X-Ray Party
Here presented in simple format is a list of ideas that can be used for the improvement of Canadian governance.
The system envisioned is a group of intellectuals, for a country of Canada's size and current population of 33 million, of roughly 10 000 to head the various roles of governance. They would have authority over the bureaucracy and direct the projects. In turn, they answer to the elected officials, which currently is the House of Commons (although they would more formally answer to the Senate).
Therefore, the bureaucracy would have several well defined purposes.
-Collect information, likely this would be done through StatCan, as it currently already does so
-Process information for recommendations, this would be done by the intellectuals in charge of each government department to post recommendations on future policy
-Execute projects, the government will put in policies some of which require work to be done, the bureaucracy conducts such work
The possible risks involved is inter-department conflict and self-justifying agencies. In this regard, intellectuals in charge of a particular agency will have a reason to continue to see the agency thrive in the government budget and may attempt to create reports or recommendations which misrepresent the facts in order to better secure funding. A government watchdog, like the Auditor General, may be useful in this regard to axe departments that are not strictly required, as well as eliminating plum posts.
1) The Intellectuals
Much like corporate hiring policies, all applications are posted in an open manner and resumes are selected from this large pool of candidates. Then, depending on the difficulty of the project, there can be a number of rounds of technical interviews.
Intellectuals hired will be for the roles of
-Manager of teams
-Team lead
-Team base member
This is devised into a system that is basically, a manager in charge of a department with multiple teams to work on each project. Each project has a team lead and a number of base level workers. One project, one team. The level higher than a manager is the cabinet minister.
It is largely the expectation that more levels of management will only lead to poor communication and lack of utilization of the intellectuals.
2) The Bureaucracy
The bureaucracy's job is to ensure that the paperwork is done properly. As such you would wish to minimize the overhead. This would include people to ensure all information is filed properly, forms/digital forms are processed from the general public (for instance, a department which issues licences). As it is not an inherently physically dangerous job, there is likely no reason for a union. It can be handled with normal salaried employees.
It is important for the bureaucracy to be streamlined as much as possible to ensure the maximum amount of labour to use for the various purposes of government.
3) The Elected
The task of elected members of parliament is to be a go-between from the intellectual base, consisting of thousands of people, and developing a sense of the situation from the various managers. Each department, as it is now, would be headed by a cabinet minister. Likely, several departments fall under the same minister. The minister's role is to read, analyse and accept the recommendations arising from the managers.
The managers are intended to be hired based on their expertise in their field, so that their recommendations are logical and evidence-based. For instance, a highly qualified accountant may make recommendations for simplifying the tax code in order to achieve greater efficiency and lower overhead costs in the bureaucracy. Then it is up the minister to combine the wants of the people (ie. the political platform for which he/she won the election) and the recommendations of those qualified in their respective fields.
4) The Point?
The concept is to create a government which does both what is most recommendable by scientific analysis and what is wanted by the people. Satisfying both of these conditions would be a far superior situation to western democracy which primarily only concerns itself with satisfying what people want.
The intellectuals identify the problems in society or areas of improvement. They then lead projects to complete this work.
The bureaucracy facilitates the work by performing all the administrative duties. This is likely to be processing forms, issuing of material, collecting material, physical duties and interaction with the population (perhaps even customer service).
The elected officials are to ensure the government is doing what the people want, whereas the intellectuals are attempting to ensure the government is doing what is intelligent.
5) Role of Government
The primary role of government is to improve the economy, protect and guarantee your rights as a citizen and facilitate resolution of disputes. The constitution will largely and the criminal code will take care of most of the legal issues. Other than this, the largest government role is the economy.
Infrastructure:
The private sector is notorious for being the worst at implementing infrastructure. In a globalised society in which we today live, it is imperative that we minimize the time and effort required to install new infrastructure in order to allow the greatest and fastest economic growth. Failure to do so leads to our businesses operating at a disadvantage to other nations.
Governments should employ crown corporations or make a government led effort to install new infrastructures. As of this writing, the most imperative develop is fibre optic backbone for a digital economy, as well as wireless internet, and city-wide hot spots. Failure to develop this infrastructure will result in businesses being unable to utilize the Internet and fail against more technologically advanced competitors.
Employment Opportunity:
Governments should attempt to identify growing businesses and industries and make 5-10 year long plans for each, in the form of small business grants, tax breaks or other incentives, in order to encourage economic growth. Industries older than this should not receive any special government treatment; it would be a waste of tax dollars to support failing industries. Again, this would be the task of intellectuals to properly conduct this analysis and avoid the temptation of protectionism.
Development of Poor Neighbourhoods:
Poor people do not produce tax income, which from a government perspective is terrible. A good solution would be to pour development into poor neighbourhoods. This includes pouring extra money per capita for poor neighbourhoods for economic development, healthcare and education. The idea is not to bring poor people out of those areas. The idea is to make those areas liveable middle-class neighbourhoods because the people are more well off. It is beneficial for everyone to have more middle class to provide more businesses and thus more job opportunities and tax revenue.
Healthcare/Education/Social services:
Obviously one of the biggest expenses is healthcare, education and other social services (such as EI or pension plans). As these are almost entirely technical areas, one should expect technical individuals in charge. The government should strive to do two things. Reduce costs but also expand services. Improvements in social areas increase (rather than decrease) tax revenues because of the multiplicative effect it has in crime reduction, improved worker health (therefore less sick days) and a more efficient workforce (either because they are more well educated or because they can find more appropriate jobs to match their skill set).
6) Roadmap
Largely, we can begin this with more open hiring procedures in the bureaucracy. The first step is for the hiring of individuals in all government jobs to be open, well advertised and easily accessible on government websites and for anyone to be able to apply.
Next, it is likely that the first new job of the watchdog agencies in Canada to look after the hiring procedures to eliminate nepotism.
After this, as the bureaucracy grows more used to an open hiring procedure, it is probable that morale will increase due to improved skill sets in throughout the departments. While this may or may not occur, the next step is to lower the levels of management. Work environments in corporations are notoriously inefficient because of the many layers of management, a government is no different. Reduction in management layers would streamline communication between the base line workers and the people in control. This would hopefully both raise morale and competency.
Clear management mandates make for easier analysis of government agencies. Well defined goals for each agency would be helpful in determining the efficacy of government and bureaucratic policies. There should not be a reliance on metric based analysis but metrics are useful in a sense. Employees should also not be afraid of certain departments being axed, or projects cancelled. An environment in which individuals can suggest improvements of any kind, including cancelling their own projects, should be developed. Morale can be maintained by the fact that they will not lose their jobs and instead merely be transferred to another more useful project. However, the tool of downsizing should still be maintained.
Largely, today, upsizing or downsizing of government is a fickle policy based on the government in power and the ideology to which they aspire. This is a highly unintelligent manner of axing projects. It cares not the efficacy nor the skill of the individuals.
Intelligent government requires that we be prudent but selective about our actions. Well thought plans are far better than impulsive actions to gain a few votes but damage the country in the long run. Take for instance Paul Martin's refusal to deregulate banks based on the recommendations of bureaucrats under his wing. We see now that had the tories been in power, with their ideology of free market, our economy would have collapsed due to subprime mortgages.
No matter how government develops in the future, it is hoped that it develops for the better.
The system envisioned is a group of intellectuals, for a country of Canada's size and current population of 33 million, of roughly 10 000 to head the various roles of governance. They would have authority over the bureaucracy and direct the projects. In turn, they answer to the elected officials, which currently is the House of Commons (although they would more formally answer to the Senate).
Therefore, the bureaucracy would have several well defined purposes.
-Collect information, likely this would be done through StatCan, as it currently already does so
-Process information for recommendations, this would be done by the intellectuals in charge of each government department to post recommendations on future policy
-Execute projects, the government will put in policies some of which require work to be done, the bureaucracy conducts such work
The possible risks involved is inter-department conflict and self-justifying agencies. In this regard, intellectuals in charge of a particular agency will have a reason to continue to see the agency thrive in the government budget and may attempt to create reports or recommendations which misrepresent the facts in order to better secure funding. A government watchdog, like the Auditor General, may be useful in this regard to axe departments that are not strictly required, as well as eliminating plum posts.
1) The Intellectuals
Much like corporate hiring policies, all applications are posted in an open manner and resumes are selected from this large pool of candidates. Then, depending on the difficulty of the project, there can be a number of rounds of technical interviews.
Intellectuals hired will be for the roles of
-Manager of teams
-Team lead
-Team base member
This is devised into a system that is basically, a manager in charge of a department with multiple teams to work on each project. Each project has a team lead and a number of base level workers. One project, one team. The level higher than a manager is the cabinet minister.
It is largely the expectation that more levels of management will only lead to poor communication and lack of utilization of the intellectuals.
2) The Bureaucracy
The bureaucracy's job is to ensure that the paperwork is done properly. As such you would wish to minimize the overhead. This would include people to ensure all information is filed properly, forms/digital forms are processed from the general public (for instance, a department which issues licences). As it is not an inherently physically dangerous job, there is likely no reason for a union. It can be handled with normal salaried employees.
It is important for the bureaucracy to be streamlined as much as possible to ensure the maximum amount of labour to use for the various purposes of government.
3) The Elected
The task of elected members of parliament is to be a go-between from the intellectual base, consisting of thousands of people, and developing a sense of the situation from the various managers. Each department, as it is now, would be headed by a cabinet minister. Likely, several departments fall under the same minister. The minister's role is to read, analyse and accept the recommendations arising from the managers.
The managers are intended to be hired based on their expertise in their field, so that their recommendations are logical and evidence-based. For instance, a highly qualified accountant may make recommendations for simplifying the tax code in order to achieve greater efficiency and lower overhead costs in the bureaucracy. Then it is up the minister to combine the wants of the people (ie. the political platform for which he/she won the election) and the recommendations of those qualified in their respective fields.
4) The Point?
The concept is to create a government which does both what is most recommendable by scientific analysis and what is wanted by the people. Satisfying both of these conditions would be a far superior situation to western democracy which primarily only concerns itself with satisfying what people want.
The intellectuals identify the problems in society or areas of improvement. They then lead projects to complete this work.
The bureaucracy facilitates the work by performing all the administrative duties. This is likely to be processing forms, issuing of material, collecting material, physical duties and interaction with the population (perhaps even customer service).
The elected officials are to ensure the government is doing what the people want, whereas the intellectuals are attempting to ensure the government is doing what is intelligent.
5) Role of Government
The primary role of government is to improve the economy, protect and guarantee your rights as a citizen and facilitate resolution of disputes. The constitution will largely and the criminal code will take care of most of the legal issues. Other than this, the largest government role is the economy.
Infrastructure:
The private sector is notorious for being the worst at implementing infrastructure. In a globalised society in which we today live, it is imperative that we minimize the time and effort required to install new infrastructure in order to allow the greatest and fastest economic growth. Failure to do so leads to our businesses operating at a disadvantage to other nations.
Governments should employ crown corporations or make a government led effort to install new infrastructures. As of this writing, the most imperative develop is fibre optic backbone for a digital economy, as well as wireless internet, and city-wide hot spots. Failure to develop this infrastructure will result in businesses being unable to utilize the Internet and fail against more technologically advanced competitors.
Employment Opportunity:
Governments should attempt to identify growing businesses and industries and make 5-10 year long plans for each, in the form of small business grants, tax breaks or other incentives, in order to encourage economic growth. Industries older than this should not receive any special government treatment; it would be a waste of tax dollars to support failing industries. Again, this would be the task of intellectuals to properly conduct this analysis and avoid the temptation of protectionism.
Development of Poor Neighbourhoods:
Poor people do not produce tax income, which from a government perspective is terrible. A good solution would be to pour development into poor neighbourhoods. This includes pouring extra money per capita for poor neighbourhoods for economic development, healthcare and education. The idea is not to bring poor people out of those areas. The idea is to make those areas liveable middle-class neighbourhoods because the people are more well off. It is beneficial for everyone to have more middle class to provide more businesses and thus more job opportunities and tax revenue.
Healthcare/Education/Social services:
Obviously one of the biggest expenses is healthcare, education and other social services (such as EI or pension plans). As these are almost entirely technical areas, one should expect technical individuals in charge. The government should strive to do two things. Reduce costs but also expand services. Improvements in social areas increase (rather than decrease) tax revenues because of the multiplicative effect it has in crime reduction, improved worker health (therefore less sick days) and a more efficient workforce (either because they are more well educated or because they can find more appropriate jobs to match their skill set).
6) Roadmap
Largely, we can begin this with more open hiring procedures in the bureaucracy. The first step is for the hiring of individuals in all government jobs to be open, well advertised and easily accessible on government websites and for anyone to be able to apply.
Next, it is likely that the first new job of the watchdog agencies in Canada to look after the hiring procedures to eliminate nepotism.
After this, as the bureaucracy grows more used to an open hiring procedure, it is probable that morale will increase due to improved skill sets in throughout the departments. While this may or may not occur, the next step is to lower the levels of management. Work environments in corporations are notoriously inefficient because of the many layers of management, a government is no different. Reduction in management layers would streamline communication between the base line workers and the people in control. This would hopefully both raise morale and competency.
Clear management mandates make for easier analysis of government agencies. Well defined goals for each agency would be helpful in determining the efficacy of government and bureaucratic policies. There should not be a reliance on metric based analysis but metrics are useful in a sense. Employees should also not be afraid of certain departments being axed, or projects cancelled. An environment in which individuals can suggest improvements of any kind, including cancelling their own projects, should be developed. Morale can be maintained by the fact that they will not lose their jobs and instead merely be transferred to another more useful project. However, the tool of downsizing should still be maintained.
Largely, today, upsizing or downsizing of government is a fickle policy based on the government in power and the ideology to which they aspire. This is a highly unintelligent manner of axing projects. It cares not the efficacy nor the skill of the individuals.
Intelligent government requires that we be prudent but selective about our actions. Well thought plans are far better than impulsive actions to gain a few votes but damage the country in the long run. Take for instance Paul Martin's refusal to deregulate banks based on the recommendations of bureaucrats under his wing. We see now that had the tories been in power, with their ideology of free market, our economy would have collapsed due to subprime mortgages.
No matter how government develops in the future, it is hoped that it develops for the better.
posted by Ultrapunk at
8:09 PM
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