Great stuff Tom. Timely analysis on Trump's tactics and great links on Team Canada and Wernick's proposals.
One thing to add re Wernick - he was the Clerk not all that long ago and we didn't hear anything of the sort from him or other senior leaders of the public service at that time. I'd love to know if these were new ideas that he's developed recently, or if there if it is systematically difficult/impossible to advance this type thinking about the public service when you are in a senior role within the system.
Thanks Dan! Definitely the latter, I think. Sean Boots had a great blog post dissecting this trend of former Clerks weighing in on things that they should have been able to do when they were in the role.
He argued that "the public service is an example of an organization that has been structured in a way that prevents it from changing itself". Given the public service is itself a collection of more than 200 organizations, each with its own highly-structured internal divisions and responding to its own ministerial priorities as well as government-wide requirements, "this environment ultimately takes the same form as the “Coasian heck” that Alex Harrowell describes: diffuse actors, limited information-sharing, complex interactions, and no clear ultimate owner if something goes wrong". Furthermore, and even more importantly, "no one in this kind of environment is clearly empowered to structurally change the environment itself. Each participating actor (each sector, silo, or individual department) has a clear picture of their existing (previously-established) responsibilities, even if responsibility for the overall outcome is diffused and unclear. Each actor’s funding and prestige might also depend on maintaining or defending their current responsibilities against changes, making them predisposed to be hostile to system-wide changes."
Thanks for sharing that resource. Super important issue. I just wish that forme Clerks would be more transparent about that reality.
It is incredibly hard to change the system from the inside but there is also a fair bit innovation and managerial theatre out there too as various actors in the system grapple for influence (political and public service actors alike)
Great stuff Tom. Timely analysis on Trump's tactics and great links on Team Canada and Wernick's proposals.
One thing to add re Wernick - he was the Clerk not all that long ago and we didn't hear anything of the sort from him or other senior leaders of the public service at that time. I'd love to know if these were new ideas that he's developed recently, or if there if it is systematically difficult/impossible to advance this type thinking about the public service when you are in a senior role within the system.
Thanks Dan! Definitely the latter, I think. Sean Boots had a great blog post dissecting this trend of former Clerks weighing in on things that they should have been able to do when they were in the role.
He argued that "the public service is an example of an organization that has been structured in a way that prevents it from changing itself". Given the public service is itself a collection of more than 200 organizations, each with its own highly-structured internal divisions and responding to its own ministerial priorities as well as government-wide requirements, "this environment ultimately takes the same form as the “Coasian heck” that Alex Harrowell describes: diffuse actors, limited information-sharing, complex interactions, and no clear ultimate owner if something goes wrong". Furthermore, and even more importantly, "no one in this kind of environment is clearly empowered to structurally change the environment itself. Each participating actor (each sector, silo, or individual department) has a clear picture of their existing (previously-established) responsibilities, even if responsibility for the overall outcome is diffused and unclear. Each actor’s funding and prestige might also depend on maintaining or defending their current responsibilities against changes, making them predisposed to be hostile to system-wide changes."
The full thing is definitely worth a read: https://sboots.ca/2023/09/26/coasian-hecks-or-when-the-people-in-charge-cant-change-things-either/
Thanks for sharing that resource. Super important issue. I just wish that forme Clerks would be more transparent about that reality.
It is incredibly hard to change the system from the inside but there is also a fair bit innovation and managerial theatre out there too as various actors in the system grapple for influence (political and public service actors alike)