Designing a merit‐based process for appointing boards of abcs: Lessons from the Nova Scotia reform experience

Abstract: Efforts to design merit‐based appointment systems for the boards of government agencies, boards and commissions (abcs) have gained greater priority over the past decade in order to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the political process, improve the governance of organizations operating at arm's length from ministers, and reduce the risks to the public interest and public purse that come with incompetent boards. The Nova Scotia reform experience in this regard is instructive because this province's appointment regime not only encompasses a legislative committee veto over ministerial appointments, a power unique to this province in the Canadian and comparative Westminster systems, but also uniquely sets the merit standard as relative‐merit, that is, the appointment of the most qualified of all applicants, and not merely a qualified candidate. This article reviews this provincial experience and concludes that a merit‐based appointment system that pursues relative merit can be created but only by restricting the authority of ministers to a veto over the appointment of candidates nominated by the abcs themselves. Sommaire: Ces dix demières années, les efforts déployés pour concevoir des systemes de nomination au mérite pour les conseils d'administration d'organismes, des régies et des commissions du gouvernement ont obtenu une priorité beaucoup plus grande, et cela, afin de rehausser la confiance du public envers I'intégrite du processus politique, d'ameliorer la gouvernance d'organismes fonctionnant sans contrôle ministériel direct et de réduire les risques que représentent les conseils incompétents pour le bien et les deniers publics. L'expérience de la réforme entreprise en NouvelleÉcosse est à cet égard instructive pour les partisans de la réforme. Le régime de nomination de cette province comporte non seulement un droit de veto de la part d'un comité législatif sur les nominations ministéielles, pouvoir unique à cette province dans le systéme canadien et le systéme comparatif de Westminster, mais il établit également la norme de mérite comme un mérite relatif, c'est‐à‐dire la nomination de la personne la mieux qualifiée parmi tous les candidats et non simplement la nomination d'une personne qualifiée. Le présent article examine I'expérience de cette province et conclut qu'un système de nomination au mérite visant le mérite relatif peut être mis en place, mais seulernent à condition de limiter le pouvoir des ministres à opposer leur veto à la nomination de candidats par les organismes, régies et commissions gouvernementaux.     

The governance of children with disabilities and their families: Charting the public‐sector regime in Canada

Abstract: This article discusses governance and accountability structures that relate to the contemporary agenda of inclusion for children with disabilities in Canada. Who are the major public‐sector actors in policies for children with disabilities and their families? What governance roles does the sector perform? What are the defining trends that characterize the sector in the present age? The scope of the analysis is a broad scan of structures and roles rather than a detailed inventory of programs. Three clusters of governing activities are addressed: policy planning, consultation and coordination; creating structures, allocating resources and delivering services; and accountability roles and processes. Each of the clusters is examined in relation to public‐sector organizations general to government and to organizations specific to child and family and to disability issues. The education, health‐care and social‐service sectors are profiled to identify important trends and issues in the governance of Canadian disability policy. A concern of the public sector's governance regime for children with disabilities and their families is the absence of clear, consistent and central accountability mechanisms. There is a déjà vu discourse on disability reform, a strong sense that we have been here before. Among other factors, this frustrating pace of reform is due to bureaucratic factors and weak accountability mechanisms. To overcome this déjà vu, the author calls for the adoption of a more inclusive and integrated governance regime for the disability policy domain. Sommaire: Le prdéjàsent article porte sur les structures de gouvernance et de reddition de comptes concernant le programme aduel d'inclusion des enfants handicapés au Canada. Qui sont les principaux acteurs du secteur public responsables des politiques pour les enfants handicapés et leurs familles ? Quels rôles de gouvemance estce que le secteur joue? Quelles sont les tendances spécifiques qui caractérisent ce secteur à I'heure actuelle? L'analyse porte sur un vaste ensemble de structures et de rôles, plutôt que sur un inventaire détaillé de programmes. Trois groupes d'activités gouvernementales sont étudiés:la planification, la consultation et la coordination de politiques; la création de structures, l'affectation de ressources et la prestation de services; et les rôles et processus de la responsabilisation. Chacun de ces groupes est examiné par rapport aux organismes du secteur public dépendant du gouvemement et aux organismes relatifs à l'enfance et à la famille et aux questions d'invalidité. Les secteurs de l'éducation, des soins de santé et des services sociaux sont présentés pour identifier les tendances et questions importantes dans la gouvemance de la politique canadienne sur l'invalidité. Une précupation du régime de gouvernance du secteur public concemant les enfants handicapés et leurs familles est I'absence de mécanismes centraux de responsabilisation qui soient clairs, consistants et centralisés. Ce discours sur la réforme de l'invalidité a déjàété tenu. La lenteur frustrante de cette réforme est attribuable entre autres à des facteurs bureaucratiques et à de faibles mécanismes de reddition de comptes. Pour aller au‐dellà de ce déjà vu, I'auteur sumère l'adoption d'un régime de gouvemance plus inclusif et plus intégré pour le domaine des politiques en matière d'invalidité.     

Accountability and Joined‐up Government

The Coombs Royal Commission identified a range of issues relating to the coordination of services. While there has been renewed interest over the last five years in the UK, Canada and Australia in initiatives that support joined‐up and cross‐cutting government, there has been only limited work to address the potential recognised by the Commission for these initiatives to result in unclear accountabilities. This paper reviews accountability approaches to joined‐up government and identifies that while the sharing of accountability for outcomes has emerged quietly over the past 25 years, joining‐up initiatives are demanding a clearer articulation of causal relationships regarding the sharing of outcomes and a fuller consideration of the multiple relationships in the partnership arrangements involved.     

To Give or Not to Give: Modeling Individuals' Contribution Decisions

Employing data from a recent national survey on campaign finance, we examine the contribution behavior of individual citizens in the 2000 election. By disaggregating types of contributions, our model enables us to observe potential heterogeneity in the determinants of giving money to parties and candidates. We find that for both types of contributions, the effects of informational resources and solicitation on the decision to contribute outweigh those of financial resources. In addition, we propose both a theoretical and an empirical distinction between the selection effects of solicitation and the stimulus effects of solicitation. By distinguishing between these dual dimensions of solicitation, our analysis provides new insight into the causal linkages between income, solicitation, and contributions. We find that while solicitation increases the likelihood of contributing through selective targeting or rational prospecting, it also does so through a stimulus mechanism.     

What to Do When Stakeholders Matter: The Case of Problem Formulation for the African American Men Project of Hennepin County, Minnesota

We propose a series of stakeholder analyses designed to help organizations—especially governments—think and act strategically during the process of problem formulation in order to advance the common good. Specifically, we argue that at least five sets of analyses are necessary, including the creation of (1) a power versus interest grid; (2) a stakeholder influence diagram; (3) bases of power–directions of interest diagrams; (4) a map for finding the common good and structuring a winning argument; and (5) diagrams indicating how to tap individual stakeholder interests to pursue the common good. What the analyses do is help to transform a seemingly "wicked problem"—for example, how to produce better outcomes for African American men aged 18–30—into something more tractable, and therefore amenable to collective action. In other words, stakeholder analysis can be used to link political rationality with technical rationality so that support can be mobilized for substantive progress.