The saga of the cows that escaped from a farm in St. Barnabas, on the run in Saint-Sévère, is emblematic of the limits of our compartmentalized organizations. During the show Everybody talks about it of November 27, the director general of the municipality, Marie-Andrée Cadorette, listed the many steps taken with various departments and public bodies to find a solution to the multiple consequences caused by the incident. Each replied that the problem was the responsibility of another ministry or another organization.
Beyond the bucolic imagery that makes it so tasty, the incident illustrates how state authorities are stuck in their respective “jurisdictions”. This undermines their ability to act quickly in unprecedented situations faced by local communities or individuals. To the adage “everyone has his job, and the cows will be well looked after”, we should add “on the condition of consulting each other”!
This is a fundamental principle of public administration law: a body created by law can only act to the extent permitted by law. A public body can only meddle in what falls within its mandate. What does not fall within his job description recorded in the laws or regulations is left out.
Those who act within these organizations have developed the reflex of asking the question: does this fall within our mandate? In itself, this is legitimate; it is healthy for everyone to give priority to their primary mission. But too often, this reflex supplants everything. Such compartmentalization can border on a vision in silos. This complicates initiatives. Above all, this reflex hinders the ability of public services to respond in a timely manner to situations that are unprecedented or that are insensitive to administrative borders.
In the name of accountability requirements, procedures have been multiplied to ensure that a public body or service does not engage in activities that go beyond its remit. Even if they are based on laudable intentions, these heavinesses end up hindering the action of public services.
Obstacle courses
The accumulation of procedures imposed by the silo structure of public services generates complexity and delays. It is possible in a few clicks to buy a plane ticket to go around the world. But interacting with government services to, for example, obtain or renew a passport remains an obstacle course. However, they are operations of equivalent complexity.
Depending on the departments or agencies with which he interacts, a citizen must identify himself online each time according to different methods. He will often have to use different passwords from one department to another, and it is not certain that the interface configurations are similar from one organization to another. If the interaction takes place with a federal agency, he will have to identify himself according to the methods prescribed by this one. But such an identification will not necessarily be valid for other federal organizations and even less for the authorities coming under his province or city.
The basic act of identifying oneself online is often so complex that we are offered to use identification through a bank or other private identification provider, for example, the identifiers offered by Apple or Microsoft. For lack of having upgraded its modes of operation, the State relies on the mechanisms of private companies to ensure functions as crucial as those of managing the identities of individuals.
Of course, all this is done in the name of reasons which, taken individually, are legitimate. This is to prevent slippage, abuse, and even identity theft. But, too often, the burden of managing this complexity, cultivated in the name of respecting the mandate of each administrative alcove, falls on the shoulders of the citizen.
Flexible laws
Yet there are strategies to mitigate the harms of the tendency to operate in silos. By avoiding formulating the laws and the powers they confer on public bodies in a finicky way, we limit the risks that the law will become obsolete at the slightest change in practices. For example, to deal with the situations created by the use of technological tools—some of which were not even invented when the law came into force—we recommend drafting flexible laws.
To limit the situations that “fall between two chairs”, public services must be forced to operate in networks where everyone acts in complementarity. This makes it possible to attenuate the silo effect that can result from these laws describing with a luxury of precision situations likely to change due to innovations, customs that have evolved or other unforeseen events.
The imposition of limits on the capacities of public organizations to act in a network and to transcend administrative silos responds to legitimate reasons. But this is too often a pretext for refusing to change ways of doing things. By persisting in this kind of stubbornness, it is the legitimacy and relevance of public service that is discredited.