Whoa, the CC function on the video automatically inserts the machine-generated transcript under the video. They sure give us nifty tools here at Substack.
As a former public servant of 10 years - working level scientist, I am rolling my eyes at Minister Anand. The problems are well known amongst those who have been in it.
1. Too many levels of management. A recent study by the PBO estimated that working level public servants can expect to have up to seven levels of management!
1b. Everyone wants to be a manager. Because wages are higher and you get to tell others what to do.
1c. This drive to management - seriously, your performance reviews have line items where you have to describe how you've acted as a manager - means the responsibility for work falls on those who it impacts the most. This is highly inefficient because often the higher salaried worker bears the impact of entry-level administrative work, while the entry-level worker does not.
1d. This translates into an often demoralized working-level because no one gets what they want or need to work effectively.
2. There is an abject failure to transfer knowledge from the older more experienced employees to the next generation. This is especially true for the scientific staff.
3. No change management! Managers get change bonuses for simply implementing change. They never have to prove that the change was beneficial and hence, change metrics are never tracked. This also means that workers are constantly learning new processes in a senseless churn that delivers nothing to Canadians.
4. Crushing levels of paper work. Bureaucracy is going to be bureaucratic, but holy crap you couldn't design a worse system! There is definitely fat to be trimmed but it would take political will to spend the money to design a more efficient system.
5. The lowest bidder curse. By mandating that the public service only accept the lowest bidder on every contract, government has actually created an infinite loop of fixing the crap work from the lowest bid. There is a reason the saying is "good enough for government work". I'd be willing to bet money that ArriveCan was the lowest bid. Companies aren't stupid and not all of them are ethical.
6. I've got more but my brain just stopped.
A not quite entirely bitter former public servant.
When you enter the public service, you swear an oath. I forget the precise words, but you swear an oath to comport yourself with integrity and to work for the best interest of Canadians. When this oath clashes with the desires of your managers, you can either choose to lose your job or do as they say. I'm not talking a difference of opinion on how to implement policy. For me, it was a choice between scientific malpractice or my job. If there is any integrity in the public service writ large, it is deeply deeply buried beneath the ladder climbing aspirations of every level of management.
That is a fantastic list that far exceeds the simplistic analysis we too often see when it comes to the public service (too big! too lazy!).
When it comes to managers the dynamic you spoke of also creates fertile ground for the Peter principle to manifest itself and not nearly enough is done to mitigate that with rigorous, evidence-based training and education on inspiring and coaching employees, managing one’s ego and skillfully navigating conflict.
Exactly. Harper threw out the management principles and methods for "Results Based Management" . No more management by metrics that inform decisions, create organizational learning, "link up" sectors and partners to achieve strategic outcomes! And no accountability.
ArriveCan and Phoenix suggest the original bid - $80k and $45M, respectively - is chicken feed. The "infinite loop of fixing the crap work" is where the real money is.
Bingo! And in the case of Phoenix the situation is even worse. Australia had implemented Phoenix before us and we knew the results were disasterous. On top of that, the managers (or minister, I can't remember) in charge declined the unlimited support option for Phoenix because it was "too expensive"... that support included price tag looks pretty good now.
At the time, I thought it was a reasoned decision to switch to Phoenix and dismantle the existing systems completely. But, like "whip out your F35s", it was just an opportunity to score a crass political point once at one press conference with no consideration of the consequences. And that has been our system of government for nine years.
I think most agree that a switch had to be made at some point. But the speed of implementation felt like someone was trying for the land speed record. There was no need for the rate the switch moved at. The old COBOL system was stable. Clearly, the folks in charge didn't care about competance. Your assessment of scoring political points may well be the truth of it.
I may have mispoke somewhat. Australia had IBM build a payroll system in 2010. Essentially Phoenix by another name. No one bothered to check if there had been problems.
I would think consultant spending would go up as in house staff is reduced. For it to go up as staff increases shows me that they are not hiring the people they need.
It seems they are hiring for the sake of hiring. To grow PS by 40% and increase consultant fees the way the have shows they have zero care regarding our tax dollars. It is free money that they never have to account for. I have never seen the likes.
I would add the inability to get public workers back to the office as an issue. Sure, some people are more effective working from home, but as a group productivity goes down when everyone does it.
A few observations on what's been happening with this post:
1. Views for this post are *way* higher than average, even though it's a wonky subject. I suspect the video is driving engagement. Video will still be an exception here, because I think what I'm best at is typing (and from the comments, some of you seem to agree), but it's a pleasant surprise to see what video adds.
2. This post is also doing very well on what I might call Frustrated Public Servant Reddit. I had a brief look at the discussion over there, and the minister would seem to have her work cut out for her. Welcome, visitors from all over!
I listened to the interview and her word salad. Always talking about what they announced long ago and after a long period yet another committee probably with lots more additional consultants $$$$. Here’s a math lesson for Anand the 5,000 target due to attrition of 300,000 public service is 1.67%. Laughable it will have zero impact.
This Liberal government spends so much time announcing, then announce again much later using a different word salad and/or a different program name hoping no one notices. Then after a long delay when someone notices nothing has been done they form a committee, all to try to prove their original idea was the right thing. Wait they forget the first step ASK and LISTEN to what Canadian private sector voters and taxpayers want and only then start the process. Laughable as they never get to the final step actually delivering what Canadians want.
I remember the Bill Blair Firearms Roadshow, where community after community argued not to restrict then-legal firearms. The government used misinformation about a tragedy in New Brunswick to restrict then-legal firearms but, being a talk-first-act-never government, they were never able to implement the restrictions.
Whatever else, I love this example of high-level direct communication that bypasses all the layers of communication strategy. Thanks for this, both to you and Anita Anand.
I have posted on LinkedIn about this over the past three years. For a government in 2015 that brought in whole-of-government “deliverology” guru, sorry but this is laughable. Our federal public service has lost the capacity to effectively deliver almost anything that is not liked to a social benefit/welfare-state EFT deposit. We procure needed military kit once each half century, we couldn’t deliver passports to save our lives, look at the botched contracts for a range of pandemic supplies from PPE to ventilators, and the list goes on. To be fair this is a 30-year accelerating malaise, however, if you need a 50-slide PPTX deck, consultation framework, or redacted federal documents that even remove public domain info … well the feds got you covered. Moreover, the process of how Canada trailed the pack in COVID vaccine deals is another sad story. And the most articulate and knowledgeable person on this malaise is a former and senior Chrétien-era Minister! Oh Paul, there is so much more … I’m here.
I still shake my head at her performance in procurement but I cut her some slack because I believe she was a history professor prior to being elected. The COVID vaccine updates were painful to watch.
Yep. There are too many examples where programs are started but their success or non-success is not measured. All they can say is “We spent $X million on this program last year so it must be working.”
Reduction through attrition brings its own problems as attrition normally means loss due to retirement. With the huge intake of new PS hires then subsequent loss of expertise through retirement disfunction could reign supreme. It can also mean departments that need their people to meet their mandate can lose a disproportionate number while fat departments remain fat.
From my experience the best way to reduce is to cut functions that are low priority.
Anita Anand is a star. I'm not sure if she will run for the leadership down the road, but if she does... I think she has a lot of potential to be a strong leader and PM. She gets things done - on vaccine procurement, the problems at Defence... and she always seems open to answering questions, discussing issues, and so on. She seems to be a refreshing blend of transparency, honesty, accountability, policy wonkishness, and just a hyper-focus on discovering what needs to be done to solve problems and to get to work to get that done. I think all of Canada needs a bit more of all of these qualities.
Agreed. Minister Anand, much as I think she is one of the bright lights, talked mostly about plans to do things rather than pointing to things that have been accomplished. Same old story.
I suspect the ‘planning additional cuts’ line will be on rinse and repeat over at OLO given Liberal ‘austerity’ fear mongering. I also wonder if events of late made it a smart thing for her to do. Despite what Ministers say, these are exercises in political management with the lack of results to prove it.
I’d Neilson Task Force the whole question of how service delivery needs to adapt. Resilient isn’t how I’d describe the end result of ballooning ranks and general discontent with the state of the place.
I’d also take a fresh look at the public interest test that applies to protected industries. They too seem to have become less and less interested in whatever the deal was that created them in the first place.
She’s certainly likely to be a contender for the Liberal Party leadership. Given her early good work on the Defence portfolio (for which she was swiftly removed from that office), and her solid performance in her current job, she might well be successful. If the Libs are ready for a woman at the helm, that is.
Yeah I’ll give her some points for having this discussion but I’ll withhold praise until we see what comes out of this. I’m pretty sure the public service unions aren’t likely to like whatever comes out of a review of their productivity so even if some meaningful reforms are proposed, will they be implemented ?
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m very leery about rushing large language models into the public service. IT systems can make or break an organization. Witness what happened with Phoenix.
I’d rather the focus be on cultivating a positive and effective culture as well as addressing the issues that Tara LeBlanc helpfully described in her comments here.
Public servants don't make widgets. BUT some of us do something like assembly line work, according our managers. If you work in processing... CPP, OAS, EI, passports...etc. you pick up an application, you process it, you put it down and you pick up another. They train us to work that way. At the end of the week or month your supervisor tells you if you've been completing the required number of widgets... I mean applications.
This disconnect between the people at the top and the people at the bottom of the PS pay scale is staggering. Listening to the RTO conversation about collaboration and teamwork is triggering because the other thing people in benefits and call centres don't do ... talk to their co-workers a lot. Collaboration just is not part of the job and neither is teamwork. At the end of the day someone has to sign off on an application... someONE, not a team and not a collaborative cross-departmental partnership. There's only room for one name in the "approved by" box. My goodness I wish the people at the top understood that.
Whoa, the CC function on the video automatically inserts the machine-generated transcript under the video. They sure give us nifty tools here at Substack.
As a former public servant of 10 years - working level scientist, I am rolling my eyes at Minister Anand. The problems are well known amongst those who have been in it.
1. Too many levels of management. A recent study by the PBO estimated that working level public servants can expect to have up to seven levels of management!
1b. Everyone wants to be a manager. Because wages are higher and you get to tell others what to do.
1c. This drive to management - seriously, your performance reviews have line items where you have to describe how you've acted as a manager - means the responsibility for work falls on those who it impacts the most. This is highly inefficient because often the higher salaried worker bears the impact of entry-level administrative work, while the entry-level worker does not.
1d. This translates into an often demoralized working-level because no one gets what they want or need to work effectively.
2. There is an abject failure to transfer knowledge from the older more experienced employees to the next generation. This is especially true for the scientific staff.
3. No change management! Managers get change bonuses for simply implementing change. They never have to prove that the change was beneficial and hence, change metrics are never tracked. This also means that workers are constantly learning new processes in a senseless churn that delivers nothing to Canadians.
4. Crushing levels of paper work. Bureaucracy is going to be bureaucratic, but holy crap you couldn't design a worse system! There is definitely fat to be trimmed but it would take political will to spend the money to design a more efficient system.
5. The lowest bidder curse. By mandating that the public service only accept the lowest bidder on every contract, government has actually created an infinite loop of fixing the crap work from the lowest bid. There is a reason the saying is "good enough for government work". I'd be willing to bet money that ArriveCan was the lowest bid. Companies aren't stupid and not all of them are ethical.
6. I've got more but my brain just stopped.
A not quite entirely bitter former public servant.
One other point that I wanted to make.
When you enter the public service, you swear an oath. I forget the precise words, but you swear an oath to comport yourself with integrity and to work for the best interest of Canadians. When this oath clashes with the desires of your managers, you can either choose to lose your job or do as they say. I'm not talking a difference of opinion on how to implement policy. For me, it was a choice between scientific malpractice or my job. If there is any integrity in the public service writ large, it is deeply deeply buried beneath the ladder climbing aspirations of every level of management.
That is a fantastic list that far exceeds the simplistic analysis we too often see when it comes to the public service (too big! too lazy!).
When it comes to managers the dynamic you spoke of also creates fertile ground for the Peter principle to manifest itself and not nearly enough is done to mitigate that with rigorous, evidence-based training and education on inspiring and coaching employees, managing one’s ego and skillfully navigating conflict.
Fantastic observation and deadly accurate!
It’s probably a little late to add this to the thread but it’s timely and relevant so fwiw https://bigthink.com/business/the-peter-principle-why-most-companies-are-filled-with-people-out-of-their-depth/
Exactly. Harper threw out the management principles and methods for "Results Based Management" . No more management by metrics that inform decisions, create organizational learning, "link up" sectors and partners to achieve strategic outcomes! And no accountability.
ArriveCan and Phoenix suggest the original bid - $80k and $45M, respectively - is chicken feed. The "infinite loop of fixing the crap work" is where the real money is.
Bingo! And in the case of Phoenix the situation is even worse. Australia had implemented Phoenix before us and we knew the results were disasterous. On top of that, the managers (or minister, I can't remember) in charge declined the unlimited support option for Phoenix because it was "too expensive"... that support included price tag looks pretty good now.
At the time, I thought it was a reasoned decision to switch to Phoenix and dismantle the existing systems completely. But, like "whip out your F35s", it was just an opportunity to score a crass political point once at one press conference with no consideration of the consequences. And that has been our system of government for nine years.
I think most agree that a switch had to be made at some point. But the speed of implementation felt like someone was trying for the land speed record. There was no need for the rate the switch moved at. The old COBOL system was stable. Clearly, the folks in charge didn't care about competance. Your assessment of scoring political points may well be the truth of it.
I wasn't aware that Australia was already doing the beta testing for us.
I may have mispoke somewhat. Australia had IBM build a payroll system in 2010. Essentially Phoenix by another name. No one bothered to check if there had been problems.
The government will spend millions and not get as comprehensive a report as you just provided.
More money to consultants. This gov't is going to spend over $30,000,000,000 on consultants in a year. That is a bit crazy right.
I would think consultant spending would go up as in house staff is reduced. For it to go up as staff increases shows me that they are not hiring the people they need.
It seems they are hiring for the sake of hiring. To grow PS by 40% and increase consultant fees the way the have shows they have zero care regarding our tax dollars. It is free money that they never have to account for. I have never seen the likes.
I would add the inability to get public workers back to the office as an issue. Sure, some people are more effective working from home, but as a group productivity goes down when everyone does it.
I would imagine that what you’ve written is just the tip of the iceberg.
A few observations on what's been happening with this post:
1. Views for this post are *way* higher than average, even though it's a wonky subject. I suspect the video is driving engagement. Video will still be an exception here, because I think what I'm best at is typing (and from the comments, some of you seem to agree), but it's a pleasant surprise to see what video adds.
2. This post is also doing very well on what I might call Frustrated Public Servant Reddit. I had a brief look at the discussion over there, and the minister would seem to have her work cut out for her. Welcome, visitors from all over!
I listened to the interview and her word salad. Always talking about what they announced long ago and after a long period yet another committee probably with lots more additional consultants $$$$. Here’s a math lesson for Anand the 5,000 target due to attrition of 300,000 public service is 1.67%. Laughable it will have zero impact.
This Liberal government spends so much time announcing, then announce again much later using a different word salad and/or a different program name hoping no one notices. Then after a long delay when someone notices nothing has been done they form a committee, all to try to prove their original idea was the right thing. Wait they forget the first step ASK and LISTEN to what Canadian private sector voters and taxpayers want and only then start the process. Laughable as they never get to the final step actually delivering what Canadians want.
...and then they quietly quit the program they announced on multiple occasions because they were incapable of implementing it.
I remember the Bill Blair Firearms Roadshow, where community after community argued not to restrict then-legal firearms. The government used misinformation about a tragedy in New Brunswick to restrict then-legal firearms but, being a talk-first-act-never government, they were never able to implement the restrictions.
Exactly! Nine years in power and they still don't know how to do it... And they want 4 more years to, maybe, perhaps, finally figure it out.
Carolyn, nailed it.
Whatever else, I love this example of high-level direct communication that bypasses all the layers of communication strategy. Thanks for this, both to you and Anita Anand.
I have posted on LinkedIn about this over the past three years. For a government in 2015 that brought in whole-of-government “deliverology” guru, sorry but this is laughable. Our federal public service has lost the capacity to effectively deliver almost anything that is not liked to a social benefit/welfare-state EFT deposit. We procure needed military kit once each half century, we couldn’t deliver passports to save our lives, look at the botched contracts for a range of pandemic supplies from PPE to ventilators, and the list goes on. To be fair this is a 30-year accelerating malaise, however, if you need a 50-slide PPTX deck, consultation framework, or redacted federal documents that even remove public domain info … well the feds got you covered. Moreover, the process of how Canada trailed the pack in COVID vaccine deals is another sad story. And the most articulate and knowledgeable person on this malaise is a former and senior Chrétien-era Minister! Oh Paul, there is so much more … I’m here.
I still shake my head at her performance in procurement but I cut her some slack because I believe she was a history professor prior to being elected. The COVID vaccine updates were painful to watch.
I would argue she did a phenomenal job on procuring vaccines for Canada, and I am grateful to her.
We were late to this process and it is partly due to the lack of capacity at PHAC and liaison issues with PSPC.
She was a law professor, and a good one. I still have a lot of respect for her.
Ha ha, I remember that deliverology guy. He did not last long. Good luck to anyone trying to slay the beast.
Spot on !!!!
A question for the next interview: "How will you measure your success?"
Yep. There are too many examples where programs are started but their success or non-success is not measured. All they can say is “We spent $X million on this program last year so it must be working.”
YES!!
Reduction through attrition brings its own problems as attrition normally means loss due to retirement. With the huge intake of new PS hires then subsequent loss of expertise through retirement disfunction could reign supreme. It can also mean departments that need their people to meet their mandate can lose a disproportionate number while fat departments remain fat.
From my experience the best way to reduce is to cut functions that are low priority.
Bingo! See Richard Dicerni during drop.
Anita Anand is a star. I'm not sure if she will run for the leadership down the road, but if she does... I think she has a lot of potential to be a strong leader and PM. She gets things done - on vaccine procurement, the problems at Defence... and she always seems open to answering questions, discussing issues, and so on. She seems to be a refreshing blend of transparency, honesty, accountability, policy wonkishness, and just a hyper-focus on discovering what needs to be done to solve problems and to get to work to get that done. I think all of Canada needs a bit more of all of these qualities.
All true, yet Trudeau demotes her. She had the temerity to speak the truth.
It would be hilarious if the final act of a Liberal government was a return to Deliverology.
Well they are out of ideas. It didn’t work then it won’t work now.
Agreed. Minister Anand, much as I think she is one of the bright lights, talked mostly about plans to do things rather than pointing to things that have been accomplished. Same old story.
Persistence leads to important interview with some cogent content. Keep at it Paul. Well done!
Wells gets results! Again! Well done.
I suspect the ‘planning additional cuts’ line will be on rinse and repeat over at OLO given Liberal ‘austerity’ fear mongering. I also wonder if events of late made it a smart thing for her to do. Despite what Ministers say, these are exercises in political management with the lack of results to prove it.
I’d Neilson Task Force the whole question of how service delivery needs to adapt. Resilient isn’t how I’d describe the end result of ballooning ranks and general discontent with the state of the place.
I’d also take a fresh look at the public interest test that applies to protected industries. They too seem to have become less and less interested in whatever the deal was that created them in the first place.
She’s certainly likely to be a contender for the Liberal Party leadership. Given her early good work on the Defence portfolio (for which she was swiftly removed from that office), and her solid performance in her current job, she might well be successful. If the Libs are ready for a woman at the helm, that is.
I too like Anita...she responded and sounds like she genuinely gives a shit.
Yeah I’ll give her some points for having this discussion but I’ll withhold praise until we see what comes out of this. I’m pretty sure the public service unions aren’t likely to like whatever comes out of a review of their productivity so even if some meaningful reforms are proposed, will they be implemented ?
Does any union, ever like their members being reviewed for anything at all ever? lol
Touche.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m very leery about rushing large language models into the public service. IT systems can make or break an organization. Witness what happened with Phoenix.
I’d rather the focus be on cultivating a positive and effective culture as well as addressing the issues that Tara LeBlanc helpfully described in her comments here.
Public servants don't make widgets. BUT some of us do something like assembly line work, according our managers. If you work in processing... CPP, OAS, EI, passports...etc. you pick up an application, you process it, you put it down and you pick up another. They train us to work that way. At the end of the week or month your supervisor tells you if you've been completing the required number of widgets... I mean applications.
This disconnect between the people at the top and the people at the bottom of the PS pay scale is staggering. Listening to the RTO conversation about collaboration and teamwork is triggering because the other thing people in benefits and call centres don't do ... talk to their co-workers a lot. Collaboration just is not part of the job and neither is teamwork. At the end of the day someone has to sign off on an application... someONE, not a team and not a collaborative cross-departmental partnership. There's only room for one name in the "approved by" box. My goodness I wish the people at the top understood that.