AUTUMN 2013
FMI
*
IGF JOURNAL
35
Blueprint 2020: Shaping the Public Service of
the Future
Louise Levonian
Canada’s
Public
Service
matters
enormously to Canada’s prosperity and to
citizens’ well-being. Federal public servants
work to serve Canadians, providing critical
programs and services that touch their day-
to-day lives. They also work with business,
in all regions of the country, to help our
nation succeed in a competitive world. At
the Department of Finance where I am
currently the Associate Deputy Minister,
we run the budget process and provide
advice on funding priorities; and oversee
the financial sector and set tax policy
with the objective of improving the lives
of Canadians. In other organizations,
public servants provide Old Age Security,
Employment Insurance and passports.
Public servants stand on guard for Canada’s
sovereignty and offer humanitarian assist
ance to countries in need of help. They
also help Canadian families save for higher
education. Public servants represent
Canada on the world stage, and our work
helps make this a better world. Canadians
count on us, and we deliver high quality
results.
Canada’s Public Service has a proud
tradition of excellence. This tradition has
placed us among the best in the world. To
remain a model for the future, we must
adapt to meet the demands of a rapidly
evolving world by continually renewing
ourselves. Canadians expect no less of us.
Around the world, public institutions are
facing enormous challenges. We operate
in a world where the issues we face are
becoming increasingly complex, where
new strategies, new capabilities, and new
tools are required to serve Canadians with
success.
Today, more workers are retiring than
starting their careers. The economy has
undergone a massive transformation with
the advent of global trade networks and
accelerating technological innovation
changing how people and businesses work.
Our rapidly evolving globalized world
means we are more interconnected than
ever. While this creates new opportunities,
it also adds complexity to what we do.
The Public Service is also experiencing a
horizontal and enterprise-wide solutions
that are more effective and efficient,
accountable, and help achieve value for
money. Throughout the Public Service,
there is an appetite and a desire to try new
ways of working, to make investments that
are appropriate to sound public finances
and focus on concrete needs of Canadians.
While we have made great strides to
improve the services we offer Canadians,
we need to go further.
At the Clerk of the Privy Council’s
invitation, deputy heads came together
and developed a vision of “a world-class
public service equipped to serve Canada
and Canadians now and into the future”.
The result of this work, Blueprint 2020:
Getting Started – Getting Your Views, is
based on four pillars:
• an open and networked environment
that engages citizens and partners for the
public good;
• a whole-of-government approach that
enhances service delivery and value for
money;
• a modern workplace that makes smart
use of new technologies to improve
networking, access to data and customer
service; and,
• a capable, confident and high-performing
workforce that embraces new ways of
working and mobilizing the diversity
of talent to serve the country’s evolving
needs.
The Blueprint 2020 vision sets out what
the Public Service needs to be in the future
and frames the changes to get there. It is
a guide to fundamentally transform the
Public Service for the long term.
As the Chair of the Sub-Committee
on Public Service Engagement, I believe
that dialogue and engagement are key
ingredients for driving change. If we are
open with public servants on a plan for the
future, they will embrace change. The Sub-
Committee developed a robust engagement
approach which involves both a discussion
around the vision and, through discussion
and idea generation, the development of an
action plan.
generational shift. The changing make-up
of Canadian society impacts expectations,
values and service demands. It is also
changing the Public Service itself, with new
recruits bringing a different culture, new
perspectives and skills to the workplace.
Citizens’ expectations are also rising,
particularly with regard to having access
to information and services online. Only
twenty years ago email was in its infancy.
Now, Canada has one of the most wired
and connected populations in the world,
with over 78% of Canadian households
having access to the internet, and 75%
using it daily in 2010. This usage has
only increased with citizens’ increasing
expectations that government provide the
same online conveniences as they receive
elsewhere.
Over the past few years, we have been
renewing and transforming the federal
Public Service by delivering on a dynamic
policy agenda and re-engineering many of
our internal and external services to better
meet the needs of Canadians.
Across the Public Service, public
servants are taking steps to improve
how they work, striving for excellence in
how they serve Canada and Canadians
as a high- performing team with open
networks, and tech savvy/cost effective
approaches.
A number of large “signature”
transformation initiatives are currently
underway across the Government of
Canada. For example, Shared Services
Canada, which was created in 2011, is
actively consolidating email, data centres
and network services across 43 departments
and agencies. We have also consolidated
our pay and pension processing and
advisory functions in two centres in New
Brunswick.
Less known is the degree of
transformation that is going on within
federal departments. Like other govern
ments, the drivers mentioned above are
spurring management teams across the
Federal Public Service to adopt new ways
of working, to streamline and automate
business processes, and to pursue
