The Service State: Rhetoric, Reality and Promise

4. Can We Meet the Governance Challenge?

86 FOUR CHAPTER Our reviews of service transformation initiatives across Canada suggest that the accommodation of contemporary, integrative, network-based and increasingly electronic public service transformations with traditional, hierarchical governance models is becoming a particularly pressing challenge. The dilemma is as simple as the solution is complex. How do we adapt 19th century hierarchical models of parliamentary governance to the kind of 21st century polycentric, collaborative and open boundary approaches to service delivery that are emerging in many developed polities (Paquet 2004; Kamarck 2004; Allen et al. 2005; Skelcher 2005; Kettl 2005; O’Flynn and Wanna 2008)? Governance is a broad topic encompassing the structures and processes through which state power is exercised. In recent years there has been increasing attention paid to the participation of non-state actors including citizens, non-profit organizations and firms in state decision making and service delivery. This chapter adopts this wider approach to governance. It focuses more specifically on two related issues: • the problem of establishing who is responsible for doing what in the increasingly complex world of integrated service delivery; and • developing structures and processes for ensuring accountability in circumstances in which responsibility is widely diffused. The analysis complements the discussion in chapter two of the way in which citizens might be more fully engaged in the development and delivery of integrated public services. The closely connected issue of developing Can We Meet the Governance Challenge? Can We Meet the Governance Challenge? 87 appropriate governance regimes for inter-jurisdictional service transformation initiatives is discussed in chapter five. Background This analysis starts from the premise that a fully realized, integrated and networked -based approach to service delivery is widely viewed to be a desirable outcome. This development is seen as an appropriate evolution from a preInternet world focusing on competition and customer to an increasingly online world emphasizing collaboration and integration. Collaboration stems from the tremendous opportunities for sharing information and integrating (or aligning) related service offerings across providers in different government ministries and agencies. The resulting networked architecture of service delivery, predicated on more seamless governance, is reflected in its earliest iteration as what the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions at times refer to as ‘joined up’ government (Batini et al. 2002; Bellamy, 6 Perri and Raab 2005; Scottish Executive 2006; Cross 2007). This boundary spanning dimension of service transformation has fostered considerable intellectual ferment around the concept of the collaborative or network state. A recent Demos publication hails collaboration as the foundation for a new approach to delivering public services: It presents the possibility of replacing old rigidities with flexible federations of public bodies that can quickly sense and adapt to changing needs, at the same time creating new forums that bring people and institutions together to identify shared problems and work collaboratively on solutions (Parker and Gallagher 2007: 14). To implement this vision, governments must collaborate internally from the top to bottom of organizations, as well as across agencies. But the vision goes further than the stated goals of ‘joined-up government ’ to call for collaboration with local service providers, private sector IT firms and service users in co-design and co-production. This type of thinking is fed by ideas and concepts from the ‘wired’ world and, more specifically, by the potential of Internet-based direct democracy and citizen -centred service delivery. By contrast with the NPM customer-oriented roots of service transformation, this more contemporary model of public administration is not market-oriented. Rather, it sees in the integration and alignment of services the opportunity to connect governments, private The Service State 88 sector firms, community-based service providers and service users as citizens in the development and delivery of integrated services through more robust engagement and accountability relationships. The network model recognizes the failure of traditional hierarchical government organizations to successfully deal with the complexity and interaction among many of the tough social and economic policy challenges facing societies, and the inability of individual agencies or governments to interconnect and reach out to wider community-based stakeholders (Considine and Lewis 2003). The network model also seeks to avoid the inefficiencies inherent in earlier efforts to reorganize government agencies into single large units by focusing on engaging existing agencies in joint problem solving without wasting time on reorganization or re-establishment of formal authorities (Goldsmith and Eggers 2004; Kettl 2005). This requires new forms of leadership and network management skills at all levels of government , substantial...