Do we risk too much by risking too little?

Government by nature is risk-averse.

There's very good reasons for this, as many decisions made by the government are life-influencing for large numbers of citizens.

For example, a simple policy change can have widespread, even catastrophic effects on certain groups in the community. Equally, bold sweeping changes can have significant political impacts, not always to the benefit of the party in power.

Therefore it is generally safer (and often required) for government organisations to be cautious in decision-making - spending the time necessary to ensure that as many voices and views are heard and making the minimum possible changes necessary to improve the system without damaging peoples' lives.

However risk-aversion can have its downsides,

• change is generally slow to occur,
• new ideas take a long time to be adopted,
• decisions are sometimes considered in relation to risks alone - ignoring the benefits,
  
• organisational structures grow rigid and hierachical - attracting people who seek to strengthen the risk-averse culture and are more resistent to change,
• mistakes become seen as failures rather than learning opportunities,
  
• managing costs is progressively more difficult (as savings come from reducing functions rather than employing innovative solutions),
  
• the organisation can progressively become out-of-tune with it's customers and community - making it less effective at meeting its purpose.
  

More risk-tolerant organisations are better at resolving many of the challenges above. They are often more nimble and responsive, however may make more mistakes and errors.

Similar to the biological world, highly risk-averse organisations usually do better in stable and predictable environments which change slowly or not at all. Whereas more risk-tolerant organisations usually do better in fast changing and variable environments.

But here's the rub. Business environments are not uniformly stable or variable.

At any point in time some elements of an environment are likely to be quite stable - for example the laws and protocols defining an organisation's existence.

At the same time some aspects can be changing quite rapidly - such as the news of the day and the situations of customers and communities.

Other aspects may fall between the extremes, staff levels and skills and supplier prices.


One of the fast-changing areas is, naturally, online - which has evolved from basic text only bulletin boards twenty years ago (before the net) into real-time audio-video data exchanges today.

Where an organisation is risk-averse it is likely to be slower to enter the online arena, or make use of the tools and techniques available. This leaves the organisation behind the current trends in the community, potentially leaving many citizens frustrated and annoyed (as they cannot simply go online to do what they want to do).

Even worse this risk-aversion can lead to an organisation struggling to keep up, not having the inhouse expertise to fully understand and realise the benefits of emerging solutions that could save it significant costs or improve service delivery, or leaving the organisation potentially facing much larger 'catch-up costs' in the future.

In other words, by applying a risk-averse risk management approach to highly variable situations, an attempt at risk management can achieve the reverse - increasing the risk for the organisation.

So how does an organisation address this?

In my view it means we need to consider the rate of environment change in our risk management strategies - applying the appropriate approach for the environmental element.

Therefore while many areas within an organisation can make do with a risk-averse management approach, there must be sufficient flexibility within the system (or a different system entirely) for fast-changing and variable areas, which need a more risk-tolerant approach.

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Is the Australian government equipped to provide collective public goods online?

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Wordpress.

What do all these online services have in common?

They are all part of the world's virtual infrastructure, providing collective public goods that many people, including many Australians, use on a daily basis - whether for the storage, organisation, distribution or discovery of information.

They are also all privately owned and operated (for profit or not). There are few if any similar virtual collective public goods provided by governments.

Finally, from a national security and self-sufficiency standpoint, none of them is Australian owned or operated. If a foreign jurisdiction decided to close down or block any of these services, Australia would suffer at least a temporary economic loss.

On Friday, at the Public Sphere Q&A session with Gov 2.0 Task Force members, the Taskforce's Chairman Dr Nicholas Gruen stated that,

I think it was the government’s job to build Google, Facebook, Twitter. I’m quite serious about that.

While, for some, this statement might appear unusual - or even absurd - Dr Gruen is stating that one of the core purposes of government is to develop and provide infrastructure for its citizens, public goods that benefit nations and states but are often too expensive, unprofitable or may be a national security risk if left in the hands of private or foreign entities.

Traditionally public infrastructure has focused on physical systems - rail and road networks, hospitals, libraries and schools, sewage, water and electricity networks, telegraph and phone systems, buses and trains. Or on communications and informational systems such as newspapers, television and radio stations.

However it is time to consider whether that definition should be extended to include virtual public infrastructure. This includes the public goods used to store, discover and distribute information and communication online, just as physical public infrastructure has distributed water, words and people.

This thinking is in its infancy. Few governments globally are providing any of the virtual public infrastructure citizens will need through the 21st century - other than having their national broadcasters go online, as have all other broadcasters.

Of course there are digital initiatives such as the National Broadband Network in Australia and similar schemes being discussed in the UK, US and other countries. However these are examples of physical infrastructure required to support digital communications. Consider this similar to building the roads and railways of the past.

The next step is for governments to consider whether and what they need to provide as the virtual infrastructure that sits on top of these networks - the digital equivalent of buses and trains that will be required on our digital transport network.

So should governments have developed these online services (as Dr Gruen suggested)?

Should they be developing other virtual public goods? The online tools and services that commercial entities will never develop?

Or should they leave it up to the market?

To answer these questions I think we need to go a little deeper and consider whether governments are the most appropriate bodies to develop virtual collective public goods.

In most countries governments limit their online participation to information and service provision - consumer to government to consumer and business to government to business.

While there's no shortage of ability, there is little public sector fostering of direct citizen to citizen or business to business connections or even more complex arrangements such as citizens to government to business and vice versa.

This is often because of the tight restrictions many governments apply regarding what material can be stored and expressed via government-operated websites.

The risk of breaching individual privacy, allowing political commentary (as the public sector is apolitical) and breaching copyright is far more restrictive than were regulations on the use of the (previously government-owned) telephony system, or on public discussions in government-owned public spaces (parks, parliaments, sidewalks and government offices).

These restrictions makes it legally risky for a government department to directly support many online citizen-to-citizen engagements, and even places a significant burden on the governance oversight of citizen-to-government-to-citizen discussions.

So, besides reforming government regulations, or having citizens agree to blanket waivers when entering certain government-run spaces, how can government best provide public goods online?

One alternative is outsourcing. Funding private and not-for-profit organisations to deliver these services on behalf of government.

This has precedents in Australia, for example the jobs network and aid agencies receive government support in the form of grants and contracts to provide certain services on behalf of government.

There are also examples of government supporting (partially funding) private competition to public services - including private schools, child care and bus companies.

Perhaps governments will need to adopt one of these two models online, at least in the short-term while complex legislative and cultural changes take place.

Or is there another way government should meet citizens' needs for virtual public goods?

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Is your team ready to implement Gov 2.0?

I found an interesting post on Govloop the other day by Martha McLean, Bureaucracy 2.0 – make sure your team is ready to stand and deliver.

This identified a challenge that is facing public servants - do we prepare our teams to engage in Gov 2.0 activities (possibly preempting the need), or do we wait for senior leadership to define the direction.

Over the nearly three years I've worked in the public service I was primarily focused on lifting the awareness of the online channel in the eyes of senior management. This involved putting in place appropriate reporting systems, flagging how the channel could be used to solve various organisational 'problems' in a cost-effective manner, and flagging all the outside research demonstrating that real people used the internet in real ways to resolve real issues - sometimes bypassing government services altogether.

I am hoping that over the next few years I can spend less time on the basics of internet education and spend more of my time helping develop public sector capabilities in utilising Gov 2.0 techniques and tools to improve government outcomes - through spreading knowledge and demonstrating successful outcomes.

It's a big vision, but all the best ones are.

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From concept to implementation - Digital Britain

The UK has moved forward from its recent Digital Britain report to release an Implementation Plan. This details how the government proposes to turn the actions within Digital Britain into reality.

A very interesting, and not overly long, document, the plan lays out clear governance structures, responsibilities and accountabilities for rolling out Digital Britain.

It's a model other governments could choose to use to take the step from Gov 2.0 vision to actualisation.

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Are you making a submission to the Australia Gov 2.0 Taskforce?

The Government 2.0 Taskforce has been requesting submission in response to their recently released, Towards Government 2.0: An Issues Paper.

So far there are four submissions listed on the Taskforce's website.

Now while these may not represent all the submissions received to-date (as it may take time to process and put them online), it does worry me that out of Australia's 1.2 million public servants (based on Public Sector news) that there appears to have been so few submissions received to-date.

If you are involved with, affected by or interested in how government should change to face the challenges of an increasing digitalised society, than please read the Issues Paper and respond with your views via the submission process.

Or at least read the submissions thus far and reflect on whether your views have been reflected.

Your views may influence the direction the Taskforce and government takes in the Gov 2.0 space.

You have until the start of business, 24 August.

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