The Andersen-Comsoc affair: Partnerships and the public interest

Canadian Public Administration

Volumn 44, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 320-345

  Whorley, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039145535     PISSN: 00084840     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-7121.2001.tb00893.x     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, The Common Sense Revolution [5th printing] (n.p., n.d.), p. 2.
2. Randal White, Ontario Since 1985 (Toronto: Eastendbooks, 1998).
3. Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Common Sense Revolution, p. 1.
4. Ibid., p. 16 (boldface and italics in the original).
5. st Session, 27 September 1995 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1995), p. 7.
6. Donald J. Savoie, "What's wrong with the new public management?" CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 38, no. 1 (Spring 1995), p. 113.
7. Paul Appleby, "Government is Different," in Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde, eds., Classics of Public Administration (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987), p. 164.
8. Ibid., p. 162.
9. Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Common Sense Revolution, p. 16.
10. Laurence Lynn's recent work suggests that the concept of an "old orthodoxy" in public administration is, in fact, rather precarious, being "at best, a caricature and, at worst, an outright distortion of traditional thought." According to Lynn, "[t]hat there was an old orthodoxy has thus become the new orthodoxy. The essence of traditional public administration is repeatedly asserted to be the design and defense of a largely self-serving, Weberian bureaucracy that was to be strictly insulated from politics and that justified its actions based on a technocratic one-best-way 'science of administration.'" He believes that traditional public administration's central concern has long been the problem of reconciling bureaucratic capacity with democratic control, and in its efforts to grapple with this complex issue the field has produced a literature that is perhaps more heterodox than some of public administration's critics allow. See Laurence E. Lynn Jr., "The myth of the bureaucratic paradigm: What traditional public administration really stood for," Public Administration Review 61, no. 2 (March/April 2001), pp. 144-59.
11. Sandford Borins, "Public Sector Innovation: The Implications of New Forms of Work Organization," in B. Guy Peters and Donald J. Savoie, eds., Governance in a Changing Environment (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), pp. 261-62.
12. Donald F. Kettl, The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation of Governance (Washington: The Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 33.
13. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector From Schoolhouse to State House, City Hall to Pentagon (New York: Plume Books, 1993), pp. 45-6.
14. Andersen Consulting now carries on business under the name of Accenture in the wake of the consulting business's departure from Andersen Worldwide. See Stephen Rynkiewicz, "Andersen Consulting accents new name," Chicago Tribune, 26 October 2000 at http://www.chicagotribune.com. For the purposes of this article the private vendor is referred to as Andersen.
15. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Debates, 27 September 1995, p. 5.
16. st Session, 29 November 1995 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1995), p. 1112.
17. Ontario, Management Board Secrtariat, Alternative Service Delivery Framework ([Toronto]: Queen's Printer, 1997), p. 2.
18. Kenneth Kernaghan, "Partnership and public administration: Conceptual and practical considerations," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 36, no. 1 (Spring 1993), p. 61.
19. Ibid., p. 62.
20. Ibid., pp. 62-5.
21. F. Leslie Seidle, Rethinking the Delivery of Public Services to Citizens (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995), p. 141.
22. Ibid., p. 142.
23. Ibid., pp. 144-45.
24. Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Alternative Service Delivery Framework, p. 22.
25. Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Common Purpose Procurement: A Manager's Guide (1995), p. 3. The CPP policy was later revised, though the old and new versions show considerable continuity. This article focuses primarily on the instruments relevant to Comsoc's agreement with Andersen.
26. Ibid., p. 2. See also Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Guidelines for Common Purpose Procurement ([Toronto]: Queen's Printer, 1998), p. 6.
27. Ibid., p. 2. See also Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Guidelines for Common Purpose Procurement ([Toronto]: Queen's Printer, 1998), p. 6.
28. Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Common Purpose Procurement: A Manager's Guide p. 2.
29. Ibid., pp. 2-3.
30. Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Common Purpose Procurement: A Deputy Minister's Guide ([Toronto]: Queen's Printer for Ontario, 1995), p. 2.
31. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report (Queen's Printer, 1998), p. 31.
32. nd Session, 14 December 1998 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1998), P-61.
33. st Session, 16 December 1999 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1999), P-53.
34. st Session, 16 December 1999 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1999), P-53.
35. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report, p. 41.
36. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 2000), p. 260.
37. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report, p. 33.
38. Ibid., pp. 33-5.
39. Joan Price Boase, "Beyond government? The appeal of public-private partnerships," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 43, no. 1 (Spring 2000), p. 88.
40. J. David Wright and Alti B. Rodai, "Partnerships and Alliances," in Mohamed Charih and Arthur Daniels, eds., New Public Management and Public Administration in Canada. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration - No. 20 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997), p. 272.
41. Annette Hastings, "Analysing power relationships in partnerships: Is there a role for discourse analysis?" Urban Studies 36, no. 1 (February 1999), pp. 91-106.
42. According to Hastings, "Thus, whilst the causal theory advanced by the private-sector representative contained key elements of an individual or social pathology discourse about unemployment and poverty, the interviewees from the public and voluntary sectors, without exception, explained these problems as caused by structural economic collapse, by geographical isolation and, in two cases, by central government policy. Indeed, the representatives from the public and voluntary sectors appeared to share a common construct and thus to form a discourse coalition." Ibid., p. 95.
43. Ibid., p. 92.
44. A similar transformation in perception may be under way in the Ontario Public Service generally. In his study of changes to the OPS, Graham White observes: "I was struck by how common variations on the phrase 'the business of government' have become throughout the OPS. At the risk of reading too much into an apparently straightforward way of saying 'what government does,' I cannot help but wonder whether the pervasive use of the business metaphor - also evident in references to the government as 'the firm' - does not indicate a deeper set of attitudes about the nature of government in the 1990s." Graham White, "Revolutionary Change in the Ontario Public Service," in Evert A. Lindquist, ed., Government Restructuring and Career Public Service in Canada. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration - No. 23 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2000), p. 340.
45. Hickling Lewis Brod Inc., "Business Transformation Project Review," vol. 2, 1999, p. 1.
46. Ibid., p. 3.
47. Ibid., p. 7.
48. White, "Revolutionary Change in the Ontario Public Service," Lindquist, Government Restructuring, p. 315.
49. Ibid., pp. 324-25.
50. Carl Baar, "Integrated justice: Privatizing the fundamentals," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 42, no. 1 (Spring 1999), p. 48.
51. nd Session, 17 December 1998 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1998), P-76-7.
52. Ibid., P-77.
53. Ibid., P-78.
54. James Iain Gow, "Managing All Those Contracts: Beyond Current Capacity?" in Charih and Daniels, New Public Management, p. 255.
55. Ontario, Management Board Secretariat, Common Purpose Procurement: A Manager's Guide, p. 11 (italics and boldface in the original).
56. Price Boase, "Beyond government?" CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, p. 79.
57. Michael Jordan, "Ontario's Integrated Justice Project: A profile of a complex partnership agreement," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 42, no. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 31-2. Mr. Jordan now works for Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting.
58. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report, p. 41.
59. Ibid.
60. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 17 December 1998, P-77-8.
61. Jordan, "Ontario's Integrated Justice Project," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, p. 32.
62. The change reporting task orders "primarily entailed a manual review of case files at ministry offices, improvements in the monthly income reporting entitlement calculation process for the Family Benefits program, and related programming changes to CIMS." Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report, p. 49.
63. Ibid., p. 45.
64. Ibid., p. 49.
65. Ibid., p. 50.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., p. 45.
68. Ibid.
69. nd Session, 14 December 1998 (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1998), P-70.
70. Ibid., 9 December 1999, P-43 (emphasis added).
71. Ibid., 17 December 1998, P-81.
72. Ibid., 14 December 1998, P-68.
73. Donald Savoie, "Fifteen Years of Reform: What Have We Learned?" in B. Guy Peters and Donald Savoie, eds., Taking Stock: Assessing Public Sector Reforms (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998), p. 413.
74. Wright and Rodal, "Partnerships and Alliances," in Charih and Daniels, New Public Management, p. 274.
75. Richard Mulgan, "'Accountability': An ever-expanding concept?" Public Administration 78, no. 3 (Autumn 2000), p. 555.
76. Ibid., p. 570.
77. It should be pointed out in passing that neither Comsoc nor Anderson simply forgot that expense claims needed supporting documentation, since the ministry had, in fact, received some properly supported claims over the course of the year. The associated question arises as to why Comsoc was unable to exercise control over a significant portion of the cost pool, particularly when the ministry realized the benefits that would eventually be used to pay those costs would come largely from its own efforts around the early opportunities initiative.
78. Ontairo, Office of the Provincial Auditor, 1998 Report, p. 54.
79. Ibid., p. 55.
80. Ibid., p. 39. See also Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 17 December 1998, P-74.
81. Ibid., p. 39. See also Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 17 December 1998, P-74.
82. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 14 December 1998, P-64.
83. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, p. 260.
84. Wright and Rodal, "Partnerships and Alliances," in Charih and Daniels, New Public Management, p. 270.
85. Alasdair Roberts, "Worrying about misconduct: The control lobby and the PS 2000 reforms," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 39, no. 4 (Winter 1996), p. 514.
86. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 17 December 1998, P-83.
87. Ibid., 9 December 1999, P-36.
88. Hickling Lewis Brod Inc., "Business Transformation Project," Final Report, vol. 2, 1999, p. 14.
89. Ibid., p. 17.
90. Ibid., pp. 24-5.
91. While the report recommended changes to the quality council, the provincial auditor later reported that the council had been disbanded. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, p. 260.
92. Hickling Lewis Brod Inc., "Business Transformation Project," Final Report, vol. 2., pp. 25-31.
93. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, p. 261. Delay costs can only be included if Andersen's total costs are in excess of the cap. Delay costs are themselves capped at $10 million. As well, no costs are eligible for this provision should the project be completed by 26 January 2002, the expiry date of the amended agreement. While no determination had been made in the follow-up audit regarding cost estimates for hardware and third-party software, delay costs, or ministry tasks completed by Andersen, estimates for costs falling outside of the $180 cap amount to $28.7 million based on items such as production support, help desk and application maintenance, and out-of-scope costs. Ibid., pp. 261-62.
94. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, p. 261. Delay costs can only be included if Andersen's total costs are in excess of the cap. Delay costs are themselves capped at $10 million. As well, no costs are eligible for this provision should the project be completed by 26 January 2002, the expiry date of the amended agreement. While no determination had been made in the follow-up audit regarding cost estimates for hardware and third-party software, delay costs, or ministry tasks completed by Andersen, estimates for costs falling outside of the $180 cap amount to $28.7 million based on items such as production support, help desk and application maintenance, and out-of-scope costs. Ibid., pp. 261-62.
95. As of 31 January 2001, the ministry claimed that total consolidated verification process benefits amounted to $170 million. Ontario, Ministry of Community and Social Services, Business Transformation Project Status Report (Toronto: Queen's Printer, 2001), p. 3.
96. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, p. 265. The auditor also draws attention to the important issue of contract inflexibility, noting that it is now impossible to stop consolidated verification process payments since the parties have already agreed to them. Similar concerns are raised regarding continued payments to the vendor while benefits lagged behind costs. According to the auditor, "[s]ince the Ministry had agreed to make these payments, it was not in a position to alter this payment arrangement as recommended by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts" (p. 265).
97. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Debates, 9 December 1999, P-40.
98. Roberts, "Worrying about misconduct," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, p. 516.
99. Ontario, Office of the Provincial Auditor, Special Report, pp. 262-63.
100. Ibid., p. 263.