Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity today as the lead Minister to provide an update on the activities of the Refocusing Government Strategic Initiative Committee. The Refocusing Government initiative is one of five strategic initiatives that form the backbone of our government’s strategic plan. These five strategic initiatives have their foundation in the vision, goals and priorities we developed as a Caucus.
The actions planned under this initiative are to conduct program review, change the GNWT’s approach to infrastructure, improve human resource management in the Northwest Territories, improve service delivery and manage the cost of government.
This initiative and its actions will advance us toward our goal of becoming a more efficient and effective government by addressing priorities identified by Caucus under this goal. The strengthening-service-delivery action will also contribute to the 16th Legislative Assembly’s goal of sustainable, vibrant and safe communities.
Significant work on this initiative begins this year. We are improving service delivery by beginning the work to implement structural change to boards and agencies in the Northwest Territories. In order to advance our priority of ensuring a more service-oriented approach by the GNWT, we need to have boards and related administrative structures that facilitate working together and allow for flexibility to respond to regional priorities. We also can’t have our limited resources tied up in duplicate administrative efforts when these resources would be more effectively used for programming.
We are developing plans to create multi-purpose boards, integrating health and social services, education and housing programs at the regional level and at the community level where appropriate. This work will build off the successes of the service model in the Tlicho region and will impact all areas and communities of the Northwest Territories.
We will bring forward our detailed implementation plans for structural reform by the fall and begin the process of transition. The effort to implement the types of changes we are developing will be considerable. We need to ensure that the GNWT equips the new board with integrated policy, regulatory and legislative approaches and that its financial and administrative systems align from the community to the Cabinet. We expect the new board structure will be operational by April 1, 2010.
There are a number of other activities of the Refocusing Government committee that I would like to briefly touch on. A program review office will be established whose overall objective is to ensure that programs are meeting their objectives and that government resources are being used efficiently, consistent with the Assembly’s priority. In addition to developing a framework for a disciplined system of program evaluation, a number of priorities for target review has also been identified for this year.
We have also initiated work on changing our government’s approach to infrastructure, including identifying options for improving efficiency in the delivery of infrastructure projects. This work is being coordinated by Minister Michael McLeod, and he will be providing additional information on other elements of the project.
As part of the managing-the-cost-of-government action, we are examining additional approaches to ensure the cost-effectiveness of government operations. An early priority is to examine options related to lowering costs for travel, such as negotiating discount fares to southern destinations, expanded use of on-line bookings or implementing changes that would lower booking fees and allow the GNWT to access lower fees.
This year we will also begin other work under the improved-service-and-delivery action in addition to board reform. We are taking steps to ensure appropriate support for non-government organizations, which play an important role in delivering services to residents. This will begin this year as we complete our NGO funding policy, identify potential support to different components of the sector and prepare training materials for staff working to support the government’s relationship with NGOs.
We are making investments to improve official languages services by piloting a single-window service centre for French and for one or more aboriginal languages. These activities will enhance the GNWT’s capacity to deliver public services in the official languages, while members of the NWT official languages communities will have improved access to GNWT public services.
While this provides some highlights for the initial actions we are working on for the Refocusing Government Strategic Initiative Committee, it is not everything we hoped to accomplish. We are examining additional options for improving service delivery at the community, regional and territorial levels as we take steps to ensure that services delivered at the community level are of equal quality in all places.
More work is also needed to continue to improve human resource management, and activities are being developed to improve public service capacity in the Northwest Territories and examine innovative approaches to public service delivery. Our employees are critical to our success, and we need to confront our recruitment and retention challenges in our ever-changing labour markets.
As lead Minister for the Refocusing Government initiative, I am confident these initiatives will lead to a positive change for people across the Northwest Territories and help bring our territory closer to our long-term vision.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Hon. Bob McLeod.
