Balancing innovation and accountability
Technology is supposed to serve humans, but it runs faster than them. People are playing catch-up now, trying to sort out the rules that will allow everyone to play nicely together on Wikipedia and YouTube.
A similar movement is afoot in the public sector. Technology that allows different government entities to share resources and information horizontally opens vast new possibilities to improve services - but also butts squarely against traditional vertical silos of accountability. Governance structures are now being stretched in new directions to foster but control innovation.
"The foundation issue for everyone in government is governance around shared services," says Rose Langhout, head of I&IT strategy, policy and planning at the Ontario Ministry of Government Services (MGS). While the first wave of consolidation - sharing IT and other common services within jurisdictions - is still a work in progress, there are fewer question marks around its governance, she says. "We now have a track record, and there are many examples of mature shared services organizations."
In Ontario, various committees comprised of deputy ministers, corporate chiefs and CIOs have been formed, and forums created to share and resolve common issues across ministries. "People are always a bit torn between what's good for the enterprise and what's good for their ministry, but what governance does is create a context for managing that balancing act," she says.
While the basic model for shared services is fairly established, there are many new governance challenges that need to be worked through, she says. Identity authentication is a major area that can boost efficiency significantly across jurisdictions.
Single process
For example, provinces track life events - births and deaths - but the federal government issues pension cheques. "There's a long and venerable tradition of continuing to send cheques after people pass away, and then you have to claw back the money," says Langhout. Government initiatives are underway to share information to prevent these snafus, and also to consolidate citizen services that cross jurisdictions.
"For newborns, we're testing a single process that allows parents to apply for a birth certificate, health card and SIN number," she says.
In Ontario, the governance body that oversaw PKI implementation broadened its mandate two years ago to oversee all identity authentication, regardless of technology, she says. "However, not all jurisdictions have that kind of governance body." Different provinces are at different stages - British Columbia is piloting virtual identity cards, but other provinces are still developing mechanisms. "A task force is working across jurisdictions to develop a standards-setting process to handle this in a pan-Canadian way. There's been some progress but this isn't cooked yet," she says.
The intent is to agree on the underlying standards that define identity to enable different technologies to interact, and not to use a single technology. "What gets in the way of sharing information is not having confidence another jurisdiction is using the same level of trust as we do. If we can get the inputs right, then we can share personal information appropriately while also respecting privacy rights."
New forms of horizontal sharing are also coming down the pipe and these will require new governance models, says Langhout.
"There's a lively discussion in government around horizontal policy and how to do that," she says. To deal with many broad social issues such as poverty and recidivism, many ministries must work in concert. "It's not about all your business, but a piece of it that you want to do differently and in collaboration with others."
The governance model from the shared services sphere doesn't fit this new policy sharing form, nor does it fit well in Ontario's I&IT cluster model. "This reinforces the importance of I&IT having the ability to govern itself horizontally across government because more and more we're being asked to support initiatives that are not ministry-specific," Langhout says.
Another area that has major growth potential, but where there is no track record, lies in sharing investments in IT infrastructure across different levels and types of public sector organizations, she says. "Provinces, municipalities, agencies, boards - all invest in IT and there's probably a lot of overlap. If we could figure out how to collaborate better, we could produce better results for the one taxpayer at the end."
These initiatives will also need new governance models that allow disparate organizations to agree on the business rules. "For example, if the province of Ontario wants to work with the municipality of Waterloo and a local school board on a project, then we'd need a group that represents all these players and can make decisions about their collective resources," she says.
Continued:Vertical meets horizontal
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