Title: Building shared accountability into service transformation partnerships

Authors: John Langford, Jeffrey Roy

Addresses: School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada. ' School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada

Abstract: Governments at all levels in Canada have entered into partnerships with the industry to effect user-focused, cross-agency service integration and multichannel service delivery. This article examines the problem of developing shared accountability mechanisms for public-private service transformation partnerships, which satisfy the demands of new business relationships and traditional democratic governance values. It first explores the widening canvas of collaborative information technology-driven partnerships and then draws on the emerging shared accountability literature and practices to set out five conditions which should be met in the establishment of a shared accountability regime for such partnerships. These criteria statements are used to analyse the accountability provisions of a new partnership between Service BC (the lead service delivery entity for the British Columbia government) and a consortium led by IBM Canada. The most significant shortcoming would appear to be its very limited public dimension. The article ends with a discussion of how that problem might be addressed.

Keywords: e-government; electronic government; democratic governance; service transformation; partnership; collaboration; procurement; shared accountability; digital; private-public partnerships; PPPs; performance; Canada; collaborative IT; information technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2009.023490

International Journal of Public Policy, 2009 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.232 - 250

Published online: 25 Feb 2009 *

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