‘Trust gap’ a growing problem for public servants and politicians, think-tank warns
OTTAWA – An ever-widening trust gap between bureaucrats, politicians and their political staff could displace the traditional policy advisory role of Canada’s non-partisan public service in the government’s decision-making, a prominent think-tank says.
David Mitchell, president of the Public Policy Forum, said a growing lack of trust and understanding between bureaucrats and their political masters will be one of the biggest challenges for the next generation of leaders who will be retooling the future public service.
He said the chasm emerged as a key issue in the PPF’s latest study, on the types of leaders that public services at all levels of government will need.
“There’s a strong sense that public servants not only have to be more sensitive to this (gap) but they need training on how to work more effectively with elected representatives and their staff, whatever political stripe, because if the gap continues to grow, there is a question of whether the public service will even remain a part of the government anymore in the traditional sense that it is part of the policy development and decision-making apparatus,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said part of the problem is that some public servants have taken the traditional principles of a neutral and non-partisan public service too far.
“I think we prided our public service on being politically neutral and non-partisan to a fault because it has persuaded some to think they cannot even engage in meaningful dialogue with elected representatives or their staff. That is an extreme view but I think it may have been taken to the extreme and we have to build stronger understanding and more trust.”
But Mitchell said rebuilding trust will take more than the effort of public servants. He said the government will have to be “political champions” for this change as well as for other sweeping reforms of the public service.
The public service is clearly poised for change and the federal government’s budget cuts are forcing a rethink of the way work is managed, organized and even compensated.
Public servants face changes at a pace and level of complexity previous generations never faced: technology, globalization, volume of information, unprecedented scrutiny of their operations, and a Canadian public that expects better service even as the bureaucracy battles an image as slow-footed, coddled and overpaid.
At the same time, relations with politicians are strained and public servants have lost their former near-monopoly on providing long-term policy advice. Politicians now take a bigger role, along with lobbyists, advocacy or industry groups or pollsters.
Public servants have watched many promised reforms come and go over the years with little effect. But Mitchell argues the big difference this time in an unprecedented “generational” turnover, fuelled by the exodus of baby boomers, that will drive changes previous governments found elusive.
The public service hired more than 160,000 new employees over the past decade and faces a turnover of half its executives between 2010 and next year. That means more than half of today’s public service knows no other federal government but the Conservatives.
They came to the job when developing big policy ideas took a back seat to economic restraint and where accountability, spending and job cuts, and avoiding risks were the order of the day.
Mitchell said this next generation of leaders – who will have climbed the ranks with their management skills – won’t have the strength and expertise in policy development of their predecessors, for whom policy-making was the ticket to the top.
He said they will face the challenge of keeping that policy capacity alive and replacing those skills as boomers retire “because if those skills have atrophied to the point that policy is only done outside of government, then I think we are weaker for it.”
The Public Policy Forum study, called “Flat, Flexible and Forward-Thinking,” can be found online at https://www.ppforum.ca/publications/march-11-2014-fast-flexible-and-forward-thinking-public-service-next
A Question-and-Answer with Public Policy Forum President David Mitchell
Tomorrow’s public service will be “flat, flexible and forward thinking,” according to a new report by the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum that compiled the leadership skills future bureaucrats will need.
The PPF interviewed about 130 public and private sector leaders, including up-and-comers, in seven cities. The Ottawa Citizen asked PPF President David Mitchell some of the same questions his survey put to these leaders. Here’s an edited transcript of what he said:
Q. What types of competencies (skills) are essential for public service leadership today and in the future?
A. We don’t think they will all be new, sexy tech-related or fancy newfangled skills because some of them are quite traditional. For instance, literacy and numeracy skills can’t be taken for granted … But there are some new competencies identified that we think are essential, including cultural fluency … Public services are less diverse than the communities they serve and, as a result, there needs to be more training and education around cultural issues, beyond language skills, and to the sensitivity of the different cultural makeup of our country.
Another one that’s very controversial is political fluency or acumen. There is a growing sense at all levels of government that there is a gap between public servants and elected representatives and political staff … There’s a strong sense that public servants not only have to be more sensitive to this but they need training on how to work more effectively with elected representatives and their staff, whatever political stripe, because if the gap continues to grow, there is a question of whether the public service will even remain a part of the government anymore in the traditional sense that it is part of the policy development and decision-making apparatus.
Q. What differences exist between leadership capacities in the public service versus other sectors?
A. The way the private sector approaches risk appears very different. In public services, the goal of recent years is risk-free public administration, which isn’t a very inspiring environment to work when you can’t even take intelligent risks … Strategic planning for the medium term is a competency we need to develop, beyond planning just for the next budget which seems to be endemic within our governments … Another large one is partnership skills. Partnership and collaboration within government, let alone outside government, is not a strength of Canada’s public service … Even in the competitive dog-eat-dog-world of capitalism in the private sector, there seems to be more collaboration and partnership than we see in government.
Q. How can the public sector build the necessary capacity to drive effective governance?
A. It starts with leadership and modelling the right kinds of behaviour. For instance, on the technology side, we heard about the need for reverse mentoring where young people who are tech-savvy can teach more experienced managers and leaders how it actually works … Another way to build capacity deals with career mobility. Right now, the solitudes in our country aren’t linguistic but public and private sectors and never the twain shall meet … Few people cross over the sectors during careers … What about a bright, young, smart, emerging leader in the public service who might like a year or two working outside in the private sector, a think-tank or in the media before going back into government? Let me tell you, there is way out but there is not a way back in … unless you make a big sacrifice and start all over. What we heard is an appetite for much more career mobility.
Q. Why would you recommend or not recommend the public service as a career?
A. You wouldn’t recommend it if you thought it was a dead end. The reason you would … is because we need good government and good people working in government and we need them more than ever now given the changes taking place.
It’s one of the reasons we concluded in the report a re-branding of public service. That might seem like an ambitious and crazy objective but we believe there is an opportunity to strategically re-position the public service as a great place to work where there are no challenges that can be more demanding or more exciting than working in government on some of the complex difficult but important issues we need to address … Governments aren’t generally doing as good a job as they could, in our opinion, of clearly articulating the importance of the work they do and messaging this to potential recruits.
Types of Leaders
The PPF study came up with 10 leadership profiles for tomorrow’s super-bureaucrats. They are:
Astute Strategist: quick thinker, broad knowledge, good judgment
Empathetic Facilitator: relationship builder, communicator, manages expectations
Pragmatic Technophile: embraces innovation, new technology, understands risk
Catalyzing Agent: adapts to change, good motivator, seizes opportunities
Prudent Manager: business-savvy, manages budgets, resourceful
Persuasive Entrepreneur: curious, creative, sells an idea
Shrewd Diplomat: political acumen, thick-skinned, negotiator, juggles many priorities
Fearless Adviser: honest, integrity, filters information, knows when to push and step back
Passionate Talent Scout: enthusiastic, manages talent, values leadership and diversity
Inspirational Team Captain: leads by example, authentic, positive, team player
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