Enhance cross-agency collaboration and governance across networks
The government of the future is working smoothly and across borders to meet the challenges that our connected world poses to us more than ever. We are seeing increasing numbers of business and government executives managing projects that work across multiple entities to deal with challenges that require expertise and solutions from diverse sources. Examples of such challenges include economic development, intelligence sharing, disaster preparedness and recovery, and a range of social, environmental, and financial topics.
Many believe that the Internet makes the government of networks inevitable. It is as if network information systems are on par with network government. Many individuals still believe that IT does not act as an intermediary within and across entities. This reduces network layers and removes borders. Although some roles, tasks and entire entities (e.g., file processing, information exchange, printing) are automated, or outsourced (e.g., email, social media, and cloud services), However, information technology is only an enabler for networkers, namely ministries and government agencies that have a strong capacity to work across borders to address important challenges.
I was recently asked to prepare a report on the presidential transition in the United States recommending that the next administration include the concept of "administration" as an integral part of its transition plans. Especially the management required to develop and sustain collaboration across bodies. If we look at the U.S. central government more closely, We observe the emergence of an institutional system that stimulates cross-agency cooperation since the Clinton administration in the nineties. This underscores that technology alone cannot strengthen collaborative networks. The existence of such institutional systems is therefore essential for effective and sustainable cooperation between bodies.
In this system, each entity plays a specific role and the entities with specific roles interact with each other to form a supportive basis for the system. The below entities are reaching out to each other to move policy formulation to the implementation and management of initiatives across agencies and to support the integration, integration and simplification of administrative systems in the federal government. While some dimensions of this system focus on information technology, There are other dimensions that promote and support the regulatory changes necessary to make inter-agency initiatives meaningful and sustainable over time.
Digital services have become a popular topic. Consider the technology based on the central government grant management system called Grants.gov, If technology alone could build cooperation, the process of simplifying and regulating U.S. federal grants would have been achieved since the nineties. The federal government is providing approximately $600 billion in grants or financial packages to cities, municipalities, universities, colleges and others. It should be noted that Grants.gov is just a gateway, Important of course, It enables institutions to find and apply for the right federal grants for them.
Work continues to address challenges such as simplifying implementation, improving coordination mechanisms between service providers and improving service delivery, They are the same goals that were adopted as laws in 1999. Organizing government aid programs across agencies using the Benefits.gov platform tells a similar story of broad-scale integration that lacks depth. While technological innovation is bringing about radical changes, However, innovations at the institutional level are progressing slowly. In the nineties, Many governments in many countries have begun to adopt networked governance, a whole-of-government approach to leveraging information technology and addressing challenges between regions and states. In my 2001 book, Building the Virtual State, I spoke about some of these efforts and the resistance I faced from bureaucratic groups. Since then, Many managers and government experts have spent many years organizing government administrative functions and workflows across diverse areas such as grants, aid, human capital, IT services, acquisitions, and more. Many governments have made real progress. Organizational changes have not kept pace with the same speed in harnessing the possibilities offered by digital technologies, including cloud services, social media, and many other recent digital developments.
Inter-agency cooperation legislation: Cross-agency priority goals
Some States have legislated inter-agency cooperation and each has achieved varying degrees of success. In the United States, The Government Performance and Results Update Act 2020 is limited to strengthening performance management but requires the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to formulate a set of priority goals across agencies to manage and regulate new roles, requirements, and institutions to support their achievement as well as strategic objectives at the agency level.
There are two types of goals, The first focuses on achieving tasks and the second on supporting tasks, Both include two types of challenges. Mission-focused collaboration brings together a selection of experts, knowledge and information to address latent and inherent challenges across entities, Examples include international trade, food safety, sustainable communities, disaster preparedness and intelligence sharing. Task-focused collaboration seeks to streamline administrative processes. The current set of priority objectives across bodies is illustrated below.
We can say that the modernization of the processes for granting permits for infrastructure between authorities has been successful. The objective of this initiative was "Inter-agency coordination and enhanced transparency through the formulation of inter-agency coordination policies" to synchronize reviews, licensing and decision-making processes (performance.gov), The legislation provided the legal basis for the project and defined its time frame and deliverables. The Permit Dashboard is the technical platform supporting collaboration (www.permits.performance.gov) by clarifying the status of permits and reviews associated with large infrastructure projects.
We must recognize that painstaking benchmarking mechanisms between programmes, developing timeframe indicators, and helping agencies coordinate permitting processes are what succeeds and is sustainable. For example A recent law allowed for centralized collection of fees, enabling the Inter-Agency Permit Board to direct sources where they were needed.
The most significant challenge faced by the draft priority targets across the bodies was not related to technology sharing, but by exchanging resources across regions and states and exchanging information when it is prohibited to a particular body, As well as building joint customer processes and retaining leaders and employees within a fixed budget.
An emerging ecosystem of organizations dealing with multiple entities
Instead of focusing exclusively on known technologies that support collaboration (such as dashboards, encyclopedias, portals), Government managers should focus on the startup ecosystem that supports collaboration between agencies. In the U.S. federal government, The Executive Office of the President plays a key role in continuing to lead initiatives that cross the boundaries of the Authority. The President's Policy Councils, which include the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Security Council, the Environmental Quality Council, and the Local Policy Council, are concerned with translating presidential priorities into practical action.
Priority goal projects across mission-focused bodies are co-led that includes a policy council officer and an official from a key federal body. The "Administration" offices of the Office of Management and Budget also play a very important role in this system and are legally obliged to manage performance. Including cross-body collaboration. Other government-wide administrative policy bodies are in the Department of Treasury, the Office of Human Resources Management and the Department of General Services.
Boards across entities include the President's Board of Directors, which includes the Chief Operating Officers (Deputy Ministers) and the Chairmen of two governing bodies. For its part, The CEO Boards are comprised of CEOs involved in acquisitions, finance, information and human capital and focus on promoting harmony and harmony in the management system, especially organizational and institutional roles and practices to leverage network-based technologies.
The Performance Improvement Board includes performance improvement officers from each body (formed under the Government Performance and Results Update Act). These groups work with the Office of Management and Budget to achieve cross-agency goals and improve performance management using internal consulting, mentoring, training, cross-body meetings and conferences, challenge sessions, and working meetings to share information and promising practices. These roles, new entities and the networks they form are key components for coordinating and organizing efforts to support collaboration across entities, It is also the link and mediator that connects a wide range of government agencies. An institutional system has been established to support collaboration across bodies, Successful innovators have noted this system and the nature of its work and have leveraged it to support sustainable collaboration across entities.
This article was written by Professor Jane E. Fountain, Director of the National Center for Digital Governance, University of Massachusetts, United States.
