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The business-like reforms of the Canadian Public Service over the past 30 years have left it bigger, costlier and more inefficient than it was, according to one of the country’s leading public administration experts.

Canada Research Chair in Administration and Governance at the Université de Moncton, Donald Savoie said further plans to cut spending would come from front-line programs and services rather than operations unless many practices were simplified, de-layered and rolled back.

Dr Savoie said the New Public Management (NPM) measures that were brought in 30 years ago had failed and even backfired.

He said those measures were designed to make the Public Service run like a business; have bureaucrats think like entrepreneurs; and treat citizens like customers.

Dr Savoie said however efforts to make Public Servants flexible, dynamic, entrepreneurial and efficient had instead had the opposite impact.

“Practices implemented to replicate the bottom line that drives the private sector backfired by creating a public service that is so risk-averse and mired in bureaucracy that it is “collapsing under its own weight,” Dr Savoie said.

“It’s been a standard line for a long time now so when the government tells me they are going to protect front-line services, my guess is that it isn’t going to happen.”

He said the essence of the Public Service was to provide front-line services to Canadians and reformers had lost sight of that.

“The Public Service is tasked with managing the paper burden, feeding the beast and managing processes and we can lay much of that at the doorstep of the auditor-general and other parliamentary officers,” Dr Savoie said.

Ottawa, 6 March 2013

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