What if Ottawa empowered, not enfeebled the public service? | Opinion

If practice makes perfect, what does a lack of practice do to a skill set?

The question came to mind reading Alex Marland’s recent column about Mark Carney’s office, which sounds as centralised as the Prime Minister’s Office was during my time working for Stephen Harper. Translated: a lot of decisions are being shipped to the ‘Centre’ instead of being made at the periphery of government.

Anyway, the answer to the question of not practicing is obvious: You get worse. Whether that’s golf, ping pong, or the administration of government. So it’s worrying that the PMO is trying to keep control over something as broad as the entire function of government.

Mr. Carney probably won’t welcome the counsel of this ghost from Christmas past, but my recommendation would be to take the hand brake off and let the minister’s offices and their departments get on with a bit of practice. The issues facing the country are tough to solve, and while the Liberals don’t quite need to be perfect, they need to be pretty close to it over the entire course of their mandate in order to put the country back on solid footing. The more practice the cabinet and their staff get early on, the better. And the same goes for the public service.

That said, the minority (for now) Parliament is feeding the desire for control, which is why the default mode is to super ego brain everything from the ‘Centre’. Add to that the fact that the prime minister is a man with a big brain (and ego) and a distinguished track record prior to entering politics, while his cabinet are… not, and you begin to understand the government’s M.O. But in the long run, it’s counterproductive. And unsustainable. No matter how talented a team you assemble in the Prime Minister’s Office, there is only so much juice in any one group of lemons.

Which is why it’s madness to ignore the entire government grove just outside the PMO’s door. There is a lot of juice in the ministers’ offices and their line departments. But it will evaporate or otherwise go off if not consumed, whether for policy or communications. The point of a political platform is to give the ministry and public service guidance and a numbered outline to paint. Having to send press material to the Centre for sign off on every brush stroke is demoralizing. If you wanted to have your decisions gainsayed and/or overruled in perpetuity, you would have stayed at your parents’ house. You either trust your team or you don’t.

Can the Centre coordinate without controlling? In theory, yes, but here is where the always-on nature of digital communication now feeds the controlling instinct. If every government utterance anywhere can be seen at any time by anyone, and with the barrier to publication now zero, a molehill can quickly mutate into a mountain. In this environment, you’d want sign off on everything, too.

The downside of the all-controlling sign-off is that every mistake then gets laid at your door. And a decision made by the prime minister will always have to be defended more vigorously than one made further down the line. Why not, then, put some scandal buffer in by delegating decision-making? It is surely better to risk the pawns than the king. Most importantly, mistakes made early in a mandate when people are still learning will more easily be forgotten than those made closer to the end of a mandate, when people will be tallying a government’s wins and losses.

Of course, with practice, errors should become fewer in number over time. And that’s the point: A government should want to strengthen all members of its team over time, especially in a minority scenario. More experience, more capacity, fewer errors. Practice makes perfect.

And then there are the less tangible benefits. A work environment where you’re not trusted and the boss micromanages most files is not a happy workplace. The public service is already down at the prospect of cuts. Why not show the ones who make it through that they are trusted to get on with the job?

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.