Assessing Whole-of-Government Readiness
While it is tempting to force government agencies into working together, it might to be wise to determine if they are ready to work together. Here's how:
WHOLE OF GOVERNMENTPUBLIC POLICY
Government is built vertically, not horizontally. The government is designed to operate in separated (but not isolated) silos of specialization. Each silo develops its own ecosystem of procedures and hierarchal command structures that only links with the other silos at the highest point of executive authority. On the other hand, governments rarely encounter simple and straightforward challenges, rendering the vertical silo setup incapable of dealing with these challenges.
For example, a city faces an influx of internally displaced people (IDPs) from agricultural communities due to drought. These IDPs settle near the main urban water source and set up makeshift houses. Their children are not enrolled in schools missing out on their education and instead try to work in the local markets where they are exploited by criminal networks. This problem is complex, it is comprised of multiple layers. One government silo cannot address this problem on its own. Drought is a climate problem that is under the mandate of the Department of Agriculture. The exploitation of children is a Police matter. The settlement near the water source is a Public Health issue and the Department of Education is responsible for the children’s schooling. Each different government “silo” has something to contribute to this complex challenge. This is where the “Whole of Government Approach” comes in to address the fragmentation of mandates and unify departments to effectively approach complex problems.
The Whole of Government Approach is a public administration practice that is initiated to achieve policy coherence and a holistic, impactful approach to addressing complex issues that impact society. Successfully implementing the Whole of Government Approach requires an actively planned effort to prepare and organize individual government agencies to work together towards a common goal. Simply announcing a committee with agencies 1, 2 and 3 and tasking them to address a certain issue rarely yeilds results. An important and often overlooked step to developing a Whole of Government Committee is assessing the readiness of the potential constituent agencies to work with the approach.
There are three main assessment clusters of assessment for each potential agency/ministry/department that needs to be a member of a Whole of Government set-up. Under these assessment clusters are 11 metrics that each entity is measured against and the aggregated results are used to measure the readiness of the entities to work using the Whole of Government Approach. I will walk you through the metrics, the best way to collect the information on the metrics and how to analyze the readiness of the committee to effectively work together.
The Metrics
Background
The three clusters of the metrics are (1) intervention, (2) team, and (3) culture. Each covers key areas of the assessment.
The culture describes the history of these agencies in collaboration and their capability to break from the entrenched mindset of silo structures and work effectively with other agencies.
The team describes the constituent agencies, their number, and the appropriateness of involving them in these structures;
The intervention is a description of the purpose of formation i.e. a description of what the problem is and if it warrants a Whole of Government Approach.
The following chart depicts the three clusters and the measurement metrics under each cluster:
Each metric answers a question that addresses the suitability of the Whole of Government Approach:
Buy-in: Is the senior sponsor supportive and committed to undertaking a Whole of Society Approach to address the issue at hand?
Trust: How trusting are the different institutions in each other? How comfortable are they in each other’s ability to transcend their individual agency’s agenda to achieve the initiative’s common goals?
Decision Making: Is the member selected to actively represent your institution capable of reasonably making decisions on behalf of their institutions?
Budgetary Allocation: Does the government have the financial versatility to allocate funds and reconcile accounts among different institutions working on a common initiative?
Team Size: How large is the team size (i.e. the number of institutions designated as key members)?
Experience: Is your institution experienced in adopting a Whole of Society approach?
Access: Does your institution have access to the target beneficiaries of the initiative?
Individual Incentive: Is there an arrangement to incentivize the designated representative of the institution for their participation in the Whole of Society approach activities (e.g. career progression, reduction of non-WOG workload, financial compensation)?
Context Stability: Is the context in which the intervention taking place a stable environment (safe, politically stable)?
Criticality: How critical is the issue? To what extent is it likely to have damaging repercussions if not addressed appropriately?
Complexity: Is the problem complex? does it have multiple variables and layers?
The Data Collection
The information on the metrics must be collected from the primary source. The most suitable source is to survey representatives of the targeted agencies that will potentially form the set-up. The responses are likely to be subjective so a Likert scale response to each of the eleven questions is suitable. It is important to phrase the questions well, and probe the respondent if needed before scaling the response for each metric.
Remember: (1) is the most conducive response to the Whole of Government arrangement and (10) is the least favorable. So if the response with an interviewee from the health department on their experience in multi-agency initiatives is that they have great experience, then the appropriate selection would be (1) or (2).
The Analysis
After each respondent fills out their questionnaire, we need to aggregate their responses and plot their averages in a radial diagram. So plot the responses in tabular form first:
Through the radial diagram, we can have a visual assessment of how suitable the Whole of Society Approach may be. The more centrally the plotted results are positioned the more suitable the Whole of Society approach is in this particular context for this particular intervention. If the results are slightly shifted you can opt to go with the Whole of Society approach but apply certain measures to the areas that tested unfavorably. If the results are skewed towards the outer limit of the diagram then it might not be suitable to adopt this approach. The following is an example of three possible conclusions:
Scenario 1
In this case, the average results plot through the center of the radial diagram. This points out that the perceived conditions are highly favorable toward adopting a whole-of-government approach to the problem. There is one anomaly with regard to the budgetary allocation that may be addressed in the mandate of the committee formation.
Decision: Initiate the Whole-of-Government Approach
Scenario 2
The results are central but three data points scored badly which indicates three areas that need to be addressed (budgetary allocation, team size, and individual incentives).
Decision: Proceed with a Whole of Society Approach but adopt firm measures to address the three areas.
Scenario 3
The results are generally peripheral and the only preferable point is trust which cant help as a standalone factor.
Decision: Re-examine the conditions and the options, adopting a Whole of Society Approach under these conditions will not be productive. A sensible course of action would be to assign a lead agency to the initiative and have the head of the executive government direct the needed synergies from other agencies.