Public Service 2000 Task Forces (Canada) : Public Service 2000 (PS 2000)was an initiative launched by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in December 1989. The title denotes a complex and dynamic effort at Public Service renewal that reflected the sustained initiative of central agencies led by the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Public Service Commission as well as senior interdepartmental Committees created to facilitate sustained institutional change in the Public Service. To provide focus and momentum, the Privy Council Office established a series of ten Task Forces composed of 120 senior Deputy and Assistant Deputy Ministers and other senior officials coordinated through a temporary Secretariat of 7 managers and staff. Collectively these organizational components constituted the core of the Public Service 2000 initiative. There was also an advisory committee of outside experts and consultants who commented extensively in advance of publication of the Task Force Reports. In December 1990, the ten Task Force reports fed into an immediate Public Service 2000 "White Paper" outlining the philosophy underlying the overall initiative and a practical implementation blueprint to achieve the stated goals of public service renewal.
Upon publication of the White Paper, the extensive working papers of the PS 2000 Task Forces were transferred from the temporary Secretariat to the newly created Canadian Centre for Management Development. The CCMD was itself an innovation complementary to the goals of institutionalizing public service renewal: its mandate was ongoing improvement in public sector management through formal training of the executive cadre in management practices and policy development skills and research into management approaches applicable to the public sector. The Task Force working papers were a useful research resource for a junior partner in the group of central agencies mandated to implement the reform plan over the next decade. As a junior partner among central agencies mandated to implement the reform, the Canadian Centre for Management Development was assigned the particular responsibility of promoting Public Service 2000 values. The Centre revised its curriculum to focus more on leadership training and an emphasis on values and principles consistent with the renewal initiative.
The framework of Public Service 2000, the problem definition, values, mission and broad directions for the future derived from extensive work by central agencies over the previous decade and reflected concerns raised by the (Lambert) Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability, 1979 and the (D'Avignon) Special committee on the Review of Personnel Management and the Merit Principle (1979), the pilot Treasury Board policy of "Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability" circa 1986, significant simplification of staffing and selection standards by the PSC (1989), and significant simplification of the Personnel Policy Manuals at Treasury Board Secretariat (1989).
The task forces were organized into 7 studies of various sub-functions of human resources, namely Classification, Compensation and Benefits, the Management Category, Staff Relations, Staffing, and Training and Development (the latter chaired by the Principal of the Canadian Centre for Management Development). The other three task forces related to resource management and business practices - Administrative Policy, Common Service Agencies, Resource Management -- or the overarching theme of Service to the Public which became the thematic and philosophical focus justifying and driving the whole initiative.
The themes of service to the public, valuing people and continuous learning and innovation became the overarching themes. Effective quality service to the public was introduced as the goal by which everything else in public service would be judged. In implementing change with that goal in mind, PS 2000 emphasized that a skilled, adaptable work force was essential to achieving any improvement in service and innovation. Hence developing that work force to acquire the emerging skill sets required to do business using modern technology was a natural corollary.
The resulting White Paper made the case for a client approach to citizens interacting with government agencies. It envisioned a public service that was simplified and streamlined both in its internal administrative procedures and the procedures which governed interactions with citizens. It embarked on an active review of the underlying values that distinguished the public and private sectors and with which all strategic policy making should be consistent. It emphasized the importance of leadership to implement a successful change initiative, a greater degree of collegial leadership at the senior levels, the key role of individual public servants to promote and implement a new spirit of continuous innovation, delegation of authority, continuous consultation, and the substitution for procedural rules and control of a more flexible approach focussing on accountability for results in relation to performance against goals defined by departmental management and values defined by central agency policy and government priorities. In pitching the reform initiative, the White Paper sought to balance the drive for more effective programs and resource allocation, innovation in business processes and a new emphasis on adaptability (and the implicit implications for the number of public service jobs, traditional entitlements and protections, complete changes in job functions and business processes) with the themes of empowerment, positive work environments, better training, development and career opportunities, a more flexible occupational classification structure, the eradication of staff ghettos of all kinds and the ability to of the Public Service to attract the best and the brightest, all under the rubric of continuous learning.
The PS 2000 initiative produced some concrete results. The most tangible was passage of the Public Service Reform Act (Bill C-26), the first overhaul of legislation governing the management of the public service since 1967. Specific innovations included provisions to permit deployment of willing staff members within groups and at the same level across the entire public (without competition) service and limited provision for appointment to level (in distinction to specific substantial position) giving management even greater theoretical flexibility in allocating human resources (without consent of affected employees). The Act also provided for simplification of job classification, streamlining of staffing processes, strengthening employment equity, an end to probation on appointments other than initial entry into the Public Service and earlier union membership for term employees.
PS 2000 also resulted in an initial set of reforms to the expenditure management system incorporating the single operating budget, the abolition of person year controls, the provision for Departments to carry forward up to two per cent of their budgets into the next fiscal year, all permitting greater flexibility to departmental management. Regarding Common Services, a more permissive regime that eliminated compulsory recourse to in-house government service providers was introduced.
In relation to delivering service, the innovations included the creation of Canada Business Service Centres, Infocentres providing one stop shopping for clients of 10 major departments through the Department of Human Resources Development and the introduction and promotion of measurable service standards as a normal business practice.
The reform initiative was sustained and institutionalized through various Treasury Board Secretariat initiatives to foster interdepartmental communication among managers about best practices and how to achieve many of the goals of the renewal initiative. TBS also initiated a Senior Executive Network (a cross Canada intra-net for Executives) and ConnEXions an electronic bulletin board to facilitate a corporate collaboration among executives in the public service.
Related initiatives complementary to PS 2000 included the creation of the new organizational form, "Special Operating Agencies" which provided for even more extensive delegation of authority to agency management, the reorganization and significant reduction of the number of full departments of government from 32 to 23 in 1993, a reduction of the number of Assistant Deputy Ministers from 319 to 266, the revised focus of the Canadian Centre For Management Development as a vehicle to foster change management.
While resulting in concrete innovations, the impact of the PS 2000 initiative was limited and it amounted to something less than the fundamental overhaul of the Public Service originally conceived. The original renewal initiative reflected in the White Paper of 1990 was compromised and ultimately dissipated by five environmental developments, an underestimation of the forces of traditionalism and the old command and control culture it was seeking to change and by the ambiguity of its own operating assumptions.
The recession of 1991 had a devastating impact. Having balanced the operating budget, the Government was confronted by falling revenues just as it initiated the renewal initiative. Operating budget reforms were overshadowed by reductions that had been systemic since 1985 and which actually continued until 1998. Having articulated a vision of a positive new deal for public servants (people first) in return for accepting radical changes in working environments, the biggest impacts of government policy for most public servants were multi-year salary freezes, later supplemented by the most substantial cutbacks in Public Service employment since the 1970s. In 1993, a new government arrived and the reform initiative became associated with the outgoing regime. The organizational downsizing in the structure of the cabinet and senior departments (from 32 to 23) that was integral to the reform initiative, compounded institutional reform with top to bottom reorganization across the whole government. Finally, the first effort to implement a new job classification system (1990-1995) ended and would have to be started anew. The senior executives who ran the central agencies and senior departments realized that the scope of the changes necessary to effect real change in public service culture was much greater than originally anticipated. The White Paper of 1990 was little more than a first tentative step. Actual implementation of matters depending on departmental initiatives were spotty and inconsistent.
In many ways, however, the perspective, goals, assumptions, policy direction and fundamental difficulties and failures underlying the original initiative became the foundation of the renewed effort at reform under the rubric of La Releve in 1997. The prospect of escaping the financial constraints of the previous decade provided a more fertile environment for more fundamental and sustained renewal. Many elements of the unfinished business left over from the formative PS 2000 initiative were reformulated into more thorough reforms of human and financial resources management in this second wave of reform. Many others remained unrealized even a decade later. After years of effort, much remained to fulfill the reform promise of 1989. Just as the Public Service 2000 White Paper had anticipated, Public Service Renewal was easier said than done. Public Service 2000, The Renewal of the Public Service of Canada (White Paper derived from Public Service 2000 Task Forces,December 1990); Public Service 2000: The Renewal of the Public Service (Synopsis),(December 1990);Tellier,Paul, Public Service 2000 A Report on Progress, Companion volume to the First Report of the to The Prime Minister on The Public Service of Canada (June 1992); Tellier, Paul, Public Service 2000: First Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada (June, 1992); Shortliffe, Glen, Public Service 2000: Second Annual Report to The Prime Minister on The Public Service of Canada (March 1994); the archival record transferred to date.
The structure of this corporate body is outlined in various documents in the archival record transferred to date. These include: John Edwards, "Notes for a presentation on Public Service 2000 at the 1990 APEX Symposium," January 1990.
