Lynch and Mitchell: The government must change in these three key ways to meet challenges of the moment

Usual excellent diagnostique as well as usual weak analysis of the how. Lynch was clerk when Service Canada’s more ambitious approach of service driving policy rather than the usual policy driven service was killed:

…The key operational culprit is complexity — the dense web of rules, reporting requirements and oversight mechanisms originally meant to safeguard the integrity of government operations but whose cumulative effect has been to make operational delivery slower, more cautious and less effective — at the cost of public confidence.

What is needed is a focus on operational simplification and end-to-end results. When there is too much oversight, or too little, results suffer. When the process itself becomes the benchmark, results become secondary. When accountability for delivery is opaque, results decline. When there are too many priorities at one time, results become a casualty. When there is too much centralization and second guessing, results deteriorate. It is tangible delivery results that the public wants to see.

These are incredibly challenging times. They require an urgent transformation of state capacity. To preserve our economic, political and territorial sovereignty, Canadians need a federal government operating at its very best.

Kevin Lynch is a former clerk of the Privy Council. Jim Mitchell is a former senior public servant in the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board. 

Source: The government must change in these three key ways to meet challenges of the moment | Opinion