My wife works in the public sector (I will be circumspect about where). When she proposes a course of action, the document she prepares must go up every step of the bureaucracy for approval at each level, and then come back in the opposite direction before she can then proceed. (Over the years the number of levels have only increased.) I…
My wife works in the public sector (I will be circumspect about where). When she proposes a course of action, the document she prepares must go up every step of the bureaucracy for approval at each level, and then come back in the opposite direction before she can then proceed. (Over the years the number of levels have only increased.) It doesn't matter if there is a pressing deadline, or if the proposal is simple, or anything. There is a deep and profound reluctance to delegate authority. What if the proposal is wrong? What if the CBC reports on it negatively? Better to be safe and do nothing, than be sorry. Efficiency and effectiveness are of no concern.
The problem in not just with Health Canada. The problem is system wide, at all levels of government. Paul interviewed Anita Anand recently about efficiency in the public sector. This is a worthy enterprise. But actually solving the problem is going to be very difficult and painful.
You must have missed the 90s jokes, where it was impossible to purchase a PC without Windows already installed and charged to you. We called it "the Microsoft tax".
And today, with a virtual monopoly on business desktops, it operates much as a government, everybody has to pay. By far Microsoft's largest customers are the three levels of government; about a third of their income is "taxpayer money".
Similarly, the huge inefficiencies in Canadian monopolies and oligopolies (groceries, telecom, banks) because they have captive markets, are a tax upon the whole economy.
My sister was a public sector worker too. She tells how something from above would arrive on their desks as a "priority", and folks would get right on it. Just as ideas were coming together and a plan taking shape, orders would arrive to scrap it, because there was now a new "priority". Over time she says people just lost their enthusiasm, and became unmotivated cynics.
She should have a consultant put their name on her work and then send it up. Consultants are more trusted and, more importantly, are infinite reservoirs for blame.
My wife works in the public sector (I will be circumspect about where). When she proposes a course of action, the document she prepares must go up every step of the bureaucracy for approval at each level, and then come back in the opposite direction before she can then proceed. (Over the years the number of levels have only increased.) It doesn't matter if there is a pressing deadline, or if the proposal is simple, or anything. There is a deep and profound reluctance to delegate authority. What if the proposal is wrong? What if the CBC reports on it negatively? Better to be safe and do nothing, than be sorry. Efficiency and effectiveness are of no concern.
The problem in not just with Health Canada. The problem is system wide, at all levels of government. Paul interviewed Anita Anand recently about efficiency in the public sector. This is a worthy enterprise. But actually solving the problem is going to be very difficult and painful.
I laboured in the vinyards of municipal service back to 1986 and was told then of the three rules to remember:
1) You will not be rewarded for success;
2) You will be punished for failure;
3) "Doing nothing new" is not "failure".
NB: The rules apply to large private firms that have aged into bureaucracy, equally well. Microsoft of the 21st C is not the Microsoft of the 20th.
At least Microsoft isn't operated with taxpayer money.
You must have missed the 90s jokes, where it was impossible to purchase a PC without Windows already installed and charged to you. We called it "the Microsoft tax".
And today, with a virtual monopoly on business desktops, it operates much as a government, everybody has to pay. By far Microsoft's largest customers are the three levels of government; about a third of their income is "taxpayer money".
Similarly, the huge inefficiencies in Canadian monopolies and oligopolies (groceries, telecom, banks) because they have captive markets, are a tax upon the whole economy.
My sister was a public sector worker too. She tells how something from above would arrive on their desks as a "priority", and folks would get right on it. Just as ideas were coming together and a plan taking shape, orders would arrive to scrap it, because there was now a new "priority". Over time she says people just lost their enthusiasm, and became unmotivated cynics.
She should have a consultant put their name on her work and then send it up. Consultants are more trusted and, more importantly, are infinite reservoirs for blame.