Canada’s top public servants meet agency theory in the Harper years (2006–2015)
| Author | Jacques Bourgault,James Iain Gow |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852320905348 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Canada’s top public
servants meet agency
theory in the Harper
years (2006–2015)
Jacques Bourgault
ENAP, Canada
James Iain Gow
University of Montreal, Canada
Abstract
A survey of Canada’s top public servants was used to test the effects on them of the agency
version of the public service bargain held by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper
(2006–2015). Most results were as expected: increasing politicization and prime ministerial
influence added much complexity to the deputy minister’s job; and ministers’ political staffers
acted as guardians of the agency bargain. However, the survey led to the observation of a
decline in ministers’ powers and to the surprising increase of the parliamentary accountability
of deputy ministers, as well as to some challenge to the concept of public service bargains.
Points for practitioners
It is a good idea to consider what the main components of the public service bargain
are in any public workplace, that is, what expectations exist about duties, competen-
cies, criteria of evaluation, rewards, and discipline for permanent employees and polit-
ical staffers. Too strong an agency bargain creates confusion about responsibilities,
accountability, and a culture of risk avoidance. Staffers should not disrupt the chain
of command and should treat public servants with respect and courtesy.
Keywords
accountability, Canada, central agencies, deputy ministers, political staff agency, public
service bargains, trustee
Corresponding author:
Jacques Bourgault, ENAP, 4750 Henri Julien Montreal, Quebec H2T3E5, Canada.
Email: jacques.bourgault@enap.ca
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852320905348
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2022, Vol. 88(2) 302–319
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Introduction
How do senior officials cope with attempts to change the conditions under which
they work? Interviews with the federal government of Canada’s top public servants
in 2015 allowed us to evaluate the impact of changes in the implicit bargain
between politicians and public servants in the years 2001–2015, the most important
and significant being the arrival in power in 2006 of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper (Conservative), at the head of minority governments in 2006 and then a
majority government from 2012 to 2015.
This article aims to look at the impact on the public service bargain (PSB)
flowing from those changes, both from a conceptual standpoint and as they
were thought of by the two leading political parties in Canada. While some liter-
ature exists about the perception of chiefs of staff (CoS) of the PSB’s evolution
(Craft, 2015; Wilson, 2016), few recent studies deal with the Canadian deputy
ministers’ (DMs’) participation in the PSB (Bourgault and Van Dorpe, 2013).
This article’s scientific contribution and originality is aimed at learning how the
2015 DMs described the impacts of this evolution on their role.
The concept of PSBs
The concept of PSBs has been used to include “the understandings ...that exist
between senior public servants and other political actors over loyalty, competency
and rewards” (p.17), (Hood and Lodge, 2006). Those questions have long been
at the centre of political science debates about politics and administration.
They matter, write Hood and Lodge (2006: 10), “because they go to the heart of
politics. They are part of the living constitution of any state.”
If we go back to the 19th century, representative government brought with it a
struggle between executives and legislatures over the control of public budgets and
employment. In personnel, this led to a spoils bargain, which, while still existing as
a practice, finds few defenders in the 21st century. In their comparative study of
Public Management Reform, Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011: 96) identify the great
debate as between a trustee bargain in which senior public servants are seen as
trustees or guardians of the public interest insofar as it is embodied in the institu-
tions and practices of the state, and an agency bargain in which public servants are
agents or servants whose task is to implement the decisions of the elected
government.
The trustee bargain may be recognized by: a certain sphere of autonomy for
the public service; the existence of a career service chosen and promoted on the
basis of merit competition; the competency of sages; the loyalty of providing
safeguards for ministers; relatively predictable rewards; impartial or non-
partisan administration, anonymity; loyalty; and accountability to ministers.
The agency bargain may be recognized by: an increased concern for political
sensitivity; a limited length of time for direct contact with ministers; the absence
of a reserved sphere of autonomy for public servants; direct operational
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Bourgault and Gow
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