CCRA Real Property

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London - September 2001 CREATING A CULTURE OF
OPENNESS TRANSPARENCY By Andrée
Delagrave, Chair, Access To Information Review
Task Force, Canada
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By creating a culture of access, I mean creating
a culture where providing information is seen as
an integral and valued part of the job of every
public servant. Not something outside of their
real job or an annoyance to be dealt with - my
sense is that this new perception would influence
how governmental information is created, sorted
and communicated. Chair, Access to Information
Review Task Force Canada House, March 2001
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Presentation Outline
Importance of Culture
Culture and FOI Compliance
What Influences Compliance?
Getting It Right
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THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
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Importance of Culture
A common mistake is failing to assess the depth
of the cultural shift involved in FOI
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Its the Culture!
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What Is Culture?
The pattern of shared basic assumptions that the
group learned as it solved its problems of
external adaptation and internal integration,
that has worked well enough to be considered
valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members
as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in
relation to those problems. Once these are
achieved, it is easier to distort new data by
denial, projection, rationalisation, or various
other defence mechanisms than to change the basic
assumption. E. Shein, Organizational Culture and
Leadership, 1992
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CULTURE AND FOI COMPLIANCE
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Culture and FOI Compliance

• Culture is a critical factor in achieving
  compliance.
• For what compliance are you striving?
• What culture do you need to support compliance?
  What are your levers?

FOI operates in three dimensions of government
information political, bureaucratic and
legal. G. Terrill
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Administrative Compliance and FOI The Roberts
Snell Model
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Compliance Behaviour Malicious Non Compliance

• A combination of intentional actions, sometimes
  illegal, designed to undermine requests for
  access (Roberts). For example
• Shredding
• Deconstruction of files
• Re-labelling of files
• Fee regimes manipulated to discourage requests

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Compliance Behaviour Adversalism

• Testing the limits of FOI law to protect
  interests of government us vs. them (Roberts).
  For example
• Automatic resort to exemptions
• Sitting on requests
• Significant processing delays
• External review depicted as a battle against
  external reviewer

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Compliance Behaviour Administrative Non-Compliance

• Undermining access with deficient administration
  or resources (Roberts).For example
• Inadequate resourcing
• Deficient record management
• Low priority attached to processing of requests

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Compliance Behaviour Administrative Compliance

• Timely compliance with letter and spirit of the
  law (Snell). For example
• Request handled in a co-operative fashion
• Exemptions only applied as a last resort and to
  the minimum extent possible
• External review decision used as future guide

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Compliance Behaviour Proactive Compliance

• Enthusiastic pursuit of the social purpose of the
  Act (Snell)For example
• Information identified and available in public
  interest - without FOI requests
• Exemptions waived if no substantial harm in
  release
• Adverse external review seen as a quality
  control check

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Toward Positive Compliance
Proactive Compliance
Administrative Compliance
COMPLIANCE
Administrative Non Compliance
Adversalism
Malicious Non Compliance
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WHAT INFLUENCES COMPLIANCE?
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Influencing Compliance

• A variety of factors influence the ability and
  willingness to comply with the law.
• For maximum leverage, spend resources on
• strengthening pressures working in favour of
  compliance and
• minimising those working against

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Prerequisite Ability To Comply
Prerequisite No. 1

• People do not comply with rules they do not know
  or understand because of complexity or
  unpredictability
• Awareness and Training
• User friendly guidelines
• Coherent and accessible body of decisions

Understanding the objectives, the rules and
process
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Prerequisite Ability To Comply
Prerequisite No. 2

• Lack of resources, expertise, skills,
  information, appropriate structures and systems
  lead to non-compliance
• information management
• resources
• access to support, guidance

Sufficient capacity
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Prerequisite - Ability To Comply
...from an efficiency perspective, departments
should move from a concept of adhoc provision of
information to a program concept of provision of
information. Consulting and Audit Canada, 1999

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Prerequisite Ability To Comply

• Cannot be successful in building a culture of
  openness without these prerequisites
• Understanding FOI
• Capacity to comply
• Provides a sound basis for a culture of openness

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Willingness To Comply Acceptance of Objectives
of the Law

• People dont comply with rules they think unfair
  -- reinforcement of the social purpose is
  important to any compliance strategy -- critical
  role of
• political leadership
• senior cadre leadership

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Willingness To Comply - Political Leadership
I call upon all Federal departments and agencies
to renew their commitment to the Freedom of
Information Act, to its underlying principles of
government openness, and to its sound
administration. Further, I remind agencies
that our commitment to openness requires more
than merely responding to requests from the
public. Each agency has a responsibility to
distribute information on its own initiative, and
to enhance public access through the use of
electronic information systems. Taking these
steps will ensure compliance with both the letter
and spirit of the Act. (s) William J. Clinton,
October 4, 1993
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Willingness To Comply - Senior Leadership
The senior management cadre must realize that
the attitude its members express towards access
rages like a grassfire through a department. If
employees feel that compliance is not a priority
for the leaders, you will see delays, inflated
fees, antagonism towards requesters, inadequate
researches, increasing numbers of
complaints. John Reid, Information Commissioner
of Canada
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Willingness To Comply Senior Leadership Walking
the Talk

• Making FOI a priority
• Taking an active interest in monitoring
  compliance
• Resourcing adequately
• Helping staff resolve issues
• Role model for exercising discretion

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Willingness To Comply Enforcement

• Ability of the enforcer to monitor, promote and
  enforce compliance
• Relationship with enforcing authority -- Sense of
  partnership or at least trust facilitates
  compliance

The approach adopted by any Information
Commissioner is a crucial variable in promoting
an effective FOI regime and compliance. D.
Flaherty, Former B.C. Information Commissioner
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Willingness To Comply Social Psychological
Factors

• Political environment
• Culture and values of the group and community --
  peer or public pressure
• Personal views about non-compliant activity
  really causing problems

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Willingness To Comply - Political Environment
FOI challenges any governments goal of imposing
centralized control on the disclosure of
information, the management of the political
agenda, and the limiting of risks through
avoiding surprises and crises. David Flaherty,
2001, former B.C. Information Commissioner
It is not acceptable for disclosure of records
to be delayed past the statutory response date in
order to accommodate an issue management
priority  Ann Cavoukian, Ontario Information
Commissioner
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Willingness To Comply - Political Environment
I expect that impending release of sensitive
information will be brought to my attention in a
timely manner so that I may respond to questions.
This requirement however should not in any way
contribute to delays in responding to access
requests. Responding to the requests for
information from citizens in a timely manner is
essential not only because of the requirements of
the access legislation, but also to enhance the
opinion Canadian citizens have of this
institution and to promote the Departments
objective of transparency. Minister
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Values of the Group - Peer Pressure
We learn about the good not from abstractions
but from encountering it in real life, embodied
in real persons. We are inspired to live in
certain ways and to hold certain values by
exceptional role models, and we are sustained in
doing so by a critical mass of other persons who
think and act in the same way. Report of the
Task Force on Public ServiceEthics and Values,
1999
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Willingness To ComplyPersonal Views on Impact of
Behaviour

• Role of an educated, constructive but vigilant
  community of users

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GETTING IT RIGHT
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Getting It Right
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Getting It Right - Democratic Values
The most important defining factor for the role
and values of the public service of Canada is its
democratic mission and public trust helping
ministers, under law and the Constitution, to
serve the common good.  Task Force on Public
Service Valuesand Ethics, 1999
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Getting It Right Democratic Values

• FOI -- the right to know, supports
• accountability of government
• informed dialogue between governmentand citizen
• better decision-making
• Dissemination of government held information
  contributes to a more knowledgeable, better
  informed, more competitive society
• FOI is part of the democratic mission of the
  public service

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Getting It Right - Public Service Values
In the heart of most public servants lies the
conviction that service to the public, , to
the public interest is what makes their
profession like no other. It is why they chose
it, for the most part, and why they keep at it,
with enthusiasm and convicion, despite
difficulties and frustrations along the way. The
Task Force on Public Service Valuesand Ethics,
1999
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Getting It Right Public Service Values

• Provision of information as an integral part of
  the role of every public servant
• Duty to document activities and decisions
• Duty to manage information

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Manage release of information not protection
• Presumption that at some stage all information
  will enter public domain.
• Information to be constructed, recorded and
  stored on this assumption.

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Front-end versus reactive back-end thinking --
  awareness of creating governments records.

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• FOI as catalyst for an open culture -- favour
  routine informal, proactive release of
  information -- build on FOI to create a general
  culture of dissemination of information.

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Embed right questions in your process --
  witholding should be consequential
• What are good reasons not to release now?
• Do these reasons outweigh the public interest in
  releasing?

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Avoid an us vs. them mentality
• Dialogue with requesters is key to effective FOI

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Foster continuous improvement
• disseminate best practices -- example is
  contagious
• introduce meaningful performance standards
• monitoring to better understand factors
  underpinning success of FOI and put in place
  required changes

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Getting It Right Best Practices

• Create positive incentives
• include FOI in performance assessment of managers
• reward publicly
• recognize significant achievements

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Getting It Right Important Intangibles
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Getting It Right Story Telling

• Much of what we learn about the correct way to
  perceive, think, and feel in organizations is
  through anecdotes and stories integrating the
  images of how groups characterize themselves.

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Getting It Right Important Intangibles
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Getting It Right Pride

• Sweden has an enviable culture of openness
• There is a strong social concensus on the
  benefits of openness
• Openness is a matter of national pride

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The Last Word
The role of citizens is to be annoying. His
Excellency John Ralston Saul