GUEST POSTING by Summit Magazine – Government Accountability Roundtable

ARTICLE Synopsis  (Greasing the wheels – Nov/Dec 2006 Issue) 

The Implementing Accountability in Government Roundtable hosted by the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) in May 2006 brought together senior public sector veterans to discuss the challenges associated with public sector procurement practices in terms of accountability. In addition to government officials, the group included representation from SAS Canada, Capgemini, CGI and the University of Ottawa.  Citing concern over a number of key issues, the roundtable panel identified the ability to “arm public servants with the policies, processes and systems that will enable them to: 

1. become more effective managers
2. extract timely and insightful knowledge from a large pool of data
3. have the flexibility to rely on their own judgment

From this the group identified three main pillars of government accountability.  They are as follows:

1. personal responsibility and culture
2. communication of the strategy, policies and effective processes
3. increased focus on information management (IM) demands driven by the necessity to reduce risks with more accurate and insightful decisions 

While you should read the entire article which you can download through the following link; http://www.summitconnects.com/Articles_Columns/PDF_Documents/w09_7_02.pdf, I believe that accountability begins and ends with effective organization-wide communication.

Procurement Insights’ Commentary:  Specifically understanding the requirements and objectives of all key stakeholders both within and external to the government.  Unfortunately, the majority of initiatives employ a “vertical” or “silo” approach to “horizontal” challenges (i.e. the needs of individual stakeholders). In a recent government sponsored study, it was found that this silo approach rarely takes into account the different yet interdependent requirements of stakeholders such as the front line buyers or the supplier community.  (If you think about it, the very nature of a silo is that its vertical walls create the barriers to collaborative understanding.)  As a result, the study showed that 75 to 85% of all initiatives undertaken by government fail (or to use their terminology) end up in the “valley of death”. What are your thoughts?  Do you agree or disagree with the above position?  If given the opportunity (and with the benefit of hindsight which as you know is 20/20), what would you or your organization have done differently?  Further to the last question, are roundtables effective vehicles for bringing issues to light?  Do they create the foundation upon which a useable and realistic strategy can be developed and successfully instituted?  Supplementary Reading:How Not to Abandon Your e-Procurement Initiative 
Summit Magazine (October 2006 Issue)http://www.summitconnects.com/Articles_Columns/PDF_Documents/w09_6_07.pdf NIGP “The Source” (Winter 2007 Issue – Pgs. 15-16) http://www.nigp.org/member/Source200701.pdf