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Problem?
Some public servants believe that:
- Reasons behind administrative rules are not always clear
- Rules overlap, or work at cross purposes
- Rules are unconnected to risk - easy to create, hard to eliminate
- Environment is risk averse - few incentives to innovate
- Innovative projects will fail: but no room to fail, protect, and learn
- Auditors, managers, legislators not on the same page
Tied in a web of rules - process driven - lack of trust
How can we be more innovative in public sector management to improve productivity?
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CCAF Work
Three-year project will focus on producing principles, guidance, best practices and tools that will help public sector managers identify strategies to:
- reduce rules to those necessary
- strengthen risk management capacity
- encourage innovation
- maintain control
Hands on approach
- work with staff/managers, auditors, legislators
- seminars, discussion drafts, testing of tools
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Some early thoughts on
Management Principles
- Clear rules, linked to risk, and acceptable in cost
- Respecting the rules that exist
- A risk smart culture that acts on opportunity
- Eliminating unnecessary rules
- Ensuring that innovation is managed
- Eliminating barriers and creating incentives
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In 2007 the CCAF's Board of Governors in consultation with CCAF institutional members, chose the issue of Risk, Innovation and Control as the focus of the organization's next major research initiative. To spearhead the effort, Lee McCormack was brought on as the new Director of Research in December, and since then has been building the foundation for this multi-year project.
Issues associated with risk, innovation and control are pertinent to all Canadian governments. The layering of administrative rules (to the extent that they lose clarity or work at cross-purposes) can impede efficiency and effectiveness, create an environment of risk aversion, and stifle the ability to develop innovative solutions to public problems. Organizations caught in a “web of rules” may find themselves devoting significant resources simply to complying with administrative rules.
The aim of the Risk, Innovation and Control project is “to identify practical ways for pubic sector organizations to reduce administrative rules to those that are necessary - while managing risks, creating room for innovation, and maintaining a robust environment of internal control.” This means developing principles, guidance and best practices in the early stages of the project and moving these into practical tools for managers and auditors as the project progresses. Federal, provincial, and international case studies will be used to identify best practices, and consultation will take place throughout the project with individuals from the management, auditing, and legislative communities.
To date, a great deal of the foundational work has been initiated to get this project off the ground. Some of those activities include the following:
- A work-plan was approved by the CCAF Board and sets out a 3-year plan for the project - from building momentum and developing the principles and supporting tools in the first two years, to embedding these principles in management and audit practice in the third year.
- A literature review has been conducted to lay the conceptual framework for developing an initial principles document, as well as provide a frame of reference for the concepts and issues involved.
- An initial principles and guidance document has been produced, titled “Dealing with the Web of Rules: Practical Ways to Embrace Risk Innovation and Control in Public Sector Organizations”. This document has been circulated to the CCAF Board and to a number of senior officials for feedback. It continues to be altered to reflect this feedback.
- An Advisory Committee has been formed to discuss important issues related to the project and will hold it's initial meetings in the summer and fall of 2008.
- Lee McCormack has presented the project and its early findings at both the Canada School of the Public Service 'University Seminar' and the Public and Performance Exchange (PPX) Annual Symposium.
- Presently, CCAF is considering a national symposium (possibly to be held in November 2008), which could involve senior elected and non-elected officials from both federal and provincial levels as well as members of the academic community.
CCAF intends to have the principles (and their supporting guidance) widely distributed as a discussion document in the latter part of 2008. As this discussion draft is being circulated for advice and consequently modified, we will be identifying and developing case studies and other practical tools that will support the implementation of the principles over time.
The reinvigorated CCAF research program will also continue to identify opportunities to contribute to other public management and governance issues where it has expertise and can contribute timely research on a cost-effective basis. It is likely that contributions of written papers and other products will occur in areas such as performance measurement, performance budgeting or management capacity assessment.
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