Document T050

Defining a 10% Improvement: Giving Concrete Meaning to the Key SII Objective

Report presented to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, March 2002

The key objective of the 2000 Government of Canada Service Improvement Initiative is to reach a minimum 10% improvement in client satisfaction over the five years of the Initiative (by 2005) for each key service to the public. Another commitment of the Policy Framework for Service Improvement in the Government of Canada is to "report within the existing annual RPP (reports on priorities and plans) and DRP (departmental performance reports) planning and reporting process on: [...] annual improvements in client satisfaction [and] progress toward five-year satisfaction targets".

This report discusses the following issues in relation to these commitments:

• which metric should be used to report the level of client satisfaction?
• which aspects of service should be included in the reporting of client satisfaction?
• which clients and services should be included in the reporting of client satisfaction?
• which benchmark should be used to measure improvement?

13 pages, 261k [PDF format]

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Document T061

Formative assessment of organisational effectiveness frameworks, consultation paper

Report presented to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, February 2000

This report analyses five management frameworks to identify overlapping areas and idiosyncrasies. Its objective is to discuss the way in which these frameworks could be integrated to produce a more encompassing framework of organisational effectiveness.

The analysis is limited to frameworks used within Treasury Board Secretariate with the addition of a UK-based model which has been the subject of attention recently. The frameworks or models included in the analysis are:

• National Quality Institute (NQI) Canadian Quality Criteria for the Public Sector;
• Modern Comptrollership Framework (including the Review, Internal Audit and Evaluation Policies);
• Risk Management Framework;
• Framework for Good Human Resources Management in the Public Service;
• Public Service Excellence Model (PSEM) developed by Colin Talbot.

The analysis lays out the elements of each framework reviewed within each of three categories: purpose, principles (or values) and criteria (or areas). Within each category, the details of the models are cross-referenced to the NQI framework to ease the identification of elements which are particular to a model and the connections among models.

It is found that each model presents valuable features:¨

• the NQI model offers a global view of organisational effectiveness with particular emphasis on continuous improvement;
• the Modern Comptrollership framework emphasises the concept of external performance reporting, the primacy of Parliament and the use of benchmarking standards; it stresses the importance of mechanisms apt at collecting useful and quality information, and the capacity to use this information to improve performance; the Internal Audit and Evaluation Policies lay out principles for conducting such reviews;
• the Risk Management framework enriches the discussion of process management from a risk management perspective;
• the Good HR Management framework provides extensive guidance in HR management as applied throughout the domains of quality management;
• the PSEM is particularly strong in reflecting the importance of partnering, reporting and organisational empowerment.

The discussion of the possible rapprochement of these models concludes that:

• the NQI model provides the most extensive coverage of the dynamics of organisational effectiveness;
• further work on these frameworks will require careful attention to the development of quality management principles and criteria which relate to the connexions between the organisation and its external environment; in particular, provisions regarding accountability and performance reporting as well as the development and the maintenance of partnerships will have to be considered;
• these concerns can be accommodated within the logic and the structure of existing frameworks so that a new organisational effectiveness framework could be an evolution of existing models rather than a completely new endeavour;
• while citizen-centredness is core to contemporary management thinking, the input of citizens is not clearly considered in any of the models beyond the establishment of service standards. Notably absent are the involvement of citizens in the planning and development of products and services as well as in the design of performance measures and in the elaboration of improvement plans.

60 pages, 413k [PDF format]

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