An Exploration of Cutting Edge Governance Arrangements

In the next decade and beyond, governments will contend with challenges that cut across institutional or operational divisions. The reality of demographic, economic, and fiscal transformations (long awaited but now upon us) will play a central role influencing governmental decision-making and the shape of the policy and program decisions taken. Governments have started to explore new ways of developing and implementing policy decisions through greater partnership with the private and non-profit sectors, and even citizens themselves. Governments have also tested the devolution, or aggregation, of organizations for better outcomes. Other contexts have encouraged states to work at the supra-national level and test new governance arrangements. Through eight case studies (Box 1), the Institute on Governance (IOG) has examined the governance of emerging policy delivery models that combine organizational features in new ways or blend public, private or non-profit organizations, in municipal, provincial, federal and inter-jurisdictional settings.
Box 1. Cutting edge governance case studies Toronto 211: Non-public sector led information service telephone and on-line networks that connect citizens to social and support services in local communities. Balancing public and private interests in the formulation of public-private partnerships: Looking at the emerging trend towards governance models that enable public sector participants to act as stewards of the public interest. Output-based versus expense-based agreements: In the past, governments funded NGOs expenses in providing public services. A more commercial focus is now emerging that engages NGOs in outcome-based agreements. Privatization and the boundaries of accountability: Canada, the US and the UK are asking to what extent is a government accountable after it has contracted out services? Joint Solutions Procurement in British Columbia: BC work to organize, design and procure a broad range of back office services through long-term contracts that move work traditionally internal to government to the private sector. Apps for Democracy, Washington D.C.: Using Application Process Interface (API) technology to allow citizens to download government data and create user-friendly applications for citizens: enhancing service and removing public sector work. Open Method of Coordination in the European Union: Multi-level governance in the European Union based on the voluntary cooperation of its member states. Super Agencies in New South Wales, Australia: The government of New South Wales, Australia has restructured its government to create 9 super agencies with the goal of delivering better quality services more efficiently.

In 2010, the IOG initiated a collaborative research program on institutional models of governance to better understand the trend of distributed governance. Through the Public Governance Exchange, the IOG developed the Governance Continuum (Figure 1), which depicts the interdependencies and interactions among governmental institutions. This work builds on the findings of previous IOG research on policy alignment and distributed governance, placing the cutting edge models along the IOG Governance Continuum and observing how they coordinate policy alignment challenges in crosscutting initiatives. The 1
An Exploration of Cutting Edge Governance Arrangements

studies try to show new institutional models can be equally or more effective in delivering a governments policy agenda and also attempt to demonstrate the limits and risks governments and other stakeholders take in stretching and often adding complexity to the lines of accountability.

Figure 1: The IOG Governance Continuum. The Governance Continuum focuses on both the relationships and the traditional legal and institutional divisions and distinctions that make the government work. Responding to a desire for greater efficiencies, effectiveness, and responsiveness to citizens, governments have increasingly relied on a series of bodies that have distributed authority and accountability across a broad spectrum of institutions. The distribution of the functions of government from traditional command-and-control core bureaucracies have shifted to models of public governance across a variety of organizational forms that provide alternative policy instruments.

The findings from the cutting edge governance studies highlight a number of trends: The importance and power of data: performance metrics, goal setting, crowd sourcing, and out sourcing, are all underpinned by data, often available to all. Direct provision of public services by non-public servants (by the not-for-profit or private sectors) are more and more common. Governments are coming to be seen as architects focused on design, standards and outcomes as opposed to details. There are profound challenges to traditional accountability mechanisms with arms length and non-government actors involved. There is also a countervailing trend to re-centralize to try to reduce complexity. It may be too soon to judge whether or not these forms of governance beyond the state are successful (although some are concerned by their lack of standard practices). Underdeveloped codified rules and regulations that shape or define participation and identify the arenas of power and accountability could lead these arrangements to produce sub-optimal results over the medium to long term. While the IOG Governance Continuum suggests that institutional form should follow policy function, some of the cutting edge examples illustrate how governments are being changed in how they function. In a sense, instead of form following function, we could argue that in four of the studies, new forms have caused governments to re-think how they function.

An Exploration of Cutting Edge Governance Arrangements