Information Management in the Government of Canada: The Business Problem Assessment

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Executive Summary

Information is government’s lifeblood. The Government of Canada’s information needs are sophisticated and getting more sophisticated all the time. However, there is an increasing awareness among GC executives that IM is inadequate today and a hindrance to the changes that the GC must undertake for the future. A piecemeal approach to solving IM problems is largely ineffective. This is the impetus for concerted change.

A first step in the process of concerted change is to be certain that we have a common understanding of what the problems are. This document summarizes the results of a broad collaborative process to consolidate, confirm, and elaborate upon problems that have already been articulated, to uncover any missing ones, and to analyse them to discover their root causes. 

The IM Deficit

Within the Government of Canada, needs at all levels are not being met because of problems with IM. These problems undermine the ability of programs to function well and achieve desired outcomes, and causes programs to incur unnecessary costs. Ultimately, problems with IM interfere with the ability of the Government of Canada to meet the needs of Canadians.

The gap between our current IM capability and what is required—the “IM deficit”—is not the same for all programs. IM needs fall into three categories, according to the type of client program IM is serving: the needs of any GC program; the special needs of executive programs; and the special needs of integrated service delivery programs. The level of sophistication in terms of need is very different for these clients. While the level of IM capability is not uniform across the Government, it is consistently lower than required, as illustrated below.

While individual programs and departments can “make do” in this environment, operating at a level that is less than optimal, problems with IM make enterprise management at the executive or corporate level highly challenging, and horizontal initiatives for service integration are particularly difficult if not impossible to design and implement.

The Program Deficit

Programs need quality information to function and be managed well and for the delivery of their services. They need information to trace decisions and processes. They also need their information to be preserved and safeguarded and to be made available to collaborators as appropriate.

These needs are not being fully met because of poor information availability and inadequate preservation and safeguarding of information. These deficiencies make it difficult and inefficient for programs to fulfill the needs of their clients and to be managed responsibly.

The Enterprise Management Deficit

Government-wide, corporate or executive level programs need assurance that Government of Canada’s record of processes and decisions has integrity and that clients’ rights are being upheld in the conduct of Government business, specifically in the handling of personal information. These programs need the ability to aggregate information vertically for Ministerial accountability, and horizontally for programs and services spanning departments and jurisdictions. This is essential for government to operate as an enterprise.  Executive programs also require that information holdings be organized and information management processes be structured so that the Government can undertake change with agility. Finally, the executive needs all programs in the GC, including the IM Program, to operate effectively within the context of the whole enterprise of government.

These needs are not being fully met because of poorly implemented IM rules and practices and because the IM Program is not operating effectively in the enterprise context. In some cases these inadequacies prevent the GC executive from being able to live up to information-related accountabilities to Canadians and to manage the GC effectively as an enterprise; in others, it makes it more expensive to do so.

The Horizontal Operations Deficit

In order to achieve service integration – that is, to deliver programs and services that cross organizational boundaries – integrated service delivery programs need information that is capable of being interpreted correctly out of the context in which it was captured or created, and effectively and efficiently aggregated with information collected elsewhere.

These needs are not being fully met because of misaligned information and information management processes. This inadequacy makes it inefficient and sometimes impossible for integrated service delivery programs to combine services or integrate service outputs in order to provide higher valued outputs to clients and achieve more strategic outcomes.

Root Causes

The problems summarized above are all symptoms of problems internal to IM. These internal problems are the causes of the problems experienced by IM’s clients. Some of these are root causes. Root causes are the real source of problems. Addressing the root causes of problems completely solves them. 

The root causes of IM problems are summarized below, grouped by business area within the IM Program.

IM Program Management

• The need for and importance of an enterprise IM program has not yet been sufficiently recognized at the GC executive level.
• No government-wide framework exists for all IM-related legislation and policy that provides a complete and coherent picture of IM accountabilities and responsibilities, and comprehensive guidance for the design of an enterprise IM program.
• The central services required to implement a federated enterprise capability for IM have not been implemented. In particular, enterprise strategic design and planning for IM has not been implemented.

IM Rules and Practices

• Standards, best practices and explicit process for information handling—capturing, tagging, storing, retrieving, aggregating, using, sharing, changing, assuring quality, archiving and disposing of information—are missing or incomplete or not implemented consistently across government.
• Standard metadata definitions are missing or incomplete or not implemented consistently across government.
• Standards, best practices and processes are not designed with a “whole of government” perspective.
• Guidance on the interpretation of laws and policies is incomplete and not implemented in a common way across government.
• The accountabilities and responsibilities for IM rules and practices have not been systematically included in management accords and performance targets.
• Sanctions and rewards for the application of IM rules are not generally in place, and, where there are sanctions in place, they are often not properly enforced.

IM Capability and Capacity

• The requirements for IM skills and experience have not been systematically included in HR practices.
• Training in information handling is insufficient and variable across organizations.
• Training in IM accountabilities and responsibilities is insufficient and variable across organizations.
• Many tools for IM are often inefficient or unreliable.
• Often, IM tools are not designed to operate across organizations or to interoperate, or they are implemented in a manner that makes it impossible for them to do this.
• The availability of skilled resources for IM is poor.

Information Handling

• Services to tell information users that the information they need exists and where to find it are inadequate, especially between organizations.
• Information is stored in locations that are difficult to access other than locally.
• Those who are sources of potentially shareable information have no knowledge or control of the information’s “downstream” use.
• There is a large, complex and widely distributed legacy of information holdings that are inconsistent, of poor quality and poorly organized.

IM Community and Culture

• Most employees are not recognized for their contribution to IM outcomes.
• Some employees are concerned about the repercussions of looking for, finding and sharing some information.
• Employees have not been encouraged to adopt information sharing as a cultural value.
• Most individuals do not understand the nature and potential use of information under their stewardship in an enterprise context.
• IM is not seen as a distinct, valued competency (distinguished, for example, from IT).

These root causes in program management, rules and practices, capability and capacity, information handling, and community and culture will be the focus for the design of solutions to IM problems.

The Current Environment for Change

A common understanding of the problems with IM provides the motivation for concerted change. Strategies and plans for change should take into account factors in the environment of the GC IM Program Transformation Initiative. A summary of an initial assessment of these is presented below. They will help to shape the results of the next phase—the Strategy Phase.

The IM Program Transformation Initiative

Although work has been focused at many areas of information management, no overarching design exists that brings the many solutions to IM problems together, and no master plan coordinates the way forward across the many organizations that must participate. A piecemeal approach to solving IM problems has been largely ineffective. The Government of Canada needs one coherent, explicit, broadly supported Information Management capability. Without this, over time, the government will face steadily greater difficulty meeting its policy commitments to Canadians for the responsible stewardship of their information. Barriers to collaboration, program alignment and service integration will only become more entrenched, undermining the government’s ability to adapt to change and achieve public outcomes.  Major transformation initiatives, under extreme pressure to deliver results, will be left to build their own particular solutions to IM problems.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), in cooperation with Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and Library and Archives of Canada (LAC), is leading the GC IM Program Transformation Initiative to guide the creation of next-generation IM services for the Government of Canada.

The outcomes of the IM Program Transformation Initiative will be better IM outcomes for the GC:

• Better availability of information for programs to deliver services, collaborate, manage themselves and trace processes and decisions;
• Better preservation and safeguarding of programs’ information;
• Information and supporting processes that are better structured to support service integration;
• Information and supporting processes that are better structured to promote the GC’s agility, uphold clients’ rights, ensure the integrity of the GC record, and support the GC in operating as an enterprise; and,
• An IM Program that is structured to operate effectively throughout the GC.

Recommendation

Proceed with the GC IM Program Transformation Initiative through the Strategy, Design and Business Case phases of strategic design and planning.

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