The following items are presented as a brief list of recommended changes to PDD.
Move from Funding Agencies to a “Client Voucher System”
- Move the department from signing annual contracts with each agency, to approving licenses for agencies.
- Move the department from approving annual budgets to cover overall agency costs per year, to approving a smaller budget to cover only agency administrative costs.
- The department would provide vouchers to guardians of disabled adults which would enable them to purchase services from whichever licensed agency they felt would do the best job.
- To assist guardians in making a more informed and objective decision the department would establish on its website an “Agency Profile and Performance Chart”. This would provide important information related to the agency services offered as well as comparative information related to the quality and effectiveness of the agencies in the region and provincially in achieving their outcomes.
- Agencies that were providing higher quality services and more effective services (outcomes) would tend to attract larger numbers of guardians of adults with disabilities. Agencies that were performing poorly would get fewer adults and eventually put themselves out of operation.
Move from Process Focus to Outcome Focus
- Move the department from its current focus on processes to a more relevant focus on outcomes.
- For example, rather than having agencies report on how many hours of employment training were provided each month (process), the department should require them to report on how many clients were competitively independently employed each month. They should also be required to state how this result compares with their annual goal for this period (outcomes).
- Drop the requirement for agencies to maintain client/employee ratios and allow agencies to set their own ratios. Monitor any negative effects this may have by reporting its impact on client satisfaction and service outcomes on the department’s website.
- Move the department from micromanaging agency services, budgets, and processes, to setting minimum service outcome standards, licensing agencies, monitoring agency outcome effectiveness, and reporting agency effectiveness on the department website.
The foregoing changes are a mere glance at the innovations possible when the government harnesses the knowledge, experience, intelligence, and talent of the tens of thousands of people working on its behalf across the province. One action that may be taken to move forward would be to set up Centers for Innovation.