The new focus on the policy capacity of the federal government
Article Abstract:
Senior officials in the federal public service are giving new attention to the need to strengthen policy capacity and this article draws heavily on the work of a task force of federal officials. Four themes run through the article: there is a strong, but neglected, managerial dimension to policy work; the greatest weakness in the current system is dealing with longer-term and strategic issues, especially of a horizontal nature; policy managers need to pay more attention to how to work with and support the external policy community; leadership at the most senior levels of the public service is critical for strengthening policy capacity. Policy management within departments is examined in terms of seven broad policy functions and organizational arrangements. Policy management across government is examined in terms of the role of central agencies and the special problems of horizontal coordination, including the conditions promoting coordination and the machinery of interdepartmental relations. The importance of the personnel dimension of policy work is underlined, with consideration of policy generalists, policy managers and policy specialists. Finally, relations with the policy research community and the provinces are examined. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1996
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Provincial, local responses: the "common sense" restructuring of Ontario's municipal governments
Article Abstract:
This article explores the application of the so-called "common sense" agenda of the Ontario government to the municipal sector in selected communities. By examining a range of restructuring proposals considered and/or adopted during 1995-97 in six municipalities in southern Ontario the study addresses two objectives. First, it delineates the manner in which the term "rationalize" has been understood by the province and the municipalities. Evidence suggests that the derive to "restructure" has evolved into a fairly simplistic strategy: amalgamate and eliminate units of municipal government and reduce the number of municipal councilors and staff. Second, it analyses the government's promise to "sit down with the municipalities" in this process. The Harris government, in fact, implemented a far-reaching conceptual agenda but forced municipalities to design the specific responses to it. Since 1995, municipalities large and small in all corners of the province have struggled - in some good faith, some with reluctance - to find ways to develop a local response to the province's restructuring agenda, all the while fearing that a failure to acquiesce would invite an imposed solution. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1998
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