such learning was relatively static—limited to user surveys of one sort or
another (such as the example of Canada’s much famed Citizen’s First Sur-
veys). With Web 2.0 emerging as a driver of more interactive and dynamic
learning, consistent with a culture of mass collaboration (individually and
organizationally), a much more collective engagement process is required.
E-Government and the Evolution of Service Canada 27
Consequently, government must facilitate the widest possible set of dia-
logues across all stakeholders, while also acknowledging and leveraging
the reality that many such dialogues will form outside of the purview of
government as we have traditionally come to know it. Early public opinion
data suggests that governments enjoy a level of support by the public to
pursue the transformational potential of Web 2.0 for service and demo-
cratic renewal. Yet polls and surveys cannot be enough to gather the tacit
knowledge of those citizens (or customers in the service realm) proving to
be early adapters to new social networking platforms, mobile channels and
the like (Dutil et al., 2010).
It is important to underscore how the urgency for governments may at
times be both understated and overstated. In terms of the former, clearly
any level of service satisfaction at present cannot be viewed as reason for
inaction given the widening expansion of online communities and virtual
channels. With regards to the latter, however, active Web 2.0 usage remains
limited to a relatively small segment of the population, presenting an oppor-
tunity for public sector providers to not radically re-organize themselves to
the whims of this early adapter group but instead to engage them as an
important source of learning and knowledge. And it is here, once again,
where demographics becomes so crucial since the dilemma for government
is a relatively aging cadre of senior managers far removed from the realities
of newer generations of workers growing up in an Internet and now Web
2.0 era (Tapscott & Williams, 2006).
In sum, Web 2.0 and collaborative innovations emerging through exper-
imental processes are all the more likely to be poorly suited to central coor-
dination. For many governments, embracing this sort of organic approach
to mass collaboration and Web 2.0 innovation may not fi
fit easily with the
emphasis during the past decade on integrated portals and specialized ser-
vice providers.
2.1 From
GOL
(1999) to Service Canada
(2005) to Service Canada 2.0 (?)
The impetus for the major components of the federal e-government strategy
arose from a broader eff or
ff t, Connecting Canadians that was crafted in the
late 1990s. Many early online services models fl
floundered on overly opti-
mistic projections for take-up levels, and the Government of Canada was
criticized by the federal Auditor General for lacking a rigorous business
plan to guide eff
fforts. Most fundamentally perhaps, the vertical structures
of separate departments serving individual Ministers largely translate into
autonomy over interoperability: as one observer put it, ‘silos continue to
reign’ (Coe, 2004, p. 18).
Such fi
findings underscored the growing need for more rigorous col-
laborative mechanisms and performance frameworks to both facilitate
shared action and gauge progress, particularly in service delivery agendas
28 Jeff re
ff y Roy
that transcend traditional reporting relationships (Roy, 2006a; 2006b). In
recognition of the need for deeper reforms, the Government created a fl ag
fl
-
ship service transformation vehicle, Modernizing Services for Canadians
(MSC). In essence, MSC acknowledged not only the challenges confront-
ing Government online (GOL) but it also recognizes that online service
delivery must co-exist and align eff
ffectively with other service delivery
channels, such as telephone and in-person facilities. Beginning with what
was the largest department providing domestic programs and services
to Canadians, Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), MSC
aimed to change the focus of HRDC from the business of conducting
transactions to a new emphasis on building relationships with citizens:
“it is transforming the current complex delivery network into a single
integrated service delivery network that provides seamless, multi-channel
service to Canadians. ”2
MSC became a vehicle to transform a set of services and programs
amounting to over $70 billion annually (via an HRDC network of call cen-
ters, processing centers, kiosks, web sites and portals, government offi
ffices
and third-party delivery agents) within a department that counted more
than 25,000 employees. Building on this foundation, the 2005 creation of
Service Canada sought to extend this concept and approach to a govern-
ment-wide scale (in a manner that GOL was simply never able to do for the
aforementioned reasons).
Accordingly, the underpinnings of the Service Canada concept were
a “citizen-centered” business model that sought to focus on people not
programs via four foundational elements to this new approach: (i) a
focus on the citizen; (ii) one-stop government service; (iii) integrating
citizen information; and iv) collaborate and partner (Roy, 2006a/b;
Dutil et al., 2010).
Service Canada’s mission was thus to apply these concepts in order to
improve service, lower costs, and, above all, achieve better outcomes for
citizens. There has been documented evidence of improvements in this
regard—in terms of both the governance model underpinning a govern-
ment-wide perspective on service organization and delivery and actual per-
formance (Dutil et al., 2010). Most notable in this latter realm has been
extensive surveys conducted by governments themselves to gauge and track
over time the public’s satisfaction levels with transactional processes led by
Service Canada both online and offl
ffline. Though not without controversy
and methodological debate (Dutil et al., 2010), Service Canada’s early acco-
lades and initial progress stem from its positioning as the centerpiece of
what today might be thought of as the “Service 1.0” era of e-government:
an era of the Internet’s emergence when government’s sought to remain
fi
firmly in control of online content and the delivery channels being deployed
to provide information and services to citizens in new ways.
This is not to suggest that such an era is over—merely that it is increas-
ingly under strain and challenged by the evolution of a more interactive,
E-Government and the Evolution of Service Canada 29
user-driven online universe simplistically denoted as web 2.0 (Roy 2010).
Even those responsible for the creation of Service Canada have recog-
nized the need and opportunities intertwined with today’s evolving digital
world and the new potential for more directly and innovatively engagi
ng
the public in not only evaluating the service experience (through post-
transactional surveys and the like) but also contributing to the design
and execution of service mechanisms and related policy frameworks. The
former and founding administrative head of Service Canada, for example,
off
ffers the following depiction of what might be termed as a Service 2.0
approach: “Mass collaboration has the potential to transform most spheres
of government, but public service delivery is an especially promising area:
mass collaboration can help government and the citizenry develop better,
more timely and personalized service at lower costs with better outcomes”
(Flumian, 2009).
Despite this potential (sketched out by a former public servant outside
looking in), and notwithstanding the very real progress that Service Can-
ada has achieved as a single window of information on federal government
programs and off
fferings, the entity has done little to embrace Web 2.0 capa-
bilities beyond leveraging them to better communicate the presence and
mission of Service Canada (i.e., a communications platform to market the
Service 1.0 infrastructure). Moreover, Service Canada has regressed from
its initial ambitions of becoming a single integrated provider of all Govern-
ment of Canada services to one more focused on a subset of programs and
services (albeit the largest bundle of such off e
ff rings to individuals provided
from within the Human Resources and Skills Development Department).
Lastly, following the 2011 federal election the newly constituted Conserva-
tive majority government announced the creation of a new federal agency,
Shared Services Canada—its mission to focus on consolidating and refur-
bishing internal IT infrastructures across the Government of Canada. The
appointment of the most recent administrative head of Service Canada to
lead SCC suggests a diminishment of importance of external service deliv-
ery reform as a political priority relative to anticipated cost savings from
internal restructuring.
3 DISSECTING RISING STATURE AND
CURRENT PREDICAMENTS
This section explores and explains more fully this evolution and stagnation
of Service Canada as well as the wider implications for the IT governance
reform efforts of the Government of Canada.
The evolving institutional and governance challenges faced by Service
Canada can be understood through three separate yet inter-related vari-
ables initially invoked at the outset of this chapter: process, place, and poli-
tics. Each of these variables will be examined in turn.
30 Jeffrey Roy
3.1 Process
The importance of process has already been recognized in the preceding sec-
tion in terms of initial and ongoing challenges between the traditionally verti-
cal lines of public sector organization and accountability and the increasingly
horizontal and networked demands of integrated service delivery models.
Whereas Service Canada provides a single informational window on Govern-
ment of Canada service off er
ff ings, many critical programs and services remain
largely under the realm of individual departments and agencies. Two of the
most notable, large-scale examples include the payment and processing of tax
returns (Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA) and the application, processing
and production of Passports (Passport Canada, a special operating agency
within the Department of Foreign Aff a
ff irs). Despite largely separate adminis-
trative apparatuses between these entities, the online presence of government
has enabled cross-listed web-links to better direct citizens, and limited forms
of cooperation such as Service Canada acting as a receiving agent for passport
applications in remote communities.
Yet one of the more interesting public administration questions aris-
ing from the Service Canada experience is to ask precisely what Service
Canada is? Unlike the two aforementioned examples of CRA and Passport
Canada—each legislatively constituted and thus accountable for both pro-
cess and performance, Service Canada has never received any such legisla-
tive underpinnings. Perhaps this uncertainly explains why Service Canada
has not published an annual report online since 2008–2009. More than
imagery, the absence of such formalization has greatly inhibited Service
Canada from being more assertive in partnering with other federal actors
as well as other levels of government (Langford & Roy, 2008). Today, as
will be explained further below (in Section 3.3 on politics), there is reason to believe that this quasi-existence has confirmed Service Canada’s role as
a service provider for a single department—which in and of itself may well
be a more realistic assessment of its place and capabilities. With regards to
the attitudes of other federal entities towards Service Canada, moreover,
it is perhaps telling that a recent presentation of strategic priorities for the
Passport Offi
ffice (itself a legislatively constituted “special operating agency”
within a department) invokes the need for new partnerships but makes no
mention of Service Canada as a potential partner.3
In short, there have been no formal collaborative underpinnings in terms
of organizational governance to enable Service Canada to become a cata-
lyst for cross-governmental collaboration and deeper service integration on
a government-wide scale.
3.2 Place
At present, any urban centre in Canada is home to a myriad of public sec-
tor service delivery operations. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, as just one typical
E-Government and the Evolution of Service Canada 31
example, this assortment would include but not be limited to the Municipal-
ity, the Provincial Access Nova Scotia offi
c
ffi es, Service Canada and Passport
Offi
c
ffi es, plus a range of semi-public and private facilities such as Canada Post
and its private competitors and fi
financial institutions (with their own branches
plus those embedded elsewhere such as in grocery stores). While certain incre-
mental innovations such as BizPaL (a common informational portal for new
business formation4) and integrated processes for birth registration and social insurance numbers have been undertaken, the more signifi c
fi ant potential for
intra- and inter-governmental collaborative arrangements lies in sorting out
this multitude of costly and largely separate multi-channel systems (Langford
& Roy, 2008; Dutil et al., 2010; Roy, 2010).
Yet it also bears noting that in an increasingly networked and partici-
pative environment depicted as Web 2.0, it becomes necessary to ask the
question as to whether it is, in fact, for government to “sort it out” (at least
in the traditional manner of devising strategy and delivering service in a
linear manner). As interoperability and mobility heighten there is a much
greater potential for new and old intermediaries to provide new ways to
bundle and deliver services both online and in pers
on. In Australia, for
instance, it is Australia Post that delivers most services for state govern-
ments, also acting as a recipient for passport applications and other federal
services: in 2010, the Australian federal government initiated a dialog on
payment reform—with an eye to expanded usage of electronic systems via a
wider assortment of public–private and multi-jurisdictional arrangements.
Australia and Canada, both federations, also share the separate and jeal-
ously competing constitutional egos of federal and provincial (state) enti-
ties, along with subsumed municipalities which admittedly augments the
inter-jurisdictional challenges relative to unitary countries such as Den-
mark (Chiara Ubaldi & Roy, 2010).
In many leading digital jurisdictions in Europe, by contrast, local gov-
ernments are the front line point of access for the public sector as a whole
(Chiara Ubaldi & Roy, 2010). Although much easier to accomplish in uni-
tary countries, it nonetheless bears noting that even perpetually unstable
and fragmented federated country such as Belgium has managed an inte-
grated back offi
c
ffi e infrastructure that is now yielding electronic smart card
innovations in service bundling across jurisdictional lines. Belgium, as with
much of Europe, benefi
fits from a much higher degree of digital literacy by
elected offi
c
ffi ials than is the case in Canada at the moment. Herein lines the
third determinant—politics, and the unwillingness of elected officials to
tackle to hard questions of paper and place in a direct and collaborative
and holistic manner.
3.3 Politics
One constant theme of e-government research since the inception of
online activity and electronic services has been the importance of political
32 Jeff re
ff y Roy
leadership to support, drive and sustain the sorts of systemic changes
implied by the presence and interaction of process, paper, and place con-
siderations on public sector governance models (Roy 2006a, 2006b; Dutil
et al., 2010). Although Canada benefi
fited from such political engagement
early on—leading to the creation of and widely noted online presence Ser-
vice Canada, such political interest has waned in recent years, distracted
by a massive federal spending scandal and the recent economic downturn
Public Sector Transformation Through E-Government Page 6