Manitoba Government: A New Vision for Service Delivery

By Dino A. Speziale

Imagine you're a businessperson sitting in your den at midnight with a brilliant idea to start a new venture. Instead of waiting until morning to make a dozen phone calls to find out how to start your own business, you log onto your home computer and locate the Manitoba government's web site. Half an hour later, you've registered your business name; received a retail tax number; checked out liens against the building you're thinking of buying; applied for a government small business grant; and notified the employment centre that you're looking for an apprentice.

Or imagine you're a single parent working a shift job. You want to improve your family's quality of life and you want more time with your children. You go to the mall on your dinner break and locate a government services kiosk. You log on using appropriate security; get a skills analysis by coding in your qualifications; and discover there are a couple of good jobs you could get if you just had a 6-month upgrading course. By the time you head back to the office, you have registered for the course; applied for a student loan; and have your children registered in a new day-care.

These scenarios represent the vision of the Manitoba government's Better Systems Initiative (BSI). And while the legislation and technology they require is not yet in place, it is the intent of the provincial government to move towards establishing these capabilities.

The province published Framework for Economic Growth: Policy Directions for Manitoba in 1993 as a map for government into the year 2000 and beyond. It identified the "continual improvement in the quality of life of all Manitobans" as its main goal, and "sustained economic development" as the means to achieve this goal. To achieve this, Manitoba has to provide an environment that is responsive to the needs of business and the public. It also has to have the technological systems in place to allow both the public and private sectors to compete in a global economy. Through BSI, and several other inter-dependant government redesign projects, the province hopes to become a world leader in public service delivery.

The BSI vision is: to provide access to government services when you need it, where you need it and how you need it. The Manitoba Government has engaged International Business Machines to assist with transforming the delivery of key services to its citizens and clients by implementing this vision.

BSI's vision calls for the creation of a single window to government through which all businesses and citizens of Manitoba will transact their affairs with government. The vision is to make access available at any time from a broad range of electronic communications devices (such as telephones, personal computers and interactive TV).

The single window view of government will provide citizens with convenient access to logical groupings of government products and services. It will also promote increased equality of access to government services.

The consolidated view of citizens will allow the government to improve customer satisfaction and automate many routine tasks. It will result in a reduction in the cost of delivering services and allow government to contribute to the information highway infrastructure. It can also increase Manitoba's ability to generate products and services that compete effectively in the global economy.

To enable this vision, Manitoba is developing a common technology infrastructure that it can ultimately apply across all government departments. This foundation of underlying technology will further allow Manitoba to expand the range and depth of services that it provides in the future. Through the Better Systems Initiative, Manitoba will provide world class service delivery levels to anyone in the world.

For More Information

Contact Dino Speziale, Manitoba Government, at (204) 945-6725 or Todd Kalyniuk, IBM, at (204) 948-2942.

About the Author

Dino A. Speziale, is Executive Director, Better Systems Initiative, Manitoba Government, Canada.

March 1999