A bit late on blogging this, but anyhow.
Last week there were a couple of stories in the Ottawa Citizen (on Thursday and Friday) that touched on impartiality in the federal public service.
From the Friday story, titled Internet age a challenge to impartial public service:
The commission [ie, the PSC] concluded the young PCO analyst who posted his support for the Liberal party had crossed the line with “improper political activity,” but found no evidence that this affected his ability to do his job.
The employee wasn’t disciplined for his Facebook entry other than receiving a letter from the commission warning against “political activities” that could undermine his ability to do his job impartially — or leave that impression.
The unnamed bureaucrat wasn’t a senior executive but he did work for PCO, which has a more politically sensitive mandate than other departments.
Some thoughts:
1. Tempting to write this off as a PCO thing, since life is different at “the centre.” But that would be a mistake — especially for people working in communications and marketing, as we routinely bump up against the political/administrative divide in government. Impartiality is important throughout the bureaucracy.
2. Nor is it an age thing — leaving aside the fact that “young PCO analyst” is pretty ambigous, it is clear that social networking is increasingly popular among all workplace demographics.
3. In one sense, nothing has changed. Listing your political affiliation on a social networking site is analogous to wearing a party badge or political button on your coat. If you want to be seen as impartial, don’t do it.
4. Social networks like make it all too easy for this kind of thing to happen. When I signed up for Facebook, I remember that the “political affiliation” question was part of the registration process. Incredibly easy for an inattentive user to pick something that they will later regret since their focus is on getting signed up.
5. Yes social networking is redrawing the line between public/private. My rule of thumb – err on the side of caution and treat online participation as more public than private. I assume that how I present yourself online always has a an impact on my personal reputation and the reputation of my employer. (Writing this, it occurs to me that it’s probably no different in the private sector.) By the by, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been doing great work on privacy issues around social networking.
6. As cases like these start to pile up, it will be tempting to simply block off the social web in government workplaces. This would be a mistake, as not only would business value be lost, but it would just drive the activity “underground.” People will find a way regardless — so better to encourage responsible use than to make people do it behind your back. The recently reanimated StopBlocking.org has great info on why it’s better to allow your people access.
7. On policy: I don’t feel that new rules need to be invented. There’s enough policy out there already. I am in favour of education and guidance though — to help us navigate through this new and unfamiliar terrain. Whether in terms of reminding employees of their responsibilities as public servants or by having early adopters and leaders showing us how it’s done. Or creating a touchstone of some sort that interprets existing rules in the light of new realities presented by the social web (for this last one, I’m looking at you TBS).
What's a spaghetti test?
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the post.
I agree with you for most of the points. But – comme d`habitude – have a thing or two to say.
I don`t believe it`s a PCO thing entirely, PCO is a generator and reflector of certain behaviour in GoC communities of practice. They`re just a bit more upfront about their preferences. I`ve heard about different departments with seemingly easygoing policies that did similar thing to employees exhibiting a bit more bias towards one political party or the other.
I also disagree with the policy bit. TBS may not want to produce new policies, and that`s okay- but it should certainly consider revising a host of older ones. There should be a clause of sorts that addresses fast moving pieces in the Comms/IT world or at least attempts to steer the thinking model for management to be more supportive and experimental in testing, developing, adopting and the like.
Cheers-
nelly.
Hey Nelly, thanks for dropping by. TBS is going through a multi-year “policy suite renewal” project, and I am hoping that they’ll be taking the fast-changing nature of the web into account. F’r instance, at GTEC, Chuck Henry, the TBS CTO guy, did mention that he felt at least a few of the current CLF standards should be downgraded to guidelines. But that’s less about individual public servants interacting online and more about “corporate” web presences.
When it comes to how individual public servants interact online, that’s where I think we need guidance while avoiding creating more policies. When I mentioned a touchstone, I had in mind some form of guideline doc that can be held up to say “we can do this, here’s some thoughts on how to do it right.” That would go a long way towards steering management thinking to be supportive, dontcha think?
While I obviously agree that public servants must be impartial in the delivery of their work, at the same time, I think that it is odd that we ask public servants to “pretend” they don’t have any political leanings. Especially when the democratic deficit in this country is a source of concern. While politicians are trying to figure out how to get more people out to vote, or become more civically/politically engaged, the topic is taboo for the public service. We have to pretend we don’t have an opinion, and it’s a big deal if we do want to get more engaged. It’s one thing to ask if our politics jeopardize the impartial delivery of our work. It’s another to ask us to pretend we don’t have an opinion. Unfortunate for the PCO employee that so much attention was drawn to his actions, but I do think it’s positive that the issue is getting some profile. I think this is something we need to discuss in more detail. The impartiality of public servants was something that came into effect as a push back against the patronage appointments to the public service in the early days of government. Perhaps it’s time to ask if the policies still make sense, if they need to evolve, and what do we want them to be?
Hi Tariq – good points. I can only respond from a personal perspective I guess: Impartiality is important for me in terms of separating my personal opinions from my day to day work. I may disagree with official govt position X, but if it’s something I am supposed to be implementing as part of my job, then I’ve really got to set my feelings aside. Otherwise I’d spend all my time in existential crisis! Not only would it drive me nuts, it wouldn’t be fair to my colleagues or my staff. Or citizens, for that matter.
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