Kafka's Castle: the Treasury Board of Canada revisited

Article Abstract:

In the early 1970s, A.W. Johnston likened the Treasury Board to Kafka's Castle. Widespread misconceptions existed, he wrote, about the workings of the Treasury Board and its Secretariat. Since then, the scope of Treasury Board activities has broadened substantially. Both the Board and the Secretariat have assumed new responsibilities in the area of personnel policy, in establishing new administrative policies for government operations and in managing the government's property holdings, for example. Yet little has been written about these new responsibilities and, to an outsider, the Treasury Board must resemble Kafka's Castle now as much as it did in the early 1970s. This paper describes the various changes introduced over the past fifteen years that have transformed the operations of the Treasury Board and its Secretariat. The paper goes further and locates the Treasury Board between the competing forces of centralized decision-making on the one hand and "letting the manager manage" on the others. The paper points out that the Treasury Board has been a key actor in the various attempts at "letting the manager manage." It recently launched a major new initiative - Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability (IMAA) - which is designed to transfer important decision-making authority to managers. The paper concludes with a review of IMAA, its origin, its design and its operations. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Management, Political aspects, Government spending policy, Canada. Treasury Board

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Studying public administration

Article Abstract:

This paper argues that the study of public administration needs to be reoriented to assist governments, in particular our public services, to meet new challenges. The paper suggests that our public services are facing nothing short of a crisis situation. Public bureaucracies are under attack everywhere, even at times by the political masters they seek to serve and by those who in the past urged governments to intervene in the economy. The Westminster model that underpins the work of our public services is also being transformed in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways. In addition, governments everywhere are being pressed to do more with less and public servants are being asked to manage government operations more efficiently. The paper suggests that, as presently constituted, our public administration programs in Canadian universities are of limited help to public administrators. Policy issues dominate the agenda of our public administration programs far too much. The paper calls for a return to the work of the pioneers of Canadian public administration. It also calls for new studies in public management and suggests ways in which this could be accomplished. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Universities and colleges, Training, Study and teaching, Public employees, Government employees

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Governmental decentralization: a review of some management considerations

Article Abstract:

Advantages of decentralization in government include bringing programs closer to the people, thus fostering more trust and making politicians more accountable (since they are working on a local level). On the other hand, there are other considerations which arise in the administration of a decentralized structure. Among these are degree of staff commitment, costs involved, relationships between the various local governmental units and detailed planning as to which departments can best be decentralized. These advantages and disadvantages associated with decentralized government administrations are discussed in detail.

Analysis, Administrative and political divisions, Decentralization in government, Government decentralization, Central planning

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