Every year, recommendations from the annual Lac Carling Congress on electronic service delivery are turned over to the Public Sector CIO Council and the Public Sector Service Delivery Council. Their review of the proposals begins immediately after the Congress every year and continues in a series of meetings through the fall and winter. What follows is a summary of their thinking in the wake of the first session.
On the three broad areas of electronic service delivery, the Councils reported:
Multi-jurisdictional Service Transformation
• Building on the work of the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service (ICCS), the Councils have agreed to work toward establishing a multi-jurisdictional organization to function as a research agency, a governance body for incubating inter-jurisdictional projects and a secretariat for the entire initiative.
• A business service delivery vision and a supporting process for use in and between jurisdictions continues to be a high-priority issue.
• With information management a key consideration, and eContact a priority project, the Councils are considering a governance model for eContact as well as sustainability options and a review of recommendations for future direction.
• On a related front, the Councils are reviewing project charters and plans developed by the PSCIOC XML sub-committee, with an eye to pan-Canadian IM standards in support of inter-jurisdictional service delivery.
• With the PSCIOC already working with the Municipal Information Systems Association (MISA), the PSSDC is planning to partner with an equivalent municipal organization and provide a similar level of participation.
Collaboration in service delivery
• The Councils will address issues of security and privacy, client/service segmentation, marketing and communication of service options, and channel synergies in preparing the major research initiative Citizens First 4.
• The Integrated Services Delivery sub-committee of the Councils will continue to explore inter-jurisdictional best practices.
• The Councils will continue to look to the ICCS for assistance with cross-jurisdictional surveys of citizens and businesses, developing and maintaining the Common Measurements Tool (CMT) and developing best practices.
Identification, Authentication and Authorization
• Working with reports to Lac Carling by the Joint IA&A Working Group, the Councils expect to provide direction on governance options, pilot projects and funding models, as well as possibly extending the mandate of the Working Group.
In addition to the three broad areas of service delivery, both Councils continue to support the need for political engagement on the e-government agenda — an argument made explicit by the political leaders panel at the Congress — and continue to explore opportunities to interact with political stakeholders.
Conclusion
The Councils noted several points during the Congress where participants experienced a shared need to “locate” or “position” all the service transformation activities taking place across jurisdictions. For example, there are questions as to how XML is related to eContact and BizPaL — as well as its relationship to the CBSC proof-of-concept and how they all related to privacy or IA&A. Through their Joint Coordinating Committee, the PSCIOC and the PSSDC have begun to develop a “road map” to describe the drivers for collaboration, the types of opportunities and a matrix of projects or work under way. The Councils hope to present the roadmap to next year’s Lac Carling Congress.