actions within a specified timeframe.

§ With each contact, you will have theopportunity to provide feedback onservices.

Independent consultants conducted anassessment to see how the OPS was meetingthe phase one phone and mail standards.Evaluation involved “mystery shoppers”who placed more than 4,000 phone calls andsent 400 letters, e-mails and faxes. Theconsultants found that the telephone stand-ards were being met or exceeded:

§ 91% of telephone calls were answeredwithin three rings;

§ 90% of calls were resolved on the first orsecond contact; and

§ callers were universally given the optionof reaching an operator.

Half of the Ministries met the 15-day replystandard for mail. Those who did not meetthe correspondence standard are working toimprove their response times.5

The consultants recommended that thesestandards be reviewed regularly (at leastevery three years) and that the OPS moveforward with standards in other areas thatare important to citizens, such as competent,knowledgeable staff and getting the outcomethe person needs.6

The Blue Pages

Of the more than 50 million contacts theOntario government receives from the publiceach year, about 35 million are by telephone.A significant percentage of those calls go tothe wrong place, frustrating callers andwasting time. The Bell Canada telephonedirectory has had a separate section ongovernment for about 20 years. The troublewith the Blue Pages section is that it isorganized by level of government and bydepartment or ministry. So if citizens don’tknow who does what – which level of

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government (federal, provincial or munici-pal) and which office (a choice of literallyhundreds of branches) provides the infor-mation or service they are seeking – it cantake some time and misdirected calls to findthe answer.

Some improvements have been made inrecent years – an index of all governmentlistings, and an Ontario page that listsFrequently Called Numbers (e.g. provincialparks and driving test appointments). Inthe Toronto directory (the largest in theprovince), there are listings for voicerecordings that provide general answers tocommon questions (e.g. loss of identifica-tion, citizenship test questions, making awill, going to small claims court).

But Ontario’s Blue Pages Project is goingfurther. Its goal is to improve telephoneservice by making it easier for the public toget to the right place the first time around.And not just for Ontario services. Theproject has designed, in cooperation withBell, the federal government and somemunicipalities, a new format that reflectshow most citizens approach government.What does that mean? Citizens generallyapproach government for a specific service– a building permit, a birth certificate, ahealth card, a passport. They don’t neces-sarily know (and why should they?) to lookfor the Registrar General’s Office in theOntario Ministry of Consumer and Com-mercial Relations for a birth certificate.They don’t necessarily know that theprovincial Ministry of Transportation issuesvehicle permits, rather than TransportCanada or a Municipal Roads or Trafficdepartment.

The new format integrates the listings bysubject matter for all three levels of govern-ment. The topic headings are designed torespond to public needs – apprenticeship,births, building permits, courts, drugbenefits, employment, garbage collection,pensions, passports and day care, forexample.

Eric Steeves, whose branch in ManagementBoard Secretariat is in charge of the projectfor Ontario, said the federal governmentconducted focus groups across the countryto see what format people preferred. “They

liked the integrated approach, whichconvinced the federal government we wereon the right track.”

The integrated government listing was firstpiloted in Kingston. A pull-out card wasinserted in the directory to ask for feedback,and that feedback has been useful. “Wefound that, for example, people don’t reallycare which government delivers the service,but they want to know who is answering thephone when they call. So when we did thenext pilot in North Bay, we added a refer-ence to each listing, indicating whether it’sa federal, provincial or municipal govern-ment service,” said Steeves.

The public reaction to the first two directo-ries that are in the new format has beenoverwhelmingly positive. Focus-testingdone by the Province was also supportive.The most common reaction: What took youso long?

Cutting Red Tape

In 1995, the government created the RedTape Review Commission to:

§ remove red tape barriers to job creation,economic growth and better government,and

§ develop ways of changing the regulatorystructure to prevent more red tape frombeing created in the future.

The Commission consisted of 11 MPPsfrom a variety of regions and backgrounds.A small Secretariat located within CabinetOffice was created to support the work ofthe Commission and to work with Minis-tries to cut red tape.

The Commission defined red tape as thosemeasures that diminish economic competi-tiveness by adding unjustifiable require-ments, costs or delays to normal activitiesof business and institutions. Red Tapeincludes legislation, regulations, licences,permits, approvals, standards, registration,filing and certification requirements,guidelines, procedures, paperwork, enforce-ment practices, or other measures that aretruly not needed to protect public healthand safety or to maintain the quality of theenvironment.

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The Commission began by reviewing paststudies of regulatory problems and thevarious attempts to resolve them, both inOntario and in other jurisdictions. It alsoconsulted with over 70 business organiza-tions and firms and reviewed over 150written submissions on red tape. In addi-tion, the Commission sponsored a survey ofover 500 businesses in Ontario regardingtheir red tape problems and experiences.

The survey found that the regulatoryburden accounts for an average of sevenper cent of a company’s operating costs,with some companies estimating it as highas 40 per cent. Over 70 per cent of surveyrespondents indicated that the likelihood oftheir making additional investments inOntario would be “moderate” to “veryhigh” if the province cut red tape.

With the assistance of an External Advi-sory Group made up of leaders from thebusiness and institutional communities, theCommission began to identify priorityregulatory measures for reform. Based oninput from consultations with business,institutions and others, the Commissionproduced a report in 1997: Cutting the RedTape Barriers to Jobs and Better Govern-ment. This report contained 132 recom-mendations for improving customer serviceand eliminating Ministry-specific red tape.

The Commission also created the Regula-tory Impact and Competitiveness test toevaluate the potential impact of new oramended legislation and regulations. Thetest was adopted by Cabinet and containedthe following key principles:

1. Regulatory action will be restricted toinstances requiring intervention.

2. The need and methods for regulatoryaction will be assessed through compre-hensive consultations undertaken earlyin the decision-making process, with allrealistic alternatives being thoroughlyexplored.

3. Implementation of the regulatory actionwill either enhance or be neutral toOntario’s competitiveness.

4. The benefits of the proposed regulatoryaction must outweigh the risks orconsequences of available alternatives ornon-intervention.

5. The regulatory action will be adminis-tered as efficiently as possible, minimiz-ing procedures and paper burden.

6. All government legislation, regulations,policies and processes will be the subjectof ongoing review.

The Commission has continually soughtadvice and input from Ministries, busi-nesses, institutions, the public and others,and has participated in a number of consul-tations on red tape issues, including:

§ designing responsible regulation of theU-brew and U-Vin industries;

§ initiating reform of legislation affectinglong-term care facilities in Ontario;

§ amending legislation and regulationsaffecting the land ambulance system inOntario; and

§ reviewing the regulatory framework thatgoverns the death care industry inOntario.

The work of the Commission has been asuccess. Between June 1995 and spring1999, over 1,300 regulations had beeneliminated, surpassing the government’sinitial target of eliminating 1,000 regula-tions. In addition, 11 red tape reduction billshad been passed by the Legislature. Cumula-tively, these bills have repealed 28 statutesthat were no longer necessary, such as theOleomargarine Act and the Hypnosis Act.These bills also amended more than 150other statutes.

Other examples of action on red tapeinclude:§ Eliminating the 50-year-old requirement

that highway buses carry an axe (which isconsidered a dangerous weapon and isillegal on tour buses into the UnitedStates);

§ Removing the requirement that filmprojectionists have 800 hours of training;

§ Lifting the prohibition authority againstrestaurants and bars using credit cards tobuy alcohol from the provincial authority(thus freeing up $300 million in cashflow for an estimated 16,000 businesses);and,

§ Eliminating over 1,000 unnecessaryannual licences, permits and reportsbeing filed and applied for by farm andfood processing businesses.

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Further, the Commission has intervened onbehalf of more than 150 businesses andindividuals that brought their red tapeproblems to the Commission’s attention.

The government is currently in the processof establishing a permanent Red TapeCommission to eliminate and prevent job-killing red tape.

The Road of ContinuousImprovement

“The road of continuous improvement is along and winding trail. It does have morethan one switchback on it, but we aremoving forward,” Richard Clarkephilosophized to his staff at the end of 1998.Clarke, who is Director of the EmploymentPractices Branch and Provincial Coordinatorof Ontario’s Employment Standards Pro-gram, had reason to celebrate some realmomentum along a trail that has been prettybumpy in recent years.

The Employment Standards Program, whichis part of the Ministry of Labour, completeda new quality service survey of their clientsin 1998 and found a significant improve-ment in satisfaction levels from 1994. “Westill have some distance to go in meeting ourclients’ expectations,” said Clarke, “but thegap between what they expect and what wedeliver has substantially narrowed. Wehalved our timeliness gap. Our servicerating gap for listening and understandingour clients’ concerns improved by more thana third, as did our clients’ ability to get tothe right person to get the right informa-tion.”

It is also possible to see light at the end ofthe tunnel when it comes to the staggeringbacklog that Ontario’s employment stand-ards officers faced in the spring of 1995. Abacklogged case was defined as one that hadbeen in process for at least 180 days, andthere were 4,086 of them. The backlogdeveloped because of a number of factors,including program changes that were madein the early 1990s and the impact of a severerecession.

Four years later:§ The backlog has been reduced from 4,086

to fewer than 600 cases.

§ In 70% of cases, the complaint-investi-gation cycle time has been reduced toless than 80 days, on average.

§ Total caseload inventory is down from7,100 to about 3,700.

§ The severely backlogged cases (morethan 240 days) were reduced to less than10% of the total caseload (from 30%).

What created this turnaround? “We setservice targets as part of the Ministry’sstrategic business planning,” said Clarke,“and our staff worked incredibly hard tomeet or exceed them.”

Another strategy that is helping improveservice is giving clients ways to helpthemselves. “We are looking at how tochange the nature of our business. We aregiving more information to our clients, bothemployers and employees, in user-friendlyways so that they can more easily becomemore knowledgeable about their rights andresponsibilities,” said Clarke.

“It is fair to say that most violations ofemployment standards legislation resultfrom lack of knowledge, not from deliberateacts of non-compliance. Sometimes peopleare exploited because they don’t know whattheir rights and responsibilities are. Thevast majority of Ontario businesses are incompliance, and we believe more could be.”

Fact sheets on employment standards (e.g.hours of work, parental leave, minimumwage) and an Employer’s Guide to theEmployment Standards Act have beenpublished. The guide and other publicinformation materials are available throughan internet website and an automated fax-back system. More than 3,000 inquiries arehandled annually through the website, andmost are responded to within 24 hours.

Targeted pro-active inspections have beenre-introduced after a 20-year absence.These inspections are preventive. They areintended to increase compliance by detect-ing problems and helping employers fixthem, rather than waiting for a complaintlater. One of the employment standardsofficers, Rene O’Brien, personally criss-crossed the province, delivering a one-daytraining program to every officer in Ontarioto prepare them for the new inspection

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1 Purchase, Bryne and Ronald Hirshhorn, Searching For Good Governance, Government and CompetitivenessProject, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, 1994.

2 Erin Research Inc. for the Citizen-Centred Service Network, Canadian Centre for Management Development,October, 1998, p. i.

3 Ibid. The study also identified priorities for service improvements. The highest priority for Provincial governments,by an enormous margin, was hospitals. Seventy-three per cent picked hospitals first.

4 Carr-Gordon Ltd. and Erin Research Inc., Evaluation of the Quality Service Pilot Projects and Common ServiceStandards, Final Report, June 11, 1999, p.4.

5 Ibid., p. 22.

6 Ibid., p. 31.

7 Carr-Gordon Ltd. and Erin Research Inc., Responsive and Responsible Regulation for Ontario: A Report to theRed Tape Review Commission, May 1996, p. 11.

requirements. The program’s goal in1999-2000 is 1,500 inspections.

One of the weakest links for the programwas its telephone inquiry service. Thesystem could not meet the demand, andcallers were waiting up to 45 minutes forassistance, or getting a busy signal. Thatservice gap is being addressed too. TheEmployment Standards Program hasentered into a service agreement with theCall Centre run by the Ministry of Financeto handle its telephone inquiries. The CallCentre was piloted on March 15, 1999 inthe Greater Toronto Area with greatsuccess. By the end of the first week ofservice, the waiting time dropped to amaximum of one minute. On November15, 1999, the whole province (with the

exception of Ottawa, scheduled for April2000), was included and the Call Centre wasanswering approximately 2000 calls per day.It is anticipated that the waiting time willdrop to 20 seconds once the Call Centre hastime to adjust to peaks and valleys indemand.

But the program isn’t stopping there.Training needs to be improved and qualitystandards reinforced. The next project is a“client service guarantee”, which will set outthe service standards that every client canexpect. According to Clarke: “I am confi-dent that we are on the right course tohaving the best administered employmentstandards program in North America, asassessed by clients. We have come a longway. But program improvement has nofinish line. It is a continuing journey.”

A Good Start

Lois Bain, who leads the Quality Service initiative, emphasizes that becoming a qualityservice organization takes time. “We think we have made a good start. But we know wecan’t just benchmark ourselves once or twice and that’s that. This is a journey.”

The priority now, says Bain, is to complete implementation of the common service stand-ards, and ensure that every Ministry embarks on a regular cycle of organizational assess-ments and improvement. “We will have to continue to test ourselves against the OPS-widestandards. Ministries will have to test themselves against their own quality goals andperformance measures. As we learn more from this process and especially from ourcustomers, we will refine our approach and hopefully achieve higher levels of qualityservice and public satisfaction.”

According to the final report of the consultants, Carr-Gordon Ltd. and Erin Research Inc.,who evaluated the Quality Service Strategy, it is “a powerful tool to rebuild the morale,capacity and effectiveness of the OPS after several years of restructuring.”


Chapter 6

“ENTERPRISING”THE CORPORATION

One of the important steps onthe road to creating a more integrated andstreamlined public service is the “enterpris-ing” of many of the internal administrativeservices across the organization. Like otherlarge and diverse organizations, the differ-ent business units (i.e. Ministries) of theOPS had evolved over the years intorelatively independent operations, sup-ported by their own administrative services.Through “enterprising”, the OPS is creat-ing an enterprise-wide – that is, govern-ment-wide – platform or foundation ofinternal services to support a more cohesiveorganization.

Internal administrative services have alsobecome more “enterprising” in anothersense – there is a more entrepreneurialapproach to providing business support tointernal customers within the OPS. Newways are being adopted to make the rela-tionship between the deliverer and receiverof internal administrative services more likea business-customer relationship. Thatmeans services must be cost-effective andhigh quality. And for some services, the

internal customer (a Ministry) may bepermitted to shop somewhere else. Incertain areas, enterprising also requires are-balancing of Corporate and Ministry (orcentre and “line”) accountabilities.

Some of the basic internal operations ofgovernment – from purchasing to payroll,from audit to IT – are being reinvented toserve the organization as a whole. In thischapter, we describe some of the keyenterprising initiatives that were part of theInternal Administration Project, startingwith some background on the project andthe creation of a new Shared ServicesBureau. This chapter also includes briefdescriptions of the new human resourcesinformation network, the integrated finan-cial information system, and audit andcommunications services.

Because of the importance of informationtechnology and the need to invest in newsolutions, a new Information and Informa-tion Technology Strategy was developedseparately from the Internal AdministrationProject. IT is discussed in the next chapteron the Wired Public Service.

Proceed with change and reform only from the foundation of a thoroughunderstanding of your organization, its culture, and its employees.

Patricia Ingraham, Transforming Management, ManagingTransformation, 1998 1

Chapter 6: “Enterprising” The Corporation48

Background and Approach

The Internal Administration Project beganwith what was called the “60-Day Project”.In 1995, an early priority for the incominggovernment was reducing the deficit,which was estimated to be about $11billion. The government pledged to cutapproximately $2 billion in-year. In itssearch for savings, one of the first thingsthat the OPS did was look at its internaladministration costs. The “60-DayProject” brought together staff from acrossgovernment to take a fresh look at the costsand operation of internal administration.An external advisory group providedadvice from the perspective of private andpublic sector organizations that had beenthrough restructuring.

The project was led by Management BoardSecretariat and the Chief AdministrativeOfficers Forum, which included all theCAOs from across government in an OPScouncil. The CAOs are the senior execu-tives in each Ministry in charge of internalservices. The first assumption of the projectwas that everything was on the table – alladministrative functions, all managementpolicies and rules, all options and struc-tures. Another key assumption was thatthe Ontario Public Service was one organi-zation, albeit with many different busi-nesses, that required government-widesolutions.

According to Richard Lundeen, who ledthe Internal Administration Project:

From the start, there was a real sense thatthe time had come to look at how to dothings differently. There was a convergenceof conditions for change. There was thefiscal pressure. The new Ministers onManagement Board were clearly not goingto be sympathetic to the argument thatevery Ministry had to have its own mailroom, payroll, accounting office and so on.The Deputies and the senior people ininternal administration recognized the needfor change. There was also the factor ofinformation technology. In areas such ashuman resources management andfinancial management, there was new, morepowerful technology available.

The 60-Day Project team reported in the fallof 1995 in New Directions for InternalAdministration:

The review acknowledged that the currentsystems contain duplication, gaps andoverlaps. These systems are the result ofrequirements added over time without alsorethinking administrative processes.

It reported that the advice it received fromexternal sources, including the advisorygroup, was that between 25 to 40 per centreductions were achieveable. The projectrecommended an extensive overhaul,contributing to a reduction of approximatelyone-third in costs over a two-year period.The Minister of Finance announced the one-third cost reduction target in his November,1995 economic statement.

A major part of the challenge was the scopeof change, within a context of rigorous fiscalconstraint. Internal administration acrossgovernment added up to a set of functionslarger than most private companies inCanada. In 1995, there were approximately10,000 people working in internal supportfunctions in an Ontario Public Service ofabout 85,000 employees. By the end of1998, there were an estimated 6,500 internaladministration employees in an organizationof 65,000, and the government budget forinternal administration had been reducedfrom $900 million to $600 million.

The “rethinking” of administrative processeshas occurred, but it has taken longer thantwo years to put new processes in place andget them up-and-running. The two-yearfiscal target was achieved nonetheless.“Ministries have had to live with the cutswithout all the new mechanisms in place toimprove service. But if we hadn’t had thereduction targets, we might have takenlonger to get where we are today, or wemight not have reached here at all,” saidLundeen.

During the two-year period, a number ofefficiency measures were undertaken, suchas moving to a purchase card (a bank creditcard) to replace the ponderous process ofpurchase orders and cheques for routinesupplies for hundreds of government branch


offices. These and other shorter-termmeasures helped meet the fiscal target,while the more fundamental reforms werebeing developed.

Shared Services Bureau

The biggest change in internal administra-tion is the Shared Services Bureau. Itrepresents a rethinking of how internaladministration can and should work. TheBureau – created in 1998, with the initialphase of service delivery beginning at theend of that year – will deliver many of theinternal support services that have beenprovided by individual Ministries. Ini-tially, its functions will include:

§ financial processing§ purchasing§ payroll and benefits§ generic training§ health and safety§ general administration e.g. forms, fleet

management, recorded information,collections management, translation, riskmanagement and insurance

The Internal Administration Project hadlooked carefully at the functions within thevarious internal administrative services.Just as Ministries were identifying theircore businesses, the core functions ofinternal administration were identified as:

§ Strategic advice and business andresource planning support

§ Support and advice to line managers§ Basic operations (transactional process-

ing).

In the first two functions, a case could bemade for some Corporate responsibilities(especially standards) and some Ministryresponsibilities (particularly in the area ofspecific advice related to the business of theMinistry). There was seen to be potentialfor shared services in some generic supportand advice to line managers, either as aninter-ministerial initiative (several Minis-tries sharing the same HR consultants, forexample) or as a Corporate initiative. Themajor opportunity for enterprising acrossgovernment was in the third area, the corebusiness support functions.

The Shared Services Bureau, which reportsto the Secretary of Management Board, willoperate in a different way from the tradi-tional central agency delivering corebusiness services to internal customers.The unique features of the Shared ServicesBureau include:

§ The Bureau will have to earn its way. Itwill have no operational budget (oncethe transitional phase is complete). Itmust be self-sufficient, based on charg-ing its internal customers fees for itsservices.

§ It will have “contractual” arrangementswith clients. It has signed Memorandaof Understanding and Service LevelAgreements, negotiated with its Ministryclients, detailing the type and level ofservice to be delivered.

§ It will customize services, based onspecific Ministry requirements, ratherthan offering a one-size-fits-all service.

§ Services will be geographically distrib-uted where needed.

§ The Bureau will have to be competitive.After a two-year break-in period, aMinistry may make a business case toManagement Board to obtain some of itsservices outside government if theBureau fails to deliver a cost-effective,quality service.

§ The Bureau will benchmark its servicesagainst outside organizations for qualityand cost.

§ It has a Customer Council, with repre-sentatives from across the OPS and twonon-OPS members, to approve operatingpolicies, provide ongoing advice andmonitor performance.

Initially, approximately 1,200 to 1,500 staffwill become part of the Shared ServicesBureau. More people will join the Bureauover time, as more functions are trans-ferred. Management of the new humanresources information system, known asWIN, and the new financial informationsystem, which is in the design stage, willbecome part of the Bureau when thosesystems are implemented. Future potentialhas also been identified in such areas ashuman resources advice, labour relationssupport, and asset management.


How big an undertaking is the SharedServices Bureau? Janet Faas, its CEO,documented the scope of some of thefunctions:

§ Just doing the payroll requires 1.8million transactions a year that must bedone accurately and on time. There arean estimated 50,000 to 75,000 routineupdates in the payroll system per payperiod across government. Payroll staffalso process data and payments forseasonal and student employees.

§ In fiscal 1998-99, financial administra-tive staff processed some 6.4 milliontransactions – about two-thirds in theform of electronic transfers and the restas cheques. This covers everythingfrom paying the phone bills to transfer-ring funding to hospitals, educationalinstitutions and municipalities.

§ The OPS also buys about $2 billion ingoods and services each year – fromstationery supplies to contracting forroad maintenance, management consult-ing and educational curriculum develop-ment.

This initiative involves the separation ofservice delivery from policy development.The Shared Services Bureau is not assum-ing the “strategic advice” function ofMinistries. They remain responsible forstrategic directions and priority-setting,business planning, and controllership oftheir own management system. TheBureau will be a source of information forcontrollership purposes. The Bureau isalso not assuming the corporate policy roleof the government’s Central Agencies, likeManagement Board.

Faas emphasizes that there will be arelatively steep learning curve for allconcerned. But she is optimistic that thenew approach will produce major benefits.Some of the anticipated benefits of theShared Services Bureau approach include:§ a solid foundation for a more integrated

public service;§ greater consistency in business proc-

esses across the organization;§ maximized efficiency from less duplica-

tion and greater consolidation;§ improved service quality;§ clarified accountability through service

agreements;§ opportunities for staff to increase skills

and productivity as part of an integratedbusiness support team;

§ a stable organization base that allowsflexibility and change in the organizationof business units.

“We looked at the experience of a number oforganizations in the private sector,” saidFaas. “The shared services model is onethat has shown positive results. The essenceof what we learned was that service qualitycan be improved and costs can be reduced,at the same time as the culture of businesssupport services is transformed to be morecustomer-focused and business-like.”

Enterprising Human Resourceand Financial InformationSystems

The OPS is in the process of implementing asingle, enterprise-wide Human Resourcesinformation management system, called theWorkforce Information Network or WIN. Itis also creating an Integrated FinancialInformation System (IFIS) to support allMinistries and agencies operating within theProvince’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.Once they are operational, management ofboth systems will be assumed by the SharedServices Bureau.

WIN and IFIS are good examples of hownew technology can both drive and supportchange. “One of the things we learned isthat if you adopt the latest technology, itincorporates the latest in good businesspractice within its processes. So it comple-ments and compels business process re-engineering,” said Richard Lundeen, who isnow the Executive Lead for the CorporateInitiatives Integration Group in Manage-ment Board Secretariat.

The OPS is using the Peoplesoft Inc.software for WIN. Significant redesign ofhuman resource processes is required forimplementation. The new OPS-widesystem is replacing existing stand-alone and


common human resource, time and attend-ance systems, eliminating duplicate dataentry, reducing paper processes, andproviding access to timely information formanagement.

WIN is also encouraging employee self-reliance through the internal Intranetsystem in the OPS and through InteractiveVoice Response (IVR) systems. Employeeswill be able to enter, view and verify theirpersonal information, input their attend-ance, with manager’s verification on-line,and register for training and career develop-ment on-line.

WIN will provide better information andallow for better tracking of human resourcesmanagement.

The financial information system promisesbetter information for managers on theirdesktops, better information for governmentdecisions, and the capacity for bettermeasurement of financial performance. Itbuilds on co-operative initiatives amongclusters of Ministries who have adopted acommon financial system. At the time ofwriting, the new system was in the designstage.

Other Enterprising Initiatives

The “enterprising” of internal services hasbeen customized to the specific servicesinvolved, based on a business case forchange. Two different examples follow:audit services and communications services.

Internal Audit Services

Audit services have been restructured intoone division led by the newly-createdposition of Chief Internal Auditor for theOPS, based in Management Board Secre-tariat. Internal audit staff, who previouslyworked for individual Ministries, have beentransferred to the new division, but continueto be located in their “home” ministries.Ministries have been grouped into nineclusters, based on a number of factors, suchas size, business affinity, and geographicalconsiderations. The Audit Director of eachcluster has a dual reporting relationship – to

the new Chief Internal Auditor and to theDeputy Ministers in the cluster.

Why “enterprise” audit? According to theChief Internal Auditor, Jim McCarter, thismodel will allow the OPS to better assessenterprise-wide risks, share operational andaudit best practices, upgrade training,ensure professional standards are beingconsistently applied, and enable staff towork in different ministries.

“The way government business is run ischanging. We need to ensure we haveadequate processes to manage risks.Internal audit can play a pro-active role inworking with management to provideassurance that these processes are in place.We must ensure we have the professionalcapability, along with the appropriate toolsand processes, to handle these new de-mands,” says McCarter.

“While most internal audit work willcontinue to be directed at meeting theMinistry-specific needs of Deputy Minis-ters, there are certain risks, businessprocesses and systems that can be moreeffectively addressed from an enterprise-wide audit perspective. By looking at across-section of practices across a numberof Ministries, we can identify what worksbest, where risks and gaps exist, and workwith management to address these issues.”

Communications Services

Communications services are an importantcomponent of the enterprise-wide platformor foundation of internal services. Theseservices have been enhanced to bettercoordinate strategic communications on agovernment-wide basis.

A Deputy Minister of Communications,who is also an Associate Secretary ofCabinet, has been appointed. ThreeAssistant Deputy Ministers in CabinetOffice Communications report to theDeputy and are responsible for supportingthe communications objectives of the broadpolicy areas that correspond to the prioritiesof the government agenda. Communica-tions branches continue to work for theirown Ministries and report to their Deputies,


but they now also have a reporting rela-tionship to the Deputy Minister of Commu-nications.

Why “enterprise” communications in thisway? More and more issues have impactsbeyond a single Ministry. It also is impor-tant for Ministries to keep abreast ofgovernment priorities and to communicatethose priorities to their stakeholders and

staff. Cabinet Office Communications helpskeep Ministries informed of and focused onstrategic directions. Ministries are encour-aged to coordinate communications withpolicy and program development, to linkbusiness-specific communications withcorporate messages, and to keep CabinetOffice informed of upcoming Ministryissues.

Conclusion

While a decision was made to keep business support functions in-house and integrate themin the new Shared Services Bureau, there is potential down the road for alternative servicedelivery options if the Bureau finds it can provide some services more effectively andefficiently through delivery agents outside government. But not before the Bureau has seenwhat it can do with its own people freed from overly complex, repetitive, non-valued-addedprocesses and empowered by new, more consistent and streamlined systems, supported byelectronic networks.

The longer-term results of the changes set in motion by the reinvention of internal adminis-tration have not yet been fully realized. But the direction has been set. The OPS hasredesigned internal administrative services to enable these functions to be more business-focused, customer-centred and consistent, while tracking performance and improvingaccountability for results. In the process of implementation, duplication and overlap arebeing reduced, service delivery is being streamlined, and continuous improvement is beingpursued in service quality and productivity.

Shared services and integrated systems will provide an enterprise-wide foundation tosupport other innovations in the OPS, as it becomes a smaller, more integrated, focused andaccountable organization, providing quality service.

1 Ingraham, Patricia, “Transforming Management, Managing Transformation,” in Transforming Government:Lessons from the Reinvention Laboratories, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, 1998, p. 253.

Chapter 7

THE WIREDPUBLIC SERVICE

…these ventures are not for the faint of heart.Ailsa Hamilton, Director, Integrated Justice Project

Our people are scanning in 100,000 images a day. We are turningmillions and millions of pieces of paper, which are now stored all overOntario, into a seamless electronic network.

Aris Kaplanis, CEO, Teranet

G overnment may have laggedbehind the private sector in catching theelectronic wave, but Ontario has developedreal momentum in the 1990s, and is surfinginto the millennium with some of the mostambitious projects on the digital planet.

Some of the most significant and populartransformations in Ontario governmentservice delivery have been made possible bynew information technology (IT).ServiceOntario and Ontario BusinessConnects (which are described in Chapter8) are providing electronic delivery ofservices to individuals and businesses fromkiosks and workstations around the prov-ince. Both projects are preparing to branchout to give customers even more choice intheir range of services and access channels.Moreover:§ Ontario’s Integrated Justice project is

one of the largest modernizations of ajustice system in the world; and

§ Teranet has made Ontario the firstjurisdiction in the world to offer totallypaperless, electronic registration of legaldocuments such as deeds and mortgagesdirectly into a government database.Ontario is owner of the largest land-imaging database on earth.

In addition to the Integrated Justice Projectand Teranet, there are many more exam-ples, on a smaller scale, of service deliverybecoming, faster, simpler, and more con-venient for users through the application ofnew technologies. Some of them are alsohighlighted in this chapter. We begin withthe new corporate foundation that the OPSis building in information and informationtechnology.

A New Information andInformation TechnologyStrategy

The OPS has hundreds of information andinformation technology systems supportingplanning, service delivery, internal adminis-tration, and other functions. It also man-ages huge computer databases and networksthat annually, for example, process 120million health insurance claims, track 20million driver and vehicle licence transac-tions, register more than 120,000 newbusinesses, and record some 300,000 births,deaths, marriages and adoptions.


Chapter 7: The Wired Public Service54

A review of the state of the art in govern-ment in 1997-98 revealed some seriousproblems. It found that:

§ The existing information technologybase was inadequate for key businessinitiatives and other business activitiesof Ministries.

§ There were too many different informa-tion technology systems with littleintegration between Ministries andweak links to the broader public sector.There were problems with compatibilitybetween systems and networks.

§ Diffuse accountability underminedoverall financial control and IT spend-ing, and single-year budgeting meant ITwas treated as a cost rather than aninvestment, creating barriers to replace-ment of older, fragile systems.

§ In a tight market for IT skills, Minis-tries, on their own, could not assemblethe skilled personnel needed to meettheir objectives.1

In 1998, a new Ontario Information andInformation Technology Strategy waslaunched. It recognizes technology as anessential foundation for transforminggovernment and improving service deliv-ery. It shifts the role of technology from areactive tool to a pro-active enabler anddriver of new business directions. Withthis strategy, called Using InformationTechnology to Transform Government forthe 21st Century, the government ismaking a quantum leap into the future withcommitments to, over the next three years:

§ develop a common infrastructure tosupport key business needs;

§ adopt policies and standards for gov-ernment as a whole;

§ restructure governance, organizationand accountability for information andinformation technology, and

§ make the necessary investments toensure it all gets done.

The strategy was developed with input notonly from across the OPS and externalconsultants selected by competitive tender,but also from an Industry Sector Panel.

When it was released in March, 1998, amember of that panel, the president of theInformation Technology Association ofCanada, Gaylen Duncan, said: “This is thefirst time I’ve seen a private sector informa-tion technology strategy in the public sector.Normally, government ducks the big issues.This time, they’ve dealt with them head on.”

Common Infrastructure

The common infrastructure will enableprograms to be better integrated and organ-ized on an outside-in basis – from thecustomer’s perspective – resulting inreliable, consistent, accessible governmentservices across Ministries. It will alsosupport horizontal, government-wideapproaches to increase administrativeefficiency and generate consistent data toimprove management of outcomes. It willpromote secure, efficient links with theprivate sector and other levels of govern-ment. It will make the best use of scarceresources.

Work is underway in nine areas: enterpriseinformation and information technologyarchitecture; standardized desktops; end-to-end security; an integrated network; com-mon help desk; integrated information;coordinated client access; integrated directo-ries and messaging; and a standardizedapplication environment.

Policies and Standards

Work is ongoing on new corporate-widepolicies in such areas as data sharing andprivacy, data distribution, a security frame-work, networks and desktops, and on OPS-wide standards for networks, desktops,common “tombstone” information, anddatabase management.

There will not be a lot of policies andstandards, but those that are in place will bestrictly enforced.

Governance, Organization andAccountability

Management Board of Cabinet has theoverall authority to implement the necessarychanges in information and informationtechnology. Its authority includes approving


the overall strategy, the IT budget, theannual procurement plan, and key ITinitiatives. An Information and InformationTechnology Directions Committee, com-prised of Deputies and chaired by theSecretary of Management Board, is provid-ing the corporate co-ordination and direc-tion to better support government businesspriorities.

A new organizational structure has been putin place to rebalance corporate and localMinistry interests. What the strategydescribes as “semi-formal coordination” inthe past has given way to “a larger degree ofcorporate influence.” The OPS has ap-pointed its first Corporate Chief Informa-tion Officer (CIO) in Management Board

Secretariat. The Corporate office organiza-tion is in charge of:§ developing an information and informa-

tion technology plan that is integratedwith government business plans;§ managing the corporate plan and budget;§ developing corporate policies and

standards;§ designing and managing the common

architecture and infrastructure;§ overseeing delivery of common architec-

ture services;§ managing vendor relations with IT

suppliers; and§ ensuring the professional development

and career progression of IT manage-ment and staff across government.

Provincial Parks ReservationsWhen park campground reservationswere processed manually, staff could onlyhandle 40,000 reservations a year.People often took their chances and droveto popular parks on long weekends in thesummer, only to be turned away becauseall the camping spots were full. Reserva-tions are now electronic, and 200,000reservations are processed annually.

Smart System for HealthThis initiative is based on the premisethat health care delivery is an informa-tion-based process and that healthinformation can be used to supportchange and improve service delivery. Itis an integrated system of computers,databases and telecommunicationsnetworks to provide access to an organ-ized set of patient information and to linkconsumers, health care professionals,hospitals and other stakeholders.

POOLPublications Ontario On Line or POOLwas the first on-line electronic commerceservice of the Ontario government. Itprovides a “virtual bookstore” that isopen to the public day and night. Youcan fill an electronic shopping cart withthe publications you want, pay by creditcard, and expect delivery within three to

four business days. Credit card authoriza-tions take a matter of seconds. Creditcard information is encrypted and pro-tected.

Direct AccessRegistrations of personal property (mostlyliens on vehicles) used to be paper-based,with millions of inquiries handled bytelephone. Callers copied down informa-tion supplied by an operator. There werelong waits on the phone and there wasonly 48-hour currency on the information.These days, 97% of inquiries are doneelectronically; there is no waiting, nopaper filing. Response time for an inquiryis usually instantaneous. Delivery is byprivate sector agents.

Ontario TourismThe Province used to operate its owntelemarketing centre for tourism inquiries.Because the number of staff and fundingwere pre-set, the centre had difficulty withpeaks and valleys of demand. Callersused to have to wait up to half-an-hour inbusy periods. The service has been turnedover to the private sector which can adjuststaff to meet performance standards of a2-3 minute waiting time. The systemhandles more than 15,000 accommodationreservations a year; the value of hotelbookings is $4.3 million annually.

Ways in Which Technology is Changing Service Delivery


Because of the importance of the Year 2000conversion, a separate corporate officeheaded by an Assistant Deputy Minister,reporting to the Corporate Chief Informa-tion Officer, has been established to makesure that the deadlines for critical systemsare met.

Organizationally, ministries have beengrouped into seven business clusters for ITpurposes. The Chief Information Officersfor these clusters have a dual reportingrelationship: to the Deputy Ministers in thecluster and to the corporate Chief Informa-tion Officer.

The CIOs in the clusters are responsible fordeveloping a plan for their group ofMinistries; managing their IT resources;managing the architecture within thecorporate framework; deploying corporatetechnology products and services; develop-ing business-specific applications; andmanaging relations with business programvendors.

The corporate CIO, Scott Campbell,explains:

To achieve our goals – to use informationand technology effectively to advance thegovernment’s business vision and to enableand support flexible, responsive andinnovative public service –we are movingaway from a “silo” mentality, where eachMinistry did its own thing. We are taking amore enterprise-based, standardized andintegrated approach. By getting our acttogether and investing in common solutions,the results for citizens will be greaterconvenience and more choice in access to arange of services at a reduced cost to thetaxpayer.

Integrated Justice Project

The Integrated Justice Project has beendescribed as one of the largestmodernizations of a justice system in theworld. The Ontario justice system in-cludes:

§ three ministries of the Ontario govern-ment, the Ministry of the Attorney

General, the Ministry of the SolicitorGeneral and the Ministry of CorrectionalServices;

§ the Ontario judiciary;§ all the people who work in the offices of

the Ontario criminal, civil and familycourts;

§ provincial and municipal police forces;§ Crown attorneys;§ private lawyers;§ correctional facilities and services,

including correctional officers, probationand parole officers; and

§ the Ontario Parole Board.

The project is developing new ways oforganizing how information moves throughthe system. It will eliminate the onerous,time-consuming processes that involveentering and re-entering information timeand time again because information systemsare incompatible – up to 13 times for oneoffence, with all the possibilities for error,mis-filing, and undue delay that suchrepetition invites. The work flow in gener-ating, transmitting, filing, retrieving,duplicating, tracing and updating documentswill be transformed. Information will beentered once into an automated system,which will configure it for the variouspurposes of the system.

The project will also provide improvedaccess – for authorized personnel only – toinvaluable information in “real time”. Forexample, a police officer called to a home ina domestic dispute will be able to find out ina matter of minutes whether there is arestraining order or outstanding warrantagainst one of the parties and who hascustody of the children, if that is in dispute.

A key goal of the project is to furtherstrengthen public confidence in the justicesystem. There have been a number ofreports, including coroners’ jury findings,expressing the need for various parts of thesystem to share key information affectingpublic safety. Moreover, delays in courtproceedings have resulted in some criminalcases being dismissed. In the civil lawcourts, backlogs meant it could cost almostas much or more in legal fees to sue fordamages than the judgment was worth.


People involved in the justice system arealready seeing some results, although theproject, which began in 1997, is not sched-uled for completion until 2001. For exam-ple, several lawyers’ offices have beenparticipating in a pilot project to electroni-cally file court documents.

This project includes a risk-sharing partner-ship negotiated with the private sector. TheIntegrated Justice Project used CommonPurpose Procurement, a process that createsincentives for the private sector to sharefinancial risk on the basis that the project’sbenefits will repay the investment. Aftercareful preparation and negotiation, thegovernment signed an agreement with aconsortium led by SHL Systemhouse Co.(now called EDS Systemhouse Inc.).

This project is not just about technologicalchange; it requires major business processre-engineering to enable the various playersin the justice system to share informationand streamline procedures and practices.Therefore, the project needed expertise andexperience in organizational and businessprocess management, as well as technologi-cal know-how. Other partners on theprivate sector team include: DMR Consult-ing Group Inc., KPMG LLP, and TeranetLand Information Systems Inc.

The total cost of the project over four to fiveyears is estimated to be over $200 million,and the private sector consortium is invest-ing approximately 75% of that cost. Theconsortium and the three justice Ministriesshare the risks and the rewards associatedwith overhauling the system. If the pro-jected financial benefits are not generated,the private consortium will receive nopayment. However, it is expected that therewill be benefits and, once the partners havebeen paid, benefits will continue to flow tothe government.

The Integrated Justice Project has a long listof anticipated qualitative or non-financialbenefits for public safety and a moreefficient and speedier justice system:

§ Police officers will have less paperwork,so they will be able to spend more timein the community.

§ Electronic court files will give CrownAttorneys easier access to case informa-tion from other parts of the province.

§ Police officers will be able to shareinformation and crime analysis tools totrack criminal activity and people acrossjurisdictions, making sure an offenders’history is available to all police depart-ments.

§ Police will have round-the-clock accessto family court orders when they respondto domestic dispute calls.

§ Corrections staff will have the informa-tion they need to accurately classifyoffenders when they are admitted to jailand when they are released into thecommunity.

§ Better ways of scheduling of court timewill reduce wasted time for police,Crown Attorneys, judges and privatelawyers.

§ Civil law suits should be resolved faster.§ Better and faster access to information

and prompter criminal trials will reducetrauma for victims and witnesses, andmean fewer cases are dismissed becauseof delays.

§ Electronic filing for civil and familycourt documents will be possible fromanywhere, 22 hours a day, seven days aweek (two hours are needed for systemmaintenance).

“We have about 200 people working on thisproject full-time from the three justiceMinistries and the private sector partners.We also are able to draw on the expertise ofa host of representatives from across thesystem who sit on committees or participatein other ways to ensure we design real-world solutions that work,” said MichaelJordan, the Assistant Deputy Ministerresponsible for the project.

Teranet

The genesis of Teranet goes all the wayback to the 1970s when the Ontario Minis-try of Consumer and Commercial Relationswas looking to improve its land informationservices. Government designed anddeveloped the Province of Ontario LandRegistration Information System or POLA-RIS to automate the information on fourmillion parcels of land.


After about a decade spent on design,development and prototyping (1976 to1986), it was estimated that POLARISwould take at least 15 years to implementand perhaps longer. It could only be doneif the project had the capacity and flexibil-ity to hire the skilled staff that wereneeded, to develop innovative informationtechnology solutions, and to maintainsustained levels of funding.

The Ministry decided that it could not meetthose requirements within the normalrestraints imposed on government. Withingovernment, this project, like any other,had to compete for scarce funding withhealth care and education. Within govern-ment, this project could not simply go outand buy the latest technology or technicalexpertise. Several possibilities wereconsidered, including establishing a CrownCorporation, privatization, and increasedcontracting out of the work of automatingthe land information data.

The government concluded it needed a newmodel that would capitalize on the synergyof the skills, experience and resources ofboth the public and private sectors. ThePOLARIS project required a solution thatwould leverage private sector investmentand know-how, and would allow govern-ment to retain ownership and control of itsdata in the public interest.

After almost five years of preparation, thenew model came to life in 1991. TeranetLand Information Services Inc. is aprivately-incorporated company, with theOntario government and a private consor-tium, Teramira Holdings Inc. as co-owners.

The board of directors has equal representa-tion from the public and private sectors (fourmembers each), plus two members jointlynamed.

Both partners made a financial commitment(the initial investment was $29 million fromeach partner) and contributed skills. It wasagreed that government would:

§ contribute financial equity;§ set standards;§ offer skills through the existing

workforce, who would be offered jobs bythe new company;

§ retain ownership of the land data in thepublic interest;

§ license the company to manage thedatabase and provide the electronicgateway to the data; and

§ set the fees, to be collected by the com-pany, for registration and for searchingthe database by remote access.

The private sector partners would provide:

§ equity;§ access to research and development in

new technologies;§ marketing skills and networks; and§ business management services and other

expertise.

In addition, the private sector brought itsspirit of innovation and risk-taking. Thepublic sector brought a sense of stability andaccountability.

Teranet has bridged the innovation gap thatexisted in the 1980s. It has become a leaderin providing secure electronic gateways and

Teranet is ...

§ a privately-incorporated company owned 50-50 by a private consortium, headedby Teramira Holdings Inc., and the Province of Ontario

§ licensed to operate the Ontario’s land registration system and market access to thedata and services

§ a provider of secure, electronic commerce gateways for legal, land, real estate,financial and other services

§ employer of about 720 people directly, with about 400 more working for subcon-tractors

§ earning annual revenues of nearly $100 million


electronic commerce solutions. It is aprofitable enterprise that is generatingreturns for its investors and creatingemployment. It is marketing its productsand services and its public-private partner-ship experience on four continents.

Teranet has transformed how land informa-tion services are provided in Ontario.There are more than 10,000 frequent usersof land registration information in Ontario,including lawyers, para-legal workers, titlesearchers, police agencies and bankers. Inthe past, the only way to complete the legalrequirements of a property transaction (tobuy or sell a house, for example) was to goto the government office where the propertywas registered. There are 55 registry officesaround the province, open during regularbusiness hours. People had to line up tosearch the records, using an index ofproperty identification numbers, and line upto get paper copies of those records.

The conversion to electronic service deliv-ery means that title searches can be donefrom a remote location, such as a lawyer’soffice, in a matter of seconds. The title canbe searched by pointing to a parcel of landon a digital map, or by using the name ofthe owner, or the street address, or theidentification number. Copies of legaldocuments can be automatically faxed froman image database, on request.

Teranet has pioneered a totally paperless,electronic registration of legal documents,such as deeds and mortgages, directly into agovernment database. It is the first of itskind in the world. This service becameavailable in London, Ontario in 1999;eventually the paper-free service will spreadacross the province. This innovationrequired legislative changes by governmentto allow electronic signatures and involvedthe cooperation of the Law Society of UpperCanada, the Canadian Bar Association, theCanadian Bankers Association and govern-ment ministries.

Teranet is adding value-added products andservices to its range of services on a regularbasis. These products and services are whatmake Teranet financially viable. Theyinclude, for example:

§ Ontario’s first electronic commercesolution for title insurance, calledTitlePLUS, allowing lawyers to apply forand receive title insurance protection onreal estate transactions electronically;introduced through a joint venture withthe Lawyers Professional IndemnityCompany;

§ remote searching of writs of executionagainst property in any one of 49 En-forcement Offices in Ontario, done incooperation with the Ministry of theAttorney General and the Ministry ofConsumer and Commercial Relations;

§ mortgage origination and brokering on-line to financial institutions and aninternet-based multiple listing service forreal estate brokers and agents, offeredthrough one of the Teranet family ofbusinesses, Centric Systems;

§ expanding partnerships with municipali-ties to help them leverage non-taxrevenue benefits from their map informa-tion and services (e.g. providing taxclearance certificates by electroniccommerce for real estate transactions).

Financial benefits of the partnership to thegovernment include faster implementationof the land data automation project (esti-mated to be in the range of $500 million) atlower direct cost to government. Thegovernment has $30 million in preferredshares to compensate for the preparatorywork done in developing the POLARISprototype. Ongoing returns to governmentinclude royalties from use of propertyrecords. As shareholders, both partnersbenefit from the increase in the asset valueof the company.

Government maintains the legislative andregulatory framework under which Teranetoperates. The Ministry sets standards andapproves the fees (which it shares) that arecollected by Teranet for registration and forsearching the database by remote access.All new products and services developed byTeranet are approved by government.Returns to the private sector investors arebased on revenues from fees and profitabil-ity in any given year. Teranet is operatedlike a data utility. Because it is running a


1 Using Information Technology to Transform Government for the 21st Century: Ontario Government Informa-tion & Information Technology Strategy, 1998.

system based on a public asset, it is limitedby the partnership agreement in the size ofprofit it can make in any one year.

Economic benefits include substantial jobcreation. The Teranet workforce has grownfrom less than 70 people in 1991 to about720 direct employees, plus more than 400people employed as subcontractors, mainlyby the technology partner firms of Teranet(EDS Canada, Intergraph Canada Ltd.,MCI Systemhouse, and KPMG). Teranet isknown for its ability to retain a highly-skilled, productive and loyal workforce in acompetitive high-tech marketplace.Teranet’s philosophy is that the company

has two strategic assets – its customers andits people.

“If you take care of both them,” says CEOAris Kaplanis, “the business will come.”

Teranet is marketing its capability todesign, integrate, implement and operateland-related, geographically referencedinformation systems and services to theworld. It has contracts to modernizesystems in the Czech Republic and Lebanon.It has consulted in such countries as PuertoRico, Jamaica, Brazil, China and Korea. Itis marketing its know-how to governmentson four continents.

Tapping The Potential

Electronic services are beginning to increase efficiency and improve access to publicservices. But the potential of the “wired” public service is far greater than what we haveseen thus far. Ontario is positioning itself to be able to take advantage of the latest techno-logical breakthroughs, while keeping a careful eye on issues of privacy, security andprotection of the public interest.

Chapter 8

SIMPLE ACCESSIBLEWINDOWS FORCUSTOMER SERVICE

Question: What does an entrepreneur starting a new business inSudbury have in common with a real estate lawyer closing a homepurchase in London, a car dealer taking in a trade on a used vehicle inToronto, or an angler obtaining a fishing licence in Kingston?

Answer: They are all experiencing how the “new” Ontario PublicService provides services – speedier, simpler, more accurate, andaccessible.

O ne of the breakthroughs inpublic service that has occurred in Ontarioin recent years is the move to simple-to-use, accessible “windows” for the deliveryof a range of public services.These windows, which areoften technology-based,are being used toprovide services tocustomers:§ when they want

– late in theevenings andon weekendsand in somecases 24 hoursa day, sevendays a week;

§ where they want– at convenientcommunity loca-tions, such as shoppingmalls or lobbies of publicbuildings, and, for some services, on-line from their own homes or offices;

§ how they want – delivery of the service orproduct in a matter of minutes, ratherthan hours, days or weeks; and

§ with whom – one of the key directionshas been to integrate service

provision so that customersdo not have to “shop

around” for thegovernment servicesthey need; relatedservices areincreasinglybundled together.

Art Daniels, nowwith the OPSRestructuring

Secretariat, hasspent a good part of

his public servicecareer in the govern-

ment’s “consumer”ministry (Consumer and

Commercial Relations). He describes thetrend this way:

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Chapter 8 : Simple Accessible Windows for Customer Service62

People don’t have time to waste on routinepaper transactions. It’s up to us to get outof their way. It’s heartbreaking, I know, butpeople don’t want to spend an afternoon inone of our offices. They want to do theirbusiness quickly and easily, at a time andplace that is most convenient for them, andmove on. We have to make that possible.

Ontario’s experience demonstrates thatthere are millions of transactions that canbe done electronically every year, and thesatisfaction rate of the customers who usethe new service access channels is ex-tremely high. For example:

§ Ontario Business Connects, whichprovides services to businesses throughelectronic workstations, is handlingmore than 100,000 business start-upsyearly. Its customers give it an approvalrating in excess of 95%.

§ ServiceOntario self-serve kiosks areprocessing about 750,000 transactions ayear for Ontarians wanting to renewtheir vehicle licence, change theiraddress on a driver’s licence or healthcard, or get an outdoors card for fishingand hunting. Customer satisfactionlevels are about 95%.

Ontario Business Connects andServiceOntario were two of the servicesshowcased in the “Ontario Delivers”submission that won the first CAPAM goldaward for innovation in service delivery in1998. CAPAM is the CommonwealthAssociation for Public Administration andManagement. Two other major serviceinnovations highlighted in “OntarioDelivers” were Teranet and Direct Access:

§ Teranet Land Information Services Inc.,Ontario’s single window for landregistration and transfer on-line, ishandling two million transactions peryear. Teranet provides its customerswith a daily on-line report on systemavailability and service delivery. On-tario is moving to paperless registrationthrough Teranet, a company createdthrough a public-private partnership.

§ Direct Access is a single window forpersonal property inquiries and registra-tion of financial statements. This system,which handles one million inquiries andtwo million registrations yearly, is usedextensively by car dealerships in relationto vehicle liens. Satisfaction ratings arearound 90%.

All of these new access windows havedramatically cut the time it takes to get theservice, and have improved the accuracy ofthe transactions. Electronic systems meanfewer opportunities to make mistakes thanwith multiple paper forms, and the elec-tronic programs are designed to help peoplefill in the proper information. Users areavoiding lineups in government offices orwaiting on over-crowded telephone lines.

These numbers are only the beginning.Users of single-window services are pro-jected to grow exponentially in the comingyears as Ontario moves to provide greaterservice options through more diversechannels. ServiceOntario expects millionsmore transactions as it reaches the nextphase of development of service throughmultiple access channels that offer an evenbroader range of services.

This chapter describes ServiceOntario andOntario Business Connects. (Teranet andDirect Access can be found in the previouschapter on the Wired Public Service.) Threeother access initiatives – which rely onproviding “human” services at an integratedservice window – are also described in thischapter. They are the Government ofOntario Information Centres, the NorthernIntegration model for economic developmentservices, and the Community Care AccessCentres.

ServiceOntario

ServiceOntario is known for the popularself-serve kiosks where you can:§ renew a vehicle licence and receive the

licence plate sticker on the spot from themachine;

§ pay provincial court fines;§ order a customized, personalized or

graphic licence plate;§ get a used vehicle information package or

driver records;


§ change the address on a driver’s licence,a health card, or an outdoors card;

§ renew an outdoors card for fishing andhunting.

Many of the 65,000 Ontarians who usethese electronic kiosks every month prob-ably don’t remember what it used to be liketo get a vehicle licence renewed. Everyvehicle licence in the province of Ontarioused to expire on the same day. Thecommon expiration date was in February,guaranteeing long lineups at vehicle licencerenewal centres in the depths of winter.Some years ago, the system was changed sothat vehicle licences expired on the owner’sbirth date. But drivers still had to line upduring regular office hours at a limitednumber of locations.

Now there are 60 kiosks located in shop-ping malls and other handy places forcustomer use. Some of the kiosks areaccessible seven days a week, 24 hours aday. Most are accessible from 8 a.m. to 11p.m. Over half the business done at thekiosks is done in off-hours.

The first kiosks, which appeared in 1993 asa pilot project of the Ontario Ministry ofTransportation, only processed vehiclelicences and still required paper validation.The applicant filled out the usual form,signed it, and fed it into the machine. Thetrouble was the machine couldn’t tell if thepiece of paper was correct or not. Since thepilot, the system has been significantlyrefined. Legislation was changed to allowelectronic transactions without a signature.The need for a paper form was eliminated.At the end of 1998, use of bank debit cards,in addition to credit card payment, wasintroduced.

The kiosks were developed and refined inpartnership with IBM, which won thecompetitive tender to design and build themachines, and also to service them regu-larly under a six-year contract to thegovernment. IBM collects a fee (currentlyone dollar) per transaction. In 1996, IBMsaid the kiosks were considered by many tobe “the most advanced public access kiosknetwork in the world.” 1

Today, only a few years after their introduc-tion, people tend to take the kiosk technol-ogy for granted. But each innovation hashad its challenges. Just adding the conven-ience of use of a bank debit card, forexample, required new software and a newsecurity process to be able to accept andprotect the individual’s debit card accessnumber. Each of the Ministries involvedhad to pass the financial security testrequired by the bank.

Another aspect that looks easy on theoutside, but has required considerable effortbehind the scenes, is adding other servicesto the kiosks beyond those provided by theMinistry of Transportation. Five ministriesare currently partnered with the Ministry ofTransportation to make it happen.

Changing addresses for health cards andrenewing outdoors cards for recreationalpermits requires accessing separatedatabases that are operated by the Ministryof Health in Kingston and the Ministry ofNatural Resources in Peterborough. Courtfines are the responsibility of the Ministryof the Attorney General. Information onvehicle liens is held by the Ministry ofConsumer and Commercial Relations. TheServiceOntario kiosks also make referenceto the government’s Drive Clean programwhen people get their licence renewals.

Bringing separate ministries, separateprocesses, separate locations, separatetechnologies and separate cards togetherinto one single service has required morethan application of new technologies – ithas required a lot of partnership-building,involving ministries and the private sector.

The system continues to be effective forroutine transactions like licence renewalsand address changes for busy people whoare interested in convenience and fastservice. But kiosks are only one part of thenext wave of ServiceOntario innovations.As we enter a new millennium,ServiceOntario is looking to take anotherleap into the future. The government isconsidering its options for an expansion ofthe capability of ServiceOntario through avariety of channels – telephone, internet,mail and over-the-counter, as well as thekiosks.

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Millions more transactions would be partof ServiceOntario. The vision is toprovide common, convenient access formany services that are now deliveredthrough separate Ministries, processes,locations, and technologies. Multi-channelaccess and integration of service deliveryon behalf of many Ministries will givepeople more choice and greater conven-ience.

“Self-serve technologies are only one pieceof this service system,” said Peter Slater,director of alternative service delivery forServiceOntario. “We are working onmaking service delivery not only conven-ient and accessible, but also cost-effective.”

A new technological innovation comingout of ServiceOntario is calledKnowledgebase, which is both an elec-tronic manager of information and anelectronic repository of information.Knowledgebase will make availableinformation on government products andservices that are delivered over more thanone service channel, such as both theinternet and telephone. Still in develop-ment, Knowledgebase is projected toreduce waiting times for the public andimprove productivity of customer servicerepresentatives.

ServiceOntario intends to continue to liveup to its name.

Ontario Business Connects

Ontario Business Connects has alwaysbeen clear what – or, more precisely, who –is the prime driver of change in forging anew business-to-government relationship:the business client. The Ontario BusinessConnects team is also very conscious ofhow entrepreneurs tend to feel aboutdealing with government.

The business-to-government relationship isa key element in the competitiveness of ajurisdiction in the current global tradingenvironment. Business has complained foryears that its dealings with governments in

this country are plagued by processes thatare cumbersome, uncoordinated andunresponsive.Implementing a Service Delivery Strategyfor Business (September, 1997)

The Ontario Business Connects team in theMinistry of Consumer and Commercialrelations has worked with advisory commit-tees, conducted focus groups and surveys,and made numerous contacts with thebusiness community, its associations andagents, to find out what business wants. Anongoing dialogue is being used to designand implement solutions from the perspec-tive of the business client.

The project started where most new entre-preneurs begin their relationship withgovernment – business name searches andregistration of non-incorporated businesses.

Before Ontario Business Connects, therewas one location for non-incorporatedbusiness registrations for the whole provincein downtown Toronto. If all went well, theclient waited six to eight weeks for serviceby mail. If anything went wrong – and halfthe time it did – applications had to bereturned for correction of mistakes, and thewaiting time extended to 3 to 4 weeks andcould be up to 6 to 8 weeks.

The project launched its first experimentalelectronic self-help workstations in 1994.The workstations enabled users to fill outand generate a business name registrationform to be signed and sent in. The process-ing time was not much different than before.But in October, 1995, with passage oflegislation that allowed electronic andsignature-less registrations through theworkstations, the process time went fromseveral weeks to five working days.

By the fall of 1996, the time to register anew business was reduced to 20 minutes. Aregistration or renewal could be done on thespot. Entrepreneurs could also apply for thefederal government’s Business Numberthrough the workstation. An Internetwebsite was created to provide businessstart-up information, with links to federalbusiness information sources as well.


As of the spring of 1999, there were morethan 100 electronic self-help workstations,located around the province, which are usedby entrepreneurs to perform business namesearches and to register for the followingProvincial government programs:

§ Business name registration§ Retail Sales Tax Vendor Permit§ Employee Health Tax§ Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Approximately two-thirds of the businessregistrations in Ontario are done throughthese workstations. Not only is the servicequick, but the program also walks the clientthrough the process to eliminate the possi-bility of errors.

The latest innovation is the Master BusinessLicence, which was piloted in 1998 and isnow available throughout the province. TheMaster Business Licence is like a passport;it includes basic information about thebusiness. It can be used by the client toreduce the need to duplicate basic informa-tion for different government offices andprograms.

“Provincial government offices are notallowed to ask clients to repeat the informa-tion on their Master Business Licence whenthey apply for another permit or registra-tion. If clients run into a governmentemployee who doesn’t know about the newlicence and asks them to fill out the formsas usual, they can point to the line thatexplicitly says they don’t have to. There’snothing better than having the client as theagent of change,” says Jim Evans, ProjectExecutive of Ontario Business Connects.

Some federal and municipal offices areusing the Master Business Licence too.Right now, the licence is a piece of paperthat gets attached to other documents. ButOntario Business Connects will track whereit is used most, and then ask those offices ifthey want to get the information electroni-cally from the business directory, ratherthan having to key it in to their owndatabases.

The Ontario Business Connects websitenow accepts registration requests on-line inCanada and globally and will enable

business name searches in the near future.Unlike the workstation, which generates theregistration on the spot, the internet routetakes about a week to receive confirmationof registration by mail. But that will allchange with the next wave of implementa-tion of the service delivery strategy.

The service delivery strategy is designed tosimplify and streamline client access togovernment, reduce the cost of governmentfor business, and make delivery moreaffordable for taxpayers. It includes public-private partnerships to create leading-edgesolutions.

According to Evans, business registration isjust the tip of the iceberg in the business-to-government relationship. To have a majorimpact, the process of streamlining andsimplifying access must – and will, withinthe next five years – expand to all aspects ofthe business cycle, including updating andregistration maintenance activities andreporting and remittance activities (remit-tances of instalment payments and fees,taxes, interest and penalties due, andperiodic reports required by government).

Ontario Business Connects recently negoti-ated partnerships with three private sectorconsortia to create the next generation ofthe project. The partnerships will start toexpand the “reach” of Ontario BusinessConnects to other outlets such as account-ants and lawyers and other parts of thebusiness cycle and provide more clientchoice as to the time, place and means ofcommunication with government throughmultiple access routes and electroniccommerce.

The service strategy anticipates solutionsfor business that are linked to federalprograms, so that businesses can do theirfederal remittances for sales tax, employ-ment insurance and pension paymentsthrough the same channels. Private-sectorwholesalers and retailers will deliverservices to business clients within a frame-work of data and process standards agreedupon with government.

“When it’s done, it will just look easy, andeveryone will say: What took you so long?”says Evans.

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Ontario GovernmentInformation Centres

How do I get a health card? Where can Iget that government report I read about?I've lost my wallet - how can I get newidentification? How do I go about startinga new business? Who do I talk to about ...?

These are the kinds of questions thatpeople routinely ask at the new OntarioGovernment Information Centres locatedin communities across the province. Thequestions are not new - it's the approach toanswering them that has changed. In thepast, it was generally left up to citizens tohunt down the right government office toget the information they needed. Theabsence of a single identifiable access pointfor government information has causedconfusion and frustration.

The 57 Ontario Government InformationCentres, which were officially launched inOctober, 1999, are part of an overallgovernment effort to give Ontariansservices when, where and how they want.

At the front counter in all these walk-incentres, customers can:§ get answers to commonly-asked ques-

tions on all provincial governmentprograms on the spot;

§ get referrals to the right specialist formore complex advice;

§ order and pay for publications electroni-cally, with fast delivery to their home bycourier;

§ register a small business in 20 minutesat an Ontario Business Connects kioskor through the internet;

§ use a public internet terminal to accessprovincial websites for information andservices and the government telephonebook;

§ pick up free brochures, informationpackages and forms; and

§ find out about local community events.

One of the more popular packages theCentres provide is for people who have losttheir wallets. Many of the 500 people whomake inquiries every day at the Govern-ment Information Centre at Queen's Parkin downtown Toronto have lost their

wallets and want to know how to replacetheir driver's licence, health card, birthcertificate, social insurance, and otheridentification cards. The lost wallet packageprovides instructions on how and where toget new cards. Other packages of usefulinformation on major "life events", such asturning 65, losing a job, getting married,moving to a new city, and death of a lovedone, are in development.

Because many citizens do not distinguishwhich level of government does what,Centre staff are trained to answer commonquestions about services provided by federaland municipal governments and agencies.Staff can access contacts and phone numbersfor customers from a database calledTOPICS.

The Government Information Centre projectstarted with 12 pilot sites that were evalu-ated in the spring of 1998. The feedbackfrom customers and regional delivery staffparticipating in the pilots helped establishthe core information and referral servicesthat all the centres provide. In addition, theCentres may offer additional services thatare especially in demand in their localcommunities. For example, in some ruralareas, they issue hunting and fishinglicences and moose hunting tags; there areInformation Centres in vacation spotsoffering tourist information for travellersand shoreline/environmental information forcottagers.

The location of the Centres was carefullyplanned to provide reasonable geographicaccess. In Southern Ontario, where the bulkof the population lives, 85% of residents arewithin 40 km of a service centre, the restwithin 75 km. In Northern Ontario, wherethe population is small and dispersed andthe land mass is huge, 85% live within 50km of a centre, and most of the rest arecovered by outreach services.

When the regional service delivery strategystarted, more than 17 independent ministryfield delivery systems were located at 1,750administrative sites in 1,300 buildings."Service delivery was geared to what waseasiest for ministries, not for customers, andthere was limited use of technology todeliver services. A fundamental restructur-


ing was required to shift to a customer-focused, single-window solution," saysCelia Fairclough, Project Director of theRegional Service Delivery Strategy inManagement Board Secretariat.

In communities across the province,ministry offices have been consolidated tomake it more convenient for customers toget a range of services. Ministries that sharesimilar client groups and issues - justiceministries, resource/economic ministries,and social/health/education ministries -have moved into office locations together,and are sharing administrative costs. TheInformation Centres act as a "storefront" inthe sense that citizens can get some servicesright at the counter, and as a "gateway" tomore complex, specialist services behindthe counter.

"The front-line counter staff have shown alot of initiative to make this work. In somecases, they have helped train each other indifferent programs to learn as much aspossible about the work of other Ministriesso they can provide better service," saysFairclough.

As ministries gain experience with the newInformation Centres and as customerscontinue to provide feedback throughcomment cards and surveys, the model willevolve. For example:§ The government is looking to expand the

range of core services provided at thecounters.

§ Behind the counter, there is potential toorganize specialized staff from differentministries to serve common customers ina more streamlined way, with theInformation Centres built into the frontend.

§ As government moves more fully into e-commerce and self-serve websites,citizens who don't have access to compu-ter technology at home will be able tocome to the Information Centres and gethelp to access programs through thepublic terminals.

§ Developing partnerships with othergovernments and agencies will allow theInformation Centres to offer relatedservices -- responding to the demand formore seamless public services.

There are also new challenges. One ofthem is working out the internal manage-ment of a service centre for which manydifferent ministries have responsibility."We can't use the traditional departmentalmodel," says Fairclough. "We have todevelop new approaches that reflect a newmodel with shared management, sharedfunding, shared staff, shared information,and shared accountability."

Northern Integration

In 1996, the Ministry of Northern Develop-ment and Mines went out and talked to itscustomers about how it could improveeconomic development services. The mainmessage that came back was, looselytranslated: Government should get its acttogether. Three years later, a new model ofintegrated delivery of economic develop-ment services is getting positive reviewsfrom its northern customers.

More than 20 staff from five Ministrieswere transferred to the Ministry of NorthernDevelopment and Mines to work in teamsestablished in six areas across the North.These teams act as a focal point for servicedelivery in the key economic sectors ofmining, forestry, tourism, agriculture,business and industry, and Aboriginaleconomic development. The teams bringtogether staff with specialized expertise inthe different economic sectors and staff withfirst-hand knowledge of local communities.

Every municipality, First Nation andunincorporated community in NorthernOntario has been assigned a team memberas their first point of contact. Many of thestaff live and work in smaller communities,such as Red Lake, Wawa or Fort Frances.They handle many local inquiries on theirown or by working closely with othermembers of their team.

The sector specialists maintain close tieswith related Ministries. For example,sector specialists in agriculture keep intouch with the Ministry of Agriculture,Food and Rural Affairs, and forestryspecialists do the same with the Ministry ofNatural Resources. The Ministry ofNorthern Development and Mines has

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signed partnership agreements with theother Ministries. Team staff are includedin training opportunities, ongoing commu-nications, and other activities in the relatedministries. Sector staff from area teamsalso meet regularly among themselves toidentify trends and issues having implica-tions across the North.

Because of the importance to the northerneconomy of industries such as forestry,mining and tourism, staff must retain theirspecialized expertise. “There was a fear, Ithink, when we first started this teamapproach that everyone was going tobecome a generalist,” says Cal McDonald,Director of Regional Economic Develop-ment, based in Sudbury “That is not thecase at all. Their specialized knowledge,whether it is in fish and wildlife or water-front tourism development, is the value-added they bring to the team.”

Networking is an important part of thesuccess of this initiative. Area team staffkeep in touch with Ministries responsiblefor regulations and policies that affecteconomic development in the North. Theyalso work with local and regional partnersin communities. The teams have heldnumerous workshops with local organiza-tions, other Ministries, federal departmentsand other players involved in economicdevelopment. The Ministry is continuingto work with other levels of government tobetter define respective roles.

Johnny Yesno, an Aboriginal economicdevelopment advisor in Sault Ste. Marie,used to be with the Ministry of Citizenship,Culture and Recreation in Geraldton. Thetransfer seemed like a good fit for him. “Iwent to high school here. I speak Ojibway,and I know the First Nations.” He hasmade contacts with the Aboriginal commu-nities in the area. “Now instead of callingall the different Ministries, they can callme. I’ll find the most appropriate servicesfor them. Because First Nations are afederal responsibility, I have to knowfederal programs and have federal contactstoo. I get calls from all over.”

To ensure an integrated approach acrossthe provincial government, there is a

Northern Economic Development Commit-tee, which brings together senior executivesfrom several Ministries to discuss prioritiesand directions for the Province’s role in theNorth.

Back in 1996, customers told the Ministrythat they wanted easier access to informationand services, less duplication and red tape,and more streamlined processes and consist-ent policies. An in-depth evaluation wasundertaken in 1998, to see how the inte-grated approach was working. It found thatthe teams were really coming together, asindividual team members gained experiencein a number of sectors and became involvedin the delivery of programs and services.

A customer survey in December, 1999 foundthat over 93% of the clients surveyed weresatisfied with the services they were receiv-ing from the integrated team approach.

To ensure that staff have the “right stuff” toassist northern communities to identifyeconomic development opportunities andestablish priorities, the Ministry haslaunched a new training initiative, custom-ized to address northern economic develop-ment issues.

“A competitive and diversified economy inNorthern Ontario is essential to ensuringeconomic prosperity in the new millen-nium,” says Jim McClure, Assistant DeputyMinister of the Northern DevelopmentDivision. “It is imperative that northerncommunities be able to take advantage ofopportunities that will attract investmentand create jobs. We want to be sure ourteam approach supports that goal.”

Community Care AccessCentres

Long-term care in Ontario includes supportsand services to seniors, people with physicaldisabilities, and people of all ages who needhealth services at home or at school.

In the past, individuals or their families orfriends who were looking for a long-termcare service faced the prospect of first


finding out what existed in their commu-nity, and then calling around to a number ofagencies and facilities to see what wasavailable. For example, if a family wantedto find a Nursing Home for an elderlyrelative, they would have to call everyfacility in their area to find out if there wereopenings. If these institutions had waitinglists, the family would have to make aseparate application to each one to get ontheir list.

The same process of “shopping around”would be required if the family werelooking for a Day Centre where a frailelderly person could be cared for while theirregular caregivers were at work, or for in-home services for someone who wasdischarged from hospital and needednursing care or help with personal care.Just getting information on what wasavailable locally was a challenge.

As an interim step, Placement CoordinationServices were developed to coordinateaccess to long-term care facilities, and theybecame mandatory across Ontario in 1993.But they did not coordinate in-home orcommunity services.

Today, there are 43 Community Care AccessCentres across Ontario that are providingan integrated access point for individualsand their families seeking long-term careservices. Since 1997, they have beengradually taking on the full range ofservices for which they will be responsible.The Centres are the integrated access pointfor in-home services, long-term carefacilities (Nursing Homes and Homes forthe Aged ), Day Centres, information andreferral, and respite care (which allowsfamilies who are caring for an elderly ordisabled person at home to get a much-needed break).

The Centres do not employ staff to provideall these services. They are service coordi-nation and management centres thatcontract with agencies to provide servicessuch as nursing care at home for peoplewho are frail and elderly or discharged fromhospital. The Centres determine eligibilityfor service; do case management, serviceplanning and monitoring; provide simpli-

fied access to service information andreferral; and coordinate placements in long-term care facilities. A new funding modelhas also been developed by the Ministry ofHealth and Long-Term Care and is beingphased in to ensure that there is a fairdistribution of funding for long-term careacross the province.

The Centres will refer people to Commu-nity Support Services, which are deliveredby more than a thousand community-basedagencies across Ontario, many of whommake extensive use of volunteers. Peoplemay also contact directly communityservices such as Meals on Wheels, transpor-tation services (particularly important inrural areas), friendly visiting and hospicevolunteer visiting service agencies –without going through the Community CareAccess Centre.

The service system has been set up verymuch in the way that consumers asked forit. A series of consultations has turned upmuch useful information for development ofthe new integrated access system.

For one thing, there is consumer choice.The Centres have a responsibility to ensurethat those most in need have access toservices, whether they are in-home or in afacility. But individuals choose whichfacility they want to live in. There is also astrong consumer voice on the communityboards of the Community Care AccessCentres. One third of the members musthave received long-term care serviceswithin the last year, or be caring for afamily member, or have a family memberwho has received services.

According to Gail Ure, Southwest RegionalDirector for the Ministry of Health andLong-Term Care: “Consumers will alwaystell you what they need. They may not tellyou the ‘how’, but they always tell you the‘what’. People know their own communi-ties, what kinds of service they need, andwhere. Their input has been invaluable.”

In planning for services in the Southwest,for example, the service maps or boundarieswere redrawn, based on what residentsdefined as their “community”, rather than

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along traditional government lines.Consumers’ desire for privacy, dignity,safety and social supports have alsocontributed significantly to new provincialdesign standards for long-term carefacilities.

Listening to the customer may revealcomplaints about services, but it can alsohighlight how valuable the services are.“We have heard from people who said thatthe respite care or the home care theyreceived, for example, made all the differ-ence in their lives,” said Ure.

The Next Wave

Single-window service delivery is responding to an identified need. A November, 1997Ekos Research survey for the federal government in the Rethinking Government series,found that 77% of those responding gave high priority to making government serviceseasier to find and access. Sixty-eight per cent gave high priority to one-stop shopping for arange of services. Erin Research survey findings, which are documented in Chapter 5 onthe Quality Service Strategy, also found that Canadians want more convenient ways to findand access the government services they need.

In Ontario, the single-window electronic solutions that have been developed are clearlypopular and extensively used. But there is no question that they are still first-generationsolutions. The next wave will take services to individuals and businesses to another level ofconvenience and integration.

At the same time as we make better use of technology to provide easier access to services,Ontario intends to maintain the personal touch, through services across the province thatshow the “people” face of government.

1 IBM ConnectPoint, Government Edition, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 1996.


Chapter 9

A lternative service delivery orASD has been critical to the transformationof the Ontario Public Service (OPS) since1995. Although alternative service deliveryhas tended to be viewed as a fiscal restraintexercise (and it often results in governmentcost-savings), its primary goal is better

service to users/clients. As Robin Fordand David Zussman suggest in their

introduction to Alternative ServiceDelivery: Sharing Governance in

Canada (1997):

ASDapproaches provide a toolbox

from which governments cantailor various options to meet

their own prevailing needs anddemands. ASD is a dynamic

spectrum of delivery options that

challenge traditional hierarchical publicservice structures and allow public servantsthe flexibility to adapt to their futureenvironment.2

The ASD “toolbox” has been used bygovernments in many other jurisdictions.Internationally, New Zealand, the UnitedKingdom, and Australia, have led the way.In Ontario, approximately 75 ASD optionshave been implemented since 1995. TheOPS is gearing up for another round ofbusiness case analysis, selection, andimplementation of ASD in 2000 and beyond.

This chapter discusses the approach that theOPS has taken to ASD and provides someexamples of the different alternative deliveryoptions recently published in AlternativeService Delivery in the Ontario PublicSector, August 1999.

A Systematic Approach

The OPS has taken an organization-wide,systematic approach to ASD. Withinguidelines provided by Management Board,

ALTERNATIVES TODIRECT SERVICEDELIVERY

The question for today’s political leaders and public servants is notwhen or if to innovate, but how.

Robin Ford and David Zussman, Alternative Service Delivery:Transcending Boundaries, 1997 1

Chapter 9: Alternatives To Direct Service Delivery72

every Ministry reviews its programs todetermine the viability and appropriatenessof alternative mechanisms. If it is deter-mined that something other than directgovernment service delivery is an option,further review is required to decide which

A Continuum of ASD Options

Direct Delivery – Government delivers the service directly through its ministries,through business planning, focusing on results, cost recovery, getting the best valuefor the tax dollar, and customer service.

Agencies – Government delegates service delivery to a scheduled agency operating atarm’s length from the ongoing operations of the government, but maintains controlover the agency.

Devolution – Government transfers the responsibility for delivering the service to a)other levels of government; b) profit and non-profit organizations that receive transferpayments to deliver the service.

Purchase of Service – Government purchases services under contract from a privatefirm, but retains accountability for the service. This includes contracting out andoutsourcing of services.

Partnerships – Government enters into a formal agreement to provide services inpartnership with other parties where each contributes resources and shares the risksand rewards.

Franchising/Licensing – For franchising, the government confers to a private firm theright or privilege to sell a product or service in accordance with prescribed terms andconditions. For licensing, the government grants a licence to a private firm to sell aproduct or service that would otherwise not be allowed.

Privatization – Government sells its assets or its controlling interest in a service to aprivate sector company, but may protect public interest through legislation andregulation. 3

kind of alternative service delivery best suitsthe circumstances. The range of alternativesbeyond direct delivery includes: creation ofagencies, devolution, external purchase ofservices, licensing/franchising, partnerships,and privatization.

A business case must be drawn up, docu-menting the issues and the potential ofalternative delivery. The ASD selectioncriteria include:§ protection of the public interest§ the need for close political/policy

control by government§ the degree of financial dependence on

provincial funding§ management and administrative flex-

ibility§ applicability of market forces§ cost/benefit analysis.

While the systematic approach to ASDacross the whole government is new, someof the specific options have been around fora long time. For example, Ontario has along history of devolving delivery of manycommunity and social services to commu-nity-based, non-profit agencies. Similarly,the OPS has purchased certain services, suchas some translation and communicationsservices, from private providers for years.

The more recent expansion of use of alterna-tive delivery has had significant results in


terms of improving access to services andcustomer satisfaction. For example:Ontario Business Connects is partneringwith the private sector and other govern-ment jurisdictions to provide services tobusinesses. Its electronic workstationshandle more than 100,000 business start-ups yearly, and its customers give it anapproval rating in excess of 95%.

Alternative service delivery has also beenthe single most important factor indownsizing the public service. The vastmajority of the jobs that have moved outsidegovernment through ASD continued. Thoseemployees may now work for a municipalgovernment, a non-profit communityorganization, a university, a hospital, a newcorporation with a public-private board ofdirectors, a private sector company, or anagency of the provincial government. Insome cases, like Teranet, additional newjobs have been created.

What follows are several examples ofalternative service delivery options thathave been implemented by the OPS. Someexamples of alternative service deliveryhave been described more fully in earlierchapters; some of those examples, includingOntario Business Connects and Teranet, arereferred to in this section simply to illus-trate how they fit into the spectrum ofalternatives.

Agencies

Government delegates servicedelivery to a scheduled agencyoperating at arm’s length from theongoing operations of the govern-ment, but maintains control over theagency.

§ Government ensures the agency performsits duties according to its constitutingauthority (i.e. legislation, policy, memo-randum of understanding, administrativeagreement).

§ On a day-to-day basis, the agency head isresponsible for operational decisions.

§ Government generally gives an agencyindependence to provide objective adviceto assist in policy development; make awide range of decisions to regulate and

assess the conduct of businesses; delivergoods and services to the public whereoperational flexibility is required to do itmore efficiently and effectively.

AgriCorp

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food andRural Affairs created AgriCorp, an agencyat arm’s length from government, to allowmore flexibility in delivery of programs inresponse to changes and opportunities inthe marketplace.

AgriCorp has a board of directors thatincludes members of the farm and foodindustries. Its employees are Crownemployees, rather than members of theOntario Public Service. The agencydelivers programs such as grain licensingand inspection, vegetable grading andacreage measurement, crop insuranceprograms that protect farmers from lossescaused by natural hazards. It has branchesacross the province. The agency receivesfunding for crop insurance from theProvince, the Federal government, andrevenue from premiums paid by farmers.Some of the other activities of the agencyare funded from its own revenues.

Ontario Securities Commission

The Ontario Securities Commission wasrestructured to become a self-funded Crowncorporation. The Commission is responsi-ble for administration of the Securities Actand the Commodity Futures Act. Itsmandate is to protect investors from unfair,improper or fraudulent practices and tofoster fair and efficient capital markets andconfidence in their integrity.

The Ministry of Finance changed thisregulatory agency to a Crown corporationthat finances its operations through feerevenues to achieve the following:§ to generate sufficient resources to allow

the Commission to fulfil its role insupporting a strong capital market;

§ to create a more flexible structure so thatthe Commission can direct resources toits business priorities and respondquickly to issues, including majorinvestigations;

§ to enable the Commission to attract and


keep staff with the necessary specializedskills;

§ to align with the securities commissionsin other provinces which have gone toself-funding (including Alberta, Quebecand British Columbia).

Devolution

Government transfers the responsi-bility for delivering the service to a)other levels of government; b) profitand non-profit organizations thatreceive transfer payments to deliverthe service.

§ Government negotiates responsibilityfor service delivery, service standards,and results.

§ Government still controls the policy.§ Day-to-day service delivery is the direct

responsibility of the service provider.§ Services are provided by organizations

that are external to government, in theprivate sector or community-based,many with expertise in specializedsectors (e.g. health and social services).

Devolution to a Municipal Corporation

As part of the Local Services Realignment,responsibility for a number of services havebeen devolved, or are in the process ofbeing devolved, to the municipal level ofgovernment. Property assessment serviceswere one of the first services to be de-volved. In this case, devolution was notdirectly to a municipal council. Instead,the Ontario Property Assessment Corpora-tion or OPAC is a municipal corporation,created by legislation. The corporation isresponsible for providing property assess-ment services for local governments. Allmunicipalities in Ontario are members ofthe corporation, and through OPAC, havedirect control over levels of propertyassessment services.

The creation of this municipal corporationinvolved transfer of financial and opera-tional responsibility for delivery of propertyassessment services from the Province tomunicipalities. It was in keeping with theLocal Services Realignment plan to link

service delivery to the level of governmentresponsible for meeting local needs andpriorities.

The Minister of Finance transferred finan-cial responsibility to the corporation inJanuary, 1998. Operational responsibilitywas transferred at the end of the year. TheMinistry of Finance retains ongoing respon-sibilities for establishing policies, standardsand quality assurance.

The corporation’s first board was appointedby the Minister, based on nominations fromthe Association of Municipalities of Ontario.There are 12 municipal representatives (sixelected officials and six municipal officers oremployees). There are also two representa-tives of the Province on the board.

Approximately 1,800 OPS employees, themajority of whom worked in field officesacross Ontario, accepted offers of employ-ment from OPAC. OPAC will recover itscosts for providing assessment services frommunicipalities, using a formula that recog-nizes both municipal demands for servicesand a municipality’s ability to pay.

In 1970, when the Province assumedresponsibility for assessment services, itpromised to transfer the function back tomunicipalities once tax fairness was intro-duced on a province-wide basis. Thegovernment believes this condition has nowbeen met. The transfer gives municipalitiesgreater control over setting the level ofservices they require and more control overthe assessment base, from which theygenerate property tax revenues.

Devolution to a Post-SecondaryEducational Institution

One of the early successes in devolution wasthe transfer in 1997 of the delivery of arange of education, research and laboratoryservices from government to the Universityof Guelph.

The University receives provincial fundingfor its degree programs, like other universi-ties in Ontario, through the Ministry ofTraining, Colleges and Universities. Over


the years it has also received financialsupport from the Ministry of Agriculture,Food and Rural Affairs, to fund researchand a diploma program in agriculture.Seven research stations in and aroundGuelph that are associated with and oper-ated by the University, are owned andfunded by the Ministry. In addition, theMinistry directly operated its own educa-tion, research and laboratory services atseveral locations around Ontario.

Faced with a 28 per cent budget reductionfor fiscal year 1997-98, the Ministry ofAgriculture, Food and Rural Affairs lookedat several options before deciding on whatits calls an “enhanced partnership” with theUniversity. The enhanced partnership withthe University of Guelph was seen ashaving a number of advantages including:

§ building on a longstanding workingrelationship between the parties;

§ avoiding the closure of the smaller unitsin locations outside Guelph, thus main-taining a network of services built upover many years;

§ integrating services within the Univer-sity to achieve cost-savings throughefficiencies in administration and otherareas;

§ preserving services and jobs;§ capitalizing on the University’s proven

ability to establish partnerships with theagri-food community; and

§ freeing up government-run functions togenerate revenue to expand and improveservices.

The agreement signed by the two partnersprovides that targets will be developedannually and approved jointly. They will beapproved by the executive committee, whichis made up of an Assistant Deputy Ministerand the Vice-President, Research, of theUniversity. There are different performancemeasures indicated in the agreement fordifferent program areas. There is also areporting system that has been agreed to bythe parties.

There is a staff of about 20 who remain inthe Ministry division that used to have morethan 500 people. About 400 people movedfrom the Ministry to the University.

Devolution to Not-for-Profit Self-fundedIndustry Corporations

A number of industry regulation and publicsafety programs and services were trans-ferred from the Ministry of Consumer andCommercial Relations to not-for-profit,self-funded corporations, called “adminis-trative authorities” in enabling legislation.Programs and services transferred include:

§ motor vehicle dealers: transferred to theOntario Motor Vehicle Industry Council;

§ real estate agents: transferred to the RealEstate Council of Ontario;

§ travel agents: transferred to the TravelIndustry Council of Ontario;

§ electrical safety inspections: transferredto the Electrical Safety Authority; and

§ safety programs related to fuel safety;elevating and amusement devices;boilers and pressure vessels; and uphol-stered and stuffed articles: transferred tothe Technical Standards and SafetyAuthority.

Some of the reasons for implementing thisalternative service delivery option included:reducing administrative costs while main-taining standards; encouraging greaterbusiness leadership and responsibility in themarketplace; and enhancing consumerprotection and public safety as professional-ism is built into regulated industries.

How do they work? The Technical Stand-ards and Safety Authority (TSSA), forexample, is governed by a 15-memberBoard of Directors that includes membersfrom the regulated industries, government,consumers and the private sector (non-industry). TSSA has eight IndustryAdvisory Councils reflecting the variousindustry sectors (elevators, fuels, amuse-ment devices etc.), and a ConsumersAdvisory Panel, which provides advice andoversees the complaints-handling policy.

TSSA is an administrative body that hasbeen delegated authority by government toregulate industry under seven designatedpublic safety statutes. Government retainsauthority over the legislation and regula-tions, sets public safety standards andpolicy, and monitors service delivery by the


Authority. The Safety Authority is ac-countable to government for performanceof its delegated responsibilities, but it is notan agency of the Province. TSSA reportsto the Minister of Consumer and Commer-cial Relations on its activities.

The Safety Authority can keep the revenuesit generates from inspection, licensing andregistration fees instead of putting theminto the government’s ConsolidatedRevenue Fund. It has an agreement to paygovernment for services related to itsresponsibilities; for example, TSSA and theMinistry jointly consulted on and reviewedproposals for an updating of public safetylegislation/regulations. Any revenues inexcess of operating requirements arereinvested in public safety programs, suchas education and training for industry,public awareness campaigns, and newtechnologies. It can also reinvest inadditional staff if necessary.

To achieve its goals of improving publicsafety and industry competitiveness, TSSAwill take advantage of its new environmentthrough: greater organizational flexibility;a more empowered and accountableworkforce; more responsive service to itsindustry stakeholders; a more pro-activeapproach to emerging safety trends; andmore efficient ways of delivering services.

Devolution to Community

Some services are devolving to the commu-nity. This is occurring in a significant wayin two areas -- services for people withdevelopmental disabilities and psychiatricservices.

In the case of people with developmentaldisabilities, a movement of residents fromlarge institutions into the community, to beserved through community-based services,has been ongoing for about 25 years. Theprimary driver of change since the 1970shas been to improve quality of life, basedon the belief that people with disabilitiesshould be integrated into society and havelives as close as possible to everybody else.

In 1974, there were approximately 8,000adults and children in an institution-basedsystem, in 17 directly-operated government

facilities and 10 facilities run by boards ofdirectors. The Ministry of Community andSocial Services estimates there will be fewerthan 1,200 residents in its three remainingdirectly-operated institutions in 2000.Concurrently, the community-based systemhas grown enormously.

Since 1995, under the current CommunityLiving Initiative, four institutions haveclosed, with a reduction of about 1,900 full-time equivalent staff. Many of these staffare moving to employment in communityservices. Funding freed up by the institu-tional closures is being transferred tocommunity-based services.

In psychiatric services, there has also been along-term trend to provide services incommunity settings, where possible, ratherthan in large residential treatment centres.Underway is a process of “deconcentration”– moving the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care out of direct delivery of servicesin regional treatment centres in favour ofproviding services closer to home forpatients. Services are mainly moving tolocal hospitals. The more than 4,000 staffaffected are expected to transfer to positionsin the local hospital settings.

Purchase of Service

Government purchases services undercontract from a private firm, butretains accountability for the service.This includes contracting out andoutsourcing of services.

§ Services are provided through a servicecontract by organizations that are exter-nal to government.

§ Service standards are set and monitoredas part of the service contract.

A number of purchase of service agreementshave been negotiated in recent years. Forexample:

In the Ministry of the Attorney General, theOffice of the Public Guardian and Trustee(OPGT) has outsourced management of real


estate sales for its clients to one company toenhance efficiency and consistency ofpractice and to reduce administrative costs.Management of client properties, includingmaintenance, repairs, rent collection etc., isalso contracted to private professional firmsacross Ontario.

Publications Ontario had its own warehouseand distribution service. ManagementBoard Secretariat decided to outsource thisfunction to a private sector firm to achieveefficiencies and reduce costs. The Ministryof Education also decided to get out of thebusiness of operating its own warehouseand distribution service for educationalmaterials. The reasons for outsourcingincluded: making better use of resources foran operation with an uneven volume ofwork, and gaining access to new technol-ogy.

Partnerships

Government enters into a formalagreement to provide services inpartnership with other parties whereeach contributes resources andshares the risks and rewards.

§ Government and the partners shared inthe risks and rewards.

§ Mutual benefit accrues to each side ofthe partnership to further the objectivesof the service or program.

§ All parties contribute resources and worktowards a common goal.

Ontario Business Connects andServiceOntario kiosks, described in Chapter8, and Teranet Land Information ServicesInc., described in Chapter 7, are consideredpartnerships in Ontario’s ASD lexicon.Other examples of partnerships include:

The Ministry of Economic Developmentand Trade has partnered with the Federalgovernment in the Canada-Ontario Busi-ness Call Centre, a cost-shared, toll-freetelephone, fax-back and website service

providing information on Ontario andFederal government business programs andregulations. The program involves 22Federal agencies and seven Provincialagencies.

The Ministry of Economic Developmentand Trade has also entered into partner-ships with municipalities to provide smallbusiness consulting services. Municipalpartners provide the office space, overheadcosts, staffing and supervision. TheProvince provides a program model,resource materials, computers, furniture,program supervision, training and a limitedoperational subsidy. A local bylaw is passedto ensure community involvement. Munici-palities are encouraged to engage in otherpartnerships with the public and privateorganizations to supplement the servicesoffered by the business self-help offices.

The Ministry of Environment turned to theprivate sector to manage a new program fortesting tailpipe emissions in vehicles inSouthern Ontario. The “Drive Clean”program is designed to reduce smog.Government sets program standards andmaintains accountability for programintegrity. Private sector firms, underagreement with the Ministry, carry out themandatory testing and do the necessarymaintenance for vehicle owners. TheMinistry of the Environment has teamed upwith the Ministry of Transportation toadminister the private sector contract andensure integration of the inspection andmaintenance program with Transportation’sexisting vehicle registration and certifica-tion requirements.

Franchising/Licensing

For franchising, the governmentconfers to a private firm the right orprivilege to sell a product or servicein accordance with prescribed termsand conditions. For licensing, thegovernment grants a licence to aprivate firm to sell a product orservice that would otherwise not beallowed.


§ Government safeguards the publicinterest through the terms and condi-tions of the franchise or licence.

§ Services are typically operational and donot require close policy direction.

§ Government receives value throughfees, royalties, and other franchisepayments.

§ Services are typically oriented towards a“retail” business context.

Sustainable Forest Licences

Under its Sustainable Forest Licensinginitiative, which began in 1994, theMinistry of Natural Resources has trans-ferred the operational responsibility andcost of forest management on Crown landsto forest companies that harvest andproduce wood products. The conversion ofCrown-managed units to SustainableForest Licences:

§ reduced government operations andstaff;

§ shifted operational responsibilities to theusers;

§ created a uniform management systemfor the province; and

§ provided improved tenure and market-ing opportunities for licence-holders.

Companies are required to carry outrenewal and maintenance activities;prepare inventories; develop a complianceplan; prepare a forest management plan;and prepare reports on operations. Thecompanies must undergo an independentaudit of their operations every five years toassess compliance with legislative require-ments, the forest management planningprocess, and their planned forest manage-ment activities.

The Crown Forest Sustainability Act(1995) divides responsibility for forests

between the Ministry and the forest industry.Government is responsible for policydevelopment, Crown forest stewardship,science and technology, enforcement,information management, wood supplyservices and industry services. The forestindustry is responsible for forest manage-ment operational planning and forestryoperations, including annual work sched-ules, renewal, maintenance, monitoring.

Privatization

Government sells its assets or itscontrolling interest in a service to aprivate sector company, but mayprotect public interest throughlegislation and regulation.

§ Government ensures the integrity of theprocess by establishing strict criteria forthe selection of assets, rigid guidelinesfor protecting the public interest, enforce-ment of conflict of interest policy, andensuring processes are open to scrutiny.

§ The private sector company has au-tonomy over service delivery.

Sale of Highway 407

Among the most prominent privatizationshas been the sale of Highway 407, whichserves the huge east-west volumes of trafficthat cross north of the City of Toronto.The sale of the electronic toll highway for$3.1 billion to a Spanish-Quebec consortiumwas announced in April, 1999. It has beencalled the largest privatization in Canadianhistory. The buyers paid $1.6 billion morefor the highway than it had cost the Prov-ince. The new owners have rights to chargetolls for 99 years. The highway was builtand operated through a public-privatepartnership.


Conclusion

We have described only a smattering of the many alternative service delivery options thathave been implemented by the OPS. More OPS accomplishments are described in Alterna-tive Service Delivery in the Ontario Public Sector, published August 1999.

One of the major challenges for the OPS has been to support its senior managers who areresponsible for initially steering these new delivery mechanisms through their final imple-mentation, and then, over the longer term, overseeing some of the alternative deliverybodies in operation. The skills required are different.

According to Donald Kettl, these new government mechanisms require new capacities ofpublic service managers. “You must have good managers who can span the boundaries.” 4

As the OPS gains more experience with the challenges and rewards of service managementin an alternative delivery environment, it will have more knowledge and information toshare among its senior managers and with other organizations.

1 Ford, Robin and David Zussman, “Alternative Service Delivery : Transcending Boundaries”, in Alternative ServiceDelivery: Sharing Governance in Canada, Ford and Zussman, eds., KPMG Centre for Government Foundationand Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997, p. 3.

2 Ibid., p. 7.

3 Ontario Public Service Restructuring Secretariat, Alternative Service Delivery in the Ontario Public Sector.August, 1999.

4 Kettl, Donald, in a presentation to an Institute of Public Administration of Canada seminar, Toronto, November 17,1998.


W

Chapter 10

SETTINGTHE COURSE

... governments are reacting to stimuli and opportunities in theirenvironments. In addition, however, public servants are responding totheir own sense of what needs to be done to improve service to thepublic. Professionalism and a commitment to quality public services arealso crucial determinants of change ...

Peter Aucoin, The new public management, CANADA in comparativeperspective, 1995 1

e said at the beginning thatthis publication has been written to cel-ebrate and showcase how far the OPS hasmoved its transformation agenda in arelatively short time. We also want toacknowledge how much more there is to doto achieve the transformation envisioned forthe Ontario Public Service as we move intothe 21st Century.

This chapter summarizes briefly what isbeing done to meet the objectives that weset in 1996. It also outlines some futurechallenges.

Making Progress

Early on in the current process of OPStransformation (1996), a list of objectiveswas drawn up against which we wouldmeasure progress. It is useful to revisitthese objectives in 1999:

§ to build the future OPS around operatingunits to deliver core business lines totransform the OPS into a results-basedorganization

§ to develop a more nimble, flexible andresponsive organization

§ to streamline decision-making anddelivery processes

§ to reduce overlap and duplication be-tween and among ministries

§ to operate more efficiently and effectively§ to rationalize physical presence and

public access across the province§ to build a continuous learning culture§ to encourage attitudes and behaviours

that promote and facilitate teamwork§ to strive for excellence in service.

From Ontario’s perspective, we have madegood progress towards these objectives. Forexample:

§ Through the business planning process,every Ministry has focused on its corebusinesses and set – and met – perform-ance targets for delivering on results.

§ The OPS is becoming a more cohesiveorganization, with business units (Minis-tries) that work together on Corporateprojects and inter-ministerial initiatives.


Chapter 10 : Setting The Course82

§ Technology is improving access toservices for the public, and it is alsohelping to integrate the public servicethrough development of common/sharedutilities and networks.

§ Shared services are improving access inother ways – at common access points incommunities, for example.

§ The OPS is considerably smaller andleaner. In the spring of 1995, there wereapproximately 81,250 employees and1,925 senior management staff workingin 457 branches of government. In thespring of 1999, there were approxi-mately 64,000 employees and 1,686senior management in 332 branches.

§ Senior managers are becoming increas-ingly experienced in and adept atservice management (as opposed todirect delivery) and partnerships withorganizations outside government.

§ The OPS has exceeded the deficitreduction targets set for it by thegovernment every year for the past fouryears. Alternative service delivery, inparticular, has transformed how servicesare provided, while maintaining govern-ment control of standards for publicservice.

§ Learning and development plans arebecoming part of Ministry businessplanning processes.

§ Staff are engaged in an OPS-wideQuality Service Strategy. The publicservice is measuring itself against theOPS common quality standards andMinistries are conducting qualityassessments and implementing qualityplans.

In the 1998 Framework for Action report,the Secretary of Cabinet pledged that theOPS would “continue to strive to be thepublic service organization against whichothers will measure their own qualityservice.” Over the last few years, the OPShas begun to benchmark itself in nationaland international forums.

In 1998, Ontario received the Common-wealth Association for Public Administra-tion and Management (CAPAM) gold awardfor innovation in service to the public.Other initiatives, including Ontario Busi-ness Connects (1996) and ServiceOntario(1997), have received awards from TheInstitute of Public Administration of Canada(IPAC). Teranet was recognized in 1998 forservice delivery in the first National Awardsof The Canadian Council for Public-PrivatePartnerships. In 1997, Teranet received aCanadian Institute for Productivity Awardfor technological innovation.

In addition, representatives from more than30 countries have visited Ontario to learnabout our services, products and our ap-proach to transforming public service for the21st century.

While celebrating the progress that has beenmade, we also recognize that there is muchmore to be done. The new Human Re-sources Strategy for the OPS, for example,acknowledges that there are major chal-lenges ahead – developing new competen-cies, filling skills shortages and gaps,overcoming loss of experienced staff, andrecruiting youth.

Through the Information and InformationTechnology Strategy, launched in 1998, theOPS has begun the huge task of creating anew, integrated technological infrastructure,with common standards and appropriateaccountability, for the government as awhole. As well, some of the most ambitioustechnology-related projects, such as themodernization of the justice system, are stillin the works.

Other innovations, such as the enterprisingof internal administrative services throughthe Shared Services Bureau, have not had achance to prove themselves over time.There is still more to do in the restructuringof regional services.

We recognize that if we are to continue to bean innovator in the 21st century, we must besearching now for new ways to “raise thebar” on the responsiveness, efficiency andquality of public service in Ontario.


Outlook on the Future

The cycle of renewal and transformation ingovernment will continue in Ontario. Infact, we are now embarking on a new phaseof transformation, marked by an election inJune of 1999. There is a new governmentagenda to be implemented, and a new set ofrigorous fiscal targets to be met.

The 1998-99 survey of Provincial andFederal Deputy Ministers and MunicipalCAOs by the Institute of Public Administra-tion of Canada (IPAC), in partnership withthe Canadian Centre for ManagementDevelopment (CCMD) identified threemajor clusters of management issues. Theyare summarized below:

§ renewing and revitalizing the publicservice, and achieving higher levels oforganizational performance throughimproved leadership development, andbetter knowledge management, newskills, and greater attention to the qualityof working life;

§ redesigning service delivery to meetcitizens’ needs and expectations, includ-ing the development of new servicedelivery partnerships and electronicservices; and

§ reframing and refining systems ofperformance measurement and account-ability, as governments enter into moredelivery partnerships and devolveprograms, and as citizens seek greaterconsultation, transparency and results.2

Those challenges are reflected in the issuesfacing the Ontario Public Service. The nextphase in our journey will involve buildingon what has been accomplished to date.Among our priorities will be:

Leadership

There will be a renewed emphasis onleadership of the organization. Theleadership challenge of the 21st centuryincludes leading the culture change to anoutside-in, customer-centred public servicethat can provide policy direction and servicemanagement of external delivery organiza-tions. The OPS must not only supporttoday’s public service leaders as the role of

government evolves, but also nurtureleaders for the next century.

Valuing Public Service

As we implement our new Human Re-sources Strategy, with its focus on learningand development of staff and revitalizationof the workforce, we will be paying atten-tion to the issue of valuing public service.A high-performing public service is createdby the people who work in it. We must beable to attract good candidates for publicservice jobs, and maintain morale in thecurrent workforce. We are continuallyasking our customers to rate how we aredoing; as the speed, responsiveness andquality of services improve, we hope thatgeneral attitudes to government serviceswill also improve.

Quality

The expectations of our customers willcontinue to be a spur to innovation andquality service. The Quality ServiceStrategy has passed the pilot stage with thecompletion of assessments by five Minis-tries, but every Ministry must go throughan assessment to identify quality gaps anddevelop action plans. Like becoming alearning organization, building a qualityorganization is a continuous effort.

Responsiveness

Technology offers the opportunity tointegrate service delivery electronically sothat the public does not have to visit aseries of government offices to get thedocuments or services they need. Theprinciple of delivering services in a speedy,seamless, simple and accessible way will beapplied to a wider range of services as weharness the full potential of electronicdelivery. For example, there will be greaterefforts to link Ontario’s service deliverywith services provided by other levels ofgovernment to eliminate arbitrary barriersto good service to the public.

Alternative Service Delivery

We will continue to learn about managing“the shifting boundaries of government”.3

Chapter 10 : Setting The Course84

The trend to alternative service delivery isexpected to grow, with an emphasis onpartnerships with community organiza-tions, business enterprises, and other levelsof government. The OPS will identify newalternative service delivery opportunities,and will refine accountabilities, throughbusiness planning and performancemanagement systems.

Policy Coherence

New approaches to organizational structureand interministerial collaboration will bedeveloped. As a start, a new position hasbeen created in Cabinet Office at theDeputy Minister level to oversee policydevelopment from a government-wideperspective. A new Cabinet committeestructure has been adopted that will helppromote greater policy coherence andconsistency across the OPS. Four policystanding committees (Health and SocialServices Policy, Education Policy, Eco-nomic and Resource Policy, and Justice andIntergovernmental Policy), will review thedetailed policy matters that previously wentto the Policy and Priorities Board. Theformer P and P Board has been replaced bythe Priorities, Policy and CommunicationsBoard, which focuses on agenda-setting,defining the mandates and priorities of the

policy committees, and considering broadpolicy and communications issues.

The policy committees will work closelywith Management Board, which willcontinue with its current responsibilities. AStatutory Business Committee will deal withlegislation, regulations and certain ordersand reports that previously went directly toCabinet. The Privatization and SuperBuildCommittee has been created to developleading-edge infrastructure for growth andjobs.

Enterprising

The OPS will continue its efforts to becomea more cohesive and streamlined organiza-tion. Some key initiatives are already inprocess, including the Shared ServicesBureau, which will continue to evolve, thenew integrated financial system, and theintegrated workforce information system.As with service delivery (see Responsive-ness), technology will continue to transformmany of the internal processes that up untilnow have been particular to each Ministry.

Each of these areas represents a set of newchallenges, which will require furtherchange and adaptation on the part of people,processes, technology and service delivery –the major “enablers” of change in the OPS.


Conclusion

There is an interesting academic debate going on about the basic elements of the reformmovements in public management around the world, and whether this reform represents aparadigm shift or is simply a new overlay on old concepts. Without becoming engaged inthose arguments, we see the transformation that is taking place in the Ontario PublicService as harnessing the synergy that comes from a range of creative solutions to thechallenge of public service at the beginning of the 21st century. That does not mean thatwe have pursued change in piecemeal fashion. If we had, we could not have delivered onthe agenda set by the government in 1995 and our plans for transformation which haveunfolded over the last five years. There were simply too many targets – fiscal, humanresource, policy development and service delivery – to meet. The same is true in 1999-2000.

Rather than looking for a “pure” model of reform, we take heart from analyses such as thatof Patricia Ingraham in Transforming Government: Lessons from the Reinvention Labora-tories (1998)4 that there are no universal nostrums that can be applied to every circum-stance. Instead, each public service must build on an understanding of its own history andculture and people to create its own path to the future.

The OPS has a long history of adapting to change, and much of what has occurred in the1990s has a foundation in change and evolution over the previous three decades. Thetransformation that is occurring now, however, has come at a faster pace than in the past.Partly because of the impact of technology, change has affected how government works in amore fundamental way; processes that have not been altered significantly in decades havebeen replaced with electronic systems. And with the focus on smaller government andalternative service delivery, the size and shape of the public service has been radicallyredrawn. Accountability has always been a concern in the public service; with more publicservices being delivered outside government, the accountability issues have become morecomplex.

It is also important to recognize that the success of transformation in the OPS will bejudged not by public servants, but by the public, from the “outside-in”. As ThomasCourchene has written:

...the appropriate focus is whether, down the road a bit, Ontario’s public sector infrastructureis better able to address the needs of Ontarians.

The OPS is committed to making sure it is.

1 Aucoin, Peter, the new public management: CANADA in comparative perspective, Institute for Research onPublic Policy, 1995, p. 198.

2 Marson, Brian, “1998-1999 Deputy Ministers’ Issues Survey”, Public Sector Management, The Institute of PublicAdministration of Canada, Toronto, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1999, p. 6.

3 Borins, Sandford, The Shifting Boundaries of Government: United Kingdom International Conference, A Report,Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management, Civil Service College of the U.K., U.K.Strategic Planning Society, Commonwealth Secretariat, March, 1998.

4 Ingraham, Patricia, “Conclusion: Transforming Management, Managing Transformation:, in TransformingGovernment: Lessons from the Reinvention Laboratories, Ingraham, Thompson and Sanders Eds., Jossey-BassInc., 1998, pp. 241-255.

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