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

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A Summary of the Problem with IM

The IM Deficit

Inside 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 cause 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 particularly difficult if not impossible to design and implement.

Each of these deficits is discussed in more detail below.

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.

Poor information availability is indicated by the following problems affecting programs:

• Information for service delivery, program management and record of processes and decisions is often difficult or impossible to find or may arrive too late to be useful;
• Information is often of low quality (inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, or without proper authority) or inconsistent with other information; and,
• Information sharing is difficult and shared information is often not as useful as it should be.

Inadequate preservation and safeguarding of information is evidenced by the following problems that are affecting programs:

• Information is being inappropriately or erroneously altered, lost, destroyed or concealed;
• Security and privacy rules are being violated while handling information; and,
• The quality of some information degrades over time.

Poor information availability and inadequate preservation and safeguardingof information undermine productivity and the ability to be accountable and transparent. They impede good program management, informed decision-making and information sharing. They jeopardize the Government’s ability to ensure that Canadians’ information is responsibly stewarded.

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.

Poorly implemented IM rules and practices are demonstrated by the following problems experienced by executive programs:

• Many departments and agencies do not reliably follow disciplined  practices for information handling—capturing, tagging, storing, retrieving, aggregating, using, sharing, changing, assuring quality, archiving and disposing of information;
• Practices in information handling are inconsistent within organizations, across organizations and for different media;
• In particular, rules and processes employed to protect privacy and security are applied with varying strictness within and between organizations. In some cases, they are insufficient to guarantee the required level of information protection; and,
• The definitions of metadata—the information used to find and organize information—are inconsistent within organizations, across organizations and for different media.

The fact that the IM Program is not operating effectively in the enterprise context is indicated by these problems experienced by executive programs:

• Although IM is not achieving its outcomes today, the cost of the results that are being achieved is higher than necessary;
• IM leadership and governance is insufficient, fragmented and not sufficiently empowered;
• Enterprise strategies, designs and plans for IM are inadequate and a clear and compelling business case for IM is lacking;
• The process by which IM standards and practices are developed lacks coordination and clarity;
• Common IM solutions and shared services are lacking; and,
• Legislation and policy for IM does not effectively support information sharing across the enterprise or ensure coherent action towards enterprise-level outcomes.

Poorly implemented IM rules and practices prevent GC executive programs from being assured that the Government record has integrity and that clients’ rights are being upheld. Horizontal aggregation of information is difficult or impossible. Vertical aggregation for Ministerial accountability is more time-consuming and costly than necessary. Inflexibly structured information holdings and parochial IM processes impede change. The fact that the IM Program is not operating effectively in the enterprise context reduces the overall ability of the GC to act as an enterprise.

The Horizontal Operations Deficit

In order to deliver programs and services that cross organizational boundaries, integrated service delivery programs need information that can be 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 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 to provide higher valued outputs to clients and achieve more strategic outcomes.

Misaligned information and information management processes is evidenced by the difficulty service delivery partners experience aligning information. This prevents integrated service delivery programs from correctly interpreting and effectively and efficiently aggregating information.

Root Causes

The problems summarized above are felt by IM’s clients, and they 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. 

Addressing a problem directly or addressing its intermediate causes often proves unsuccessful. Because they are “at the source”, unaddressed, root causes just produce new problems. A single root cause can contribute to many problems—the number of problems in a business domain is typically much higher than the number of root causes. When developing solutions, identifying the root causes of problems accomplishes two important goals:

1. Completeness of design – When a target state is designed that addresses all of the root causes, the solution is comprehensive. Good decisions can then be taken about where to focus efforts and what to tackle first.
   
   
2. Maximizing the return on transformation resources – There is no end to the money that can be spent addressing symptoms when root causes aren’t fixed. There will always be more symptoms. Solving the problem at the root cause means spending transformation dollars once.

The root causes of IM problems are summarized below. They are grouped by business area within the IM Program, namely program management, rules and practices, capability and capacity, information handling and community and culture.

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 sanctions are 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.

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