Partnership-based governance: Lessons from IT management

Abstract

* The co-authors of this article are Helen Jelich, Special Advisor, IT Executive Development Program, Community Renewal Division, Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat; Robert Poupart, Executive Vice President, EDS Systemhouse Ltd.; Richard Austin, Legal Counsel, EDS Systemhouse Ltd.; and Jeffrey Roy, Senior Fellow of the Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa. THIS ARTICLE REPORTS ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF A multi-stakeholder panel discussion which took place during the October 1999 Technology in Government Week (GTEC) in Ottawa. The theme of the panel was “IT and PartnershipBased Governance,” and its purpose was to explore the consequences of new information technologies on collaborative relationships between the public and private sectors. The panel analyzed three distinct dimensions: the meaning of partnership, trends in public sector reform, and the importance of managing people well. The first section provides insight on the interdependence between business and government, and the challenges of managing relationships in a manner consistent with the true meaning of partnership. In the second section, drawing on comparative research on IT-rooted public sector innovations, we examine some specific experiments in partnership-based governance in other countries with Westminster parliamentary traditions. IM/IT (information management/information technology) is now widely regarded as a key driver in the search for innovative models of service delivery and collaborative processes of decision making. The final section underlines human resources management as a key element in this environment. It also looks at one central dimension of the Canadian federal government’s response to these new challenges – the IM/IT Community Renewal Initiative within the Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat.