Embed Transparency Requirements in the Federal Service Strategy (CA0048)

Embed Transparency Requirements in the Federal Service Strategy Why do this: Excellence in service delivery is at the core of citizens’ expectations for their governments. For a government to truly be open and accountable, it must deliver responsive services and be transparent on results. How will it be done: The Government is developing a Service Strategy that will transform service design and delivery across the public service, putting clients at the centre.

7. Embed Transparency Requirements in the Federal Service Strategy

Commitment Text:

The Government of Canada will develop a new Clients-First Service Strategy that embeds requirements for openness and transparency in the delivery of government services.

Milestones:

7.1. Develop a Government of Canada Clients-First Service Strategy that aims to create a single, user-centric online window for all government services.

7.2. Establish new performance standards and set up a mechanism to conduct rigorous assessments of the performance of key government services, and report findings publicly.

Responsible institution: Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Supporting institutions: Service delivery departments and agencies.

Start date: Not specified

End date: Not specified

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Context and Objectives

According to the action plan, the aim of this commitment is to ensure rigorous assessments of key government services and publicly report the findings. Milestone 7.1 is reasonably clear and would provide Canadians with a single place to obtain information on government services and programs, thus making it somewhat relevant to the OGP value of access to information. Milestone 7.2 also has some relevance to the OGP goal of access to information, by promoting transparency in government functions through public reporting, though the vagueness of the deliverable here makes potential impact difficult to assess. For example, it does not specify the nature of the mechanism by which the assessment will be carried out, nor the degree to which it will be public facing (beyond merely reporting its findings).

Completion

Canada’s self-assessment reports substantial progress towards Milestone 7.1. The new service strategy was developed and was highlighted in the Clerk of the Privy Council’s Twenty-Fourth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service.[Note65: See: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/pco-bcp/documents/pdfs/clerk-greffier/24rpt-eng.pdf.] The milestone is on track for completion.

For Milestone 7.2, Canada’s self-assessment reports that 'the new Service Strategy includes performance measures to enable public reporting on progress.'[Note66: The draft self-assessment for Commitment 7 is available at: http://open.canada.ca/en/mtsar/commitment-7-embed-transparency-requirements-federal-service-strategy.] In response to follow-up queries from the IRM researcher, a representative from the Treasury Board Secretariat said that they are 'currently in the process of defining [their] KPIs and determining what data [they] can leverage.'[Note67: Email received on 11 October 2017.] The government reports this as substantial progress, though in the absence of clearer and more concrete deliverables a score of limited progress seems more appropriate.

Next Steps

As it is currently drafted, this commitment is of questionable value to Canada’s OGP progress, as the milestones are only very generally related to access to information. The IRM researcher recommends not to carry it forward to future action plans. Establishing performance standards and public reporting programs is an area which shows some promise, though it is unclear how this milestone is distinct from Milestone 5.1.

7. Embed Transparency Requirements in the Federal Service Strategy

Commitment Text: The Government of Canada will develop a new Clients-First Service Strategy that embeds requirements for openness and transparency in the delivery of government services.

Milestones:

7.1. Develop a Government of Canada Clients-First Service Strategy that aims to create a single, user-centric online window for all government services.

7.2. Establish new performance standards and set up a mechanism to conduct rigorous assessments of the performance of key government services, and report findings publicly.

Responsible institution: Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Supporting institutions: Service delivery departments and agencies

Start Date: Not specified

End Date: Not specified

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to ensure rigorous assessments of key government services. It also entailed publicly reporting the findings of such assessments. It would create a single online window for all government services and establish standards and a mechanism to assess and report on their performance.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

The government developed the new service strategy in the first year of implementation. It published the strategy in the Privy Council Office's Twenty-Fourth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service (Milestone 7.1).[Note55: See Michael Wernick, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario: Privy Council Office), https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/pco-bcp/documents/pdfs/clerk-greffier/24rpt-eng.pdf.] As of June 2017, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat was in the process of defining its key performance indicators and determining what data it could leverage for the assessment mechanism in Milestone 7.2.

End of term: Complete

According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), the online window is still under development and is viewed as a longer-term goal. The TBS considers Milestone 7.1 complete, with the publication of the service strategy document. The strategy discusses the creation of this online window. The specific language of the milestone supports this interpretation of the commitment as complete. As written, it promises a development process rather than the window itself as a deliverable. Under Milestone 7.2, the self-assessment cites the TBS's Guideline on Service Management, published on 23 March 2017.[Note56: See “Guideline on Service Management,” Government of Canada, https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=28422.] The guideline's policy on service outlines the process for establishment and management of service standards and real-time performance information to support service delivery. According to the government's self-assessment, in summer 2017, the TBS launched a pilot project on service standards assessment of key service departments. In that period, it also established a new tool to help departments assess existing—and develop new—service standards.[Note57: The self-assessment is available at https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/9da9faf5-deb1-48db-8f16-91055d942d65.]

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

The 2017 midterm assessment noted that this commitment had questionable value to Canada's OGP progress. The milestones are vague and only very generally related to access to information. Though the government did make some additional material public as a result of this initiative, the overall level of progress in terms of access to information in Canada is relatively small. Moreover, while the public has access to the assessments, the public does not appear to have opportunity to actually hold officials accountable for their actions. The lack of opportunity there limits the commitment's relevance to the public accountability value. Also worth noting, the online window which is the focus of Milestone 7.1 does not appear to be close to launch.

Carried Forward?

This commitment, as written, was fully completed under the current action plan. In Canada's fourth action plan, Milestone 4.5 builds on this commitment to create a performance dashboard to track service delivery performance.