There is a consensus throughout much of the western world that the public sector is in urgent need of repair. This study seeks to understand why this is so by comparing developments in Canada and the United Kingdom. It looks to changes in values both in society and inside government, and to the relationships between politicians and civil servants at the top and between civil servants and citizens at the bottom. Donald J. Savoie argues that both Canada and the UK now operate under court government rather than cabinet government. By court government, he means that effective power now rests with their respective prime ministers and a small group of carefully selected courtiers. For things that matter to prime ministers and their courts, the decision-making process shifts from formal to informal, involving only a handful of actors. For things that matter less to them, the decision-making process is horizontal, cumbersome, and consultative, and involves a multitude of actors from different government departments and agencies as well as a variety of individuals operating outside government. Court governments undermine both the traditionally bureaucratic model and basic principles that have guided the development of our Westminster-Whitehall parliamentary system. Nonetheless, Canada and the United Kingdom still cling to accountability requirements better suited to the past and the traditional bureaucratic model. Savoie concludes with a call for new accountability requirements that correspond with court government as well as the new relationships between politicians and civil servants, and civil servants and citizens.

Viewers of The Thick of It will know of special advisers as spin doctors and political careerists. Several well-known ministers have been special advisers, among them David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Jack Straw and Vince Cable. People also know about the public relations disasters involving Jo Moore, Damian McBride and Adam Smith. But what is the reality? What do special advisers actually do in government? Who are they, where do they come from, and why are they needed? This book is the most detailed study yet carried out of special advisers. The Constitution Unit's research team, led by Dr Ben Yong and Professor Robert Hazell, assembled a comprehensive database of over 600 special advisers since 1979. They conducted written surveys, and interviewed over 100 special advisers, ministers and officials from the past thirty years. They conclude that special advisers are now a permanent and indispensable part of Whitehall, but are still treated as transient and temporary. The book concludes with practical recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of special advisers through improvements to their recruitment, induction and training, support and supervision, and strengthening their accountability.

To honour the distinguished career of Donald Savoie, Governing brings together an accomplished group of international scholars who have concerned themselves with the challenges of governance, accountability, public management reform, and regional policy. Governing delves into the two primary fields of interest in Savoie's work - regional development and the nature of executive power in public administration. The majority of chapters deal with issues of democratic governance, particularly the changing relationship over the past thirty years between politicians and public servants. A second set of essays addresses the history of regional development, examining the politics of regional inequalities and the promises and pitfalls of approaches adopted by governments to resolve the most vexing policy problems. Contributors provide readers with a valuable primer on the key issues that have provoked debate among practitioners and students of government alike, while reflecting on government initiatives meant to address inadequacies. Showcasing the practical experience and scholarly engagement of its authors, this collection is a valuable addition to the fields of public administration, public policy, political governance, and regional policy. Contributors include Peter Aucoin (Dalhousie University), Herman Bakvis (University of Victoria), James Bickerton (St Francis Xavier University), Jacques Bourgault (École nationale d'administration publique/UQAM), Thomas Courchene (Queen's University), Ralph Heintzman (University of Ottawa), Mark D. Jarvis (University of Victoria), Lowell Murray (Senate of Canada, retired), B. Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh), Jon Pierre (University of Gothenburg) Mario Polèse (INRS-UCS), Christopher Pollitt (Leuven University), Donald J. Savoie (Université de Moncton), and Paul G. Thomas (University of Manitoba).

Thirty years ago, Anglo-American politicians set out to make the public sector look like the private sector. These reforms continue today, ultimately seeking to empower elected officials to shape policies and pushing public servants to manage operations in the same manner as their private-sector counterparts. In Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher?, Donald Savoie provides a nuanced account of how the Canadian federal government makes decisions. Savoie argues that the traditional role of public servants advising governments on policy has been turned on its head, and that evidence-based policy making is no longer valued as it once was. Policy making has become a matter of opinion, Google searches, focus groups, and public opinion surveys, where a well-connected lobbyist can provide any answers politicians wish to hear. As a result, public servants have lost their way and are uncertain about how they should assess management performance, how they should generate policy advice, how they should work with their political leaders, and how they should speak truth to political power - even within their own departments. Savoie demonstrates how recent management reforms in government have caused a steep rise in the overhead cost of government, as well as how the notion that public administration could be made to operate like the private sector has been misguided and costly to taxpayers. Abandoning "textbook" discussions of government and public service, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? Is a realistic portrayal of how policy decisions are made and how actors and institutions interact with one another and exposes the complexities, contradictions present in Canadian politics and governance.

Broken down into five sections explaining how public budgets are developed, Canadian Public Finance presents a comprehensive account of the budget process of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. With a specific focus on the public policy process, Geneviève Tellier walks readers through the five steps involved in the budget process including agenda-setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Taking a close look at how much influence key decision-makers actually have over the budget process, Tellier highlights recent events that reveal the political, social, and economic constraints that impact budgetary decisions. Tellier uses key words and textboxes at the end of each chapter to reflect on current issues and new developments in the world of public finance, such as gender-sensitive budgets, performance-based budgeting, and fiscal transparency.

This is the first book-length work to analyse Ontario's Local Health Integration Networks

On a day-to-day basis, what does a newly elected Member of Parliament do? How does the House of Commons work? Drawing on his years of service to five majority and three minority parliaments, Rob Walsh shares first-hand insights into the inner workings of the House, beyond the political personalities that dominate its proceedings. Inside this unique public and political institution, laws are made, taxes are imposed, political issues are debated, and the government is held to account on behalf of all Canadians. The House is the national stage on which democracy plays itself out between elections. Neither a procedural manual nor an academic critique, On the House reveals, from Walsh’s perspective, the historical origins of the House, its constitutional place in the parliamentary system, the role of committees, legislation, and administration, and its democratic functions. Providing a deeper understanding of both the House’s successes and its failures Walsh celebrates the value of parliamentary democracy while acknowledging the continuing challenges that face it. On the House is a direct, accessible, and fascinating reflection on more than twenty years of experience in the House of Commons.

This book explores the thinking of Canadian federal public service senior executives through conversations. The transformation of the environment and of the institutional order has created quite a challenge: maintaining some sort of adequacy between these evolving realities and the frames of reference in use by public sector executives. Complexity is often nothing more than a name for a new order calling for a new frame of reference, and the reluctance to abandon old conceptual frameworks is often responsible for fundamental learning disabilities. Through a series of conversations with Canadian federal senior executives about more and more daunting problems - from coping with an evolving context, to engaging intelligently with a new modus operandi, to trying to nudge and tweak programs in order to correct toxic pathologies, to reframing perceptions and redesigning organizations to meet the new challenges—weaknesses of the capabilities of the Canadian federal executives to respond to current challenges were revealed, and suggestions made about ways to kick start a process of refurbishment of these capabilities.

Canada's representative democracy is confronting important challenges. At the top of the list is the growing inability of the national government to perform its most important roles: namely mapping out collective actions that resonate in all regions as well as enforcing these measures. Others include Parliament's failure to carry out important responsibilities, an activist judiciary, incessant calls for greater transparency, the media's rapidly changing role, and a federal government bureaucracy that has lost both its way and its standing. Arguing that Canadians must reconsider the origins of their country in order to understand why change is difficult and why they continue to embrace regional identities, Democracy in Canada explains how Canada's national institutions were shaped by British historical experiences, and why there was little effort to bring Canadian realities into the mix. As a result, the scope and size of government and Canadian federalism have taken on new forms largely outside the Constitution. Parliament and now even Cabinet have been pushed aside so that policy makers can design and manage the modern state. This also accounts for the average citizen's belief that national institutions cater to economic elites, to their own members, and to interest groups at their own expense. A masterwork analysis, Democracy in Canada investigates the forces shaping the workings of Canadian federalism and the country's national political and bureaucratic institutions.

Pasquinade is a satire or critical comment traditionally posted in a public place in ancient Rome; in particular, on the statue of Pasquino. Pasquinades in E is Gilles Paquet’s contribution to this waning tradition. These essays are exercises in critical thinking. They aim to exorcise a number of mental prisons about aspects of governing, and at denouncing pathologies in our ways of thinking and governing ourselves, by exposing their toxic nature. Silence on such matters connotes tacit agreement with toxic nonsense and, therefore, guilt by association for the ensuing mal-governance.