Policy Leadership from Without: The Use, Design, Launch, and Support of Arms-Length Panels (LPL1-J04)

Foreword by Taki Sarantakis

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This white paper is part of the Review and Reflection Series from the Canada School of Public Service. This series helps learners to gain new insights into modern-day issues by reviewing and reflecting on benchmark events, policies, and decisions from throughout the last century.

While arms-length panels are rarely in the spotlight, they nonetheless serve an important role in the government decision-making process. This paper presents a thoughtful exploration of the role of independent advice panels and offers timeless insights into their conditions for success. Proving to be as relevant today as when it was first written, Iain's paper compiles what I believe to be an essential guide for federal officials looking to use arms-length panels effectively and responsibly.

As the President of the Canada School of Public Service, I am pleased to make available this enduring learning product to help further shape effective policy solutions across government.

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Foreword by Iain Stewart

In 2010, I served as secretary for an arms-length Review of Federal Support for Research and Development (commonly known as the Jenkins Panel). Launched on October 14, 2010, the panel sought to assess key programs and initiatives related to research and development at the federal level.

Over the next 12 months, we met with experts and advisors on a variety of topics, travelled the world, and met with government, business and civil society leaders facing an array of challenges, and we looked back at Canada to consider what these insights and discussions taught us about our country.

As I hope the reader will see, there is an opportunity to use this experience, in combination with those of other civil servants who have supported similar panels in recent years, to bring together a rough guide for the design, support, and delivery of future arms-length panels. In short, the intent is that this paper will be useful to decision-makers in thinking about whether and how to stand up expert advisory panels, and for the individuals charged with supporting them, hopefully resulting in their effective contributions to federal policy-making.

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Introduction

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From time to time, the Government of Canada makes use of special-purpose, arms-length advisory panels composed of non-government appointees with relevant subject-matter expertise to answer specific policy challenges or questions. This paper is intended to support federal officials considering whether and how to use, launch, and support the panels. It is written from a practitioner's perspective^{Footnote 1} and is intended for an audience internal to the Government of Canada.

The paper starts with consideration of why the government looks for advice from outside of the normal policy formulation channels inside government. It then briefly explores the various forms of external policy ideas, including arms-length expert panels, and what constitutes success for these panels, in order to focus on what the underpinning conditions of success might be that influence their ultimate outcomes. The main body of the paper consists of a discussion of each of these conditions of success in detail, in order to assist officials with the design and conduct of reviews, and improve their likelihood of success.

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External policy leadership

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In the most basic terms, the main steps in Government of Canada policy-making start with the work-up and drafting of a Memorandum to Cabinet setting out an issue, its context, and responding policy options, which is reviewed and debated interdepartmentally, considered by Cabinet committee ministers, who require changes or recommend the proposed approach for consideration for inclusion in the Budget funding process, followed by Treasury Board review of any required program or spending authorities.

The sources of ideas feeding into the initial Memorandum to Cabinet (MC) development stage are varied. At its most basic, the idea formulation process consists of an interactive dialogue between a minister and officials, supported by departmental information-gathering, analysis in collaboration with the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the development of options for consideration, and then the advancement of ideas to the minister in the form of briefing products and the draft MC. In reality, the process is rarely linear and the well-spring of ideas is diverse and dynamic, with ministers and civil servants drawing on a range of formal and informal networks, expertise, interests, and stakeholders.

In the case of ministers, informal outreach at the idea development stage can include ongoing discussions with constituents, stakeholders, and caucus, or more proactive forms of informal advice-seeking. For instance, ministers proactively invite interactions with interest groups or external experts, bring external advisors into their offices, appoint various forms of standing advisory bodies comprised of stakeholders, or employ larger-scale, structured public consultation and engagement processes supported by their department, that can last several months or longer.

These more structured and higher-profile consultation approaches engender challenges. In his 2011 paper, Don Lenihan, a former Vice-President of Engagement at the Public Policy Forum^{Footnote 2}, notes that public consultation processes include: (i) the gathering of views, (ii) deliberations, and (iii) action (implementation). He also notes that for most consultations, public input solicited by ministers is often limited to the first step in this process: The presentation of citizen views, and that government typically reserves the stages of deliberations and decision-making to itself internally, followed by government implementation of the decisions taken by ministers (see Figure 1).

Lenihan argues that gathering ideas for policy-making in this way has costs that work against decision-makers in the long term. Namely, this approach creates a lack of transparency regarding the ultimate trade-offs and analyses considered in making decisions, and so generates a sense of disenfranchisement for the citizens who participated in the consultative process, when final decisions are announced for implementation. He argues for a more corporatist process, in which government, stakeholders, communities, and ordinary citizens come together not only to discuss ideas, but also collectively deliberate and decide and then assign responsibility for implementation of the decisions amongst themselves and government. The better approach, according to Lenihan, can be imagined as an ongoing blending of government and society, as depicted in Figure 2.

In practice, such a model seems problematic. Clearly, not all issues are the same, and those that involve regulatory, allocative, justice, or public-safety matters may require distance between stakeholders and decisions. Even where the model may be appropriate, questions arise as to who participates, when and how they participate, who ultimately makes these determinations, and what decision-making process is used to make them.

Electoral processes currently manage the selection of citizen decision-makers, and provide the framework through which decision-makers are held accountable. If elected officials are not seen as legitimate brokers of public policy decisions even after listening to citizens' views, it is not clear any consultative process could assure the legitimacy and accountability of the citizens participating in that exercise. At worst, this could result in a loss of credibility for the public participants merely by association as a result of a minister's decision for which they had no real input.

Perhaps to manage concerns such as these, ministers have gravitated to another form of structured public consultation and engagement—the use of special-purpose, arms-length bodies of citizen experts as a source of ideas for complex decisions. In this approach, ministers use their authority to convene and mandate a selection of citizens to form a panel to discuss, analyze, deliberate, make trade-offs, and then formulate in a public report a set of specific recommendations to the minister. Here, the panel itself is not only the public (and so a form of public consultation and engagement), but it also uses forms of further public consultation in support of its work.^{Footnote 3} The panel therefore gathers views and ideas from the public and then, as a citizen body, engages in deliberations and makes choices about what should be done. Having reached decisions, the panel then prepares its recommendations for the minister and their departmental officials for decision and action. This maximizes citizen involvement while leaving actual decision-making and accountability with elected officials. Applying Lenihan's typology, these arms-length panels can be depicted as shown in Figure 3.

This balance of deep public engagement and ministerial accountability may in part explain the attractiveness of arms-length panels as sources of informal advice to the public policy-making process. They are informal in that, unlike statutory or judicial panels and processes, the government response to their advice is not prescribed, and any response therefore remains at the appointing-minister's discretion.

While public expectations (and no doubt those of the panel) will be that the government will use the advice it has requested, there is no obligation for a minister to do so. Furthermore, where the panel is mandated to release its advice publicly, the panel may generate a public debate and reaction. This allows a minister to consider the advice and gauge public reactions prior to accepting, rejecting or revising the panel's advice. The result is to allow substantive policy leadership from outside government, and yet to respect and preserve the norms of decision-making and accountability within the Canadian strain of Westminster parliamentary democracy. In this way, panels help manage two intensifying trends of the past several decades: First, citizens are seeking greater involvement in public policy and are less accepting of decision-making behind closed doors. Second, citizens are increasingly disillusioned by the perception that the actual exercise of power within the Government of Canada has been increasingly consolidated within the executive arm of government.^{Footnote 4}

In summary, for ministers, successful arms-length panels therefore can be seen to provide two forms of benefits in policy formulation:

1. Expert panels can generate sophisticated ideas and advice from the public for complex issues, as an alternative to the normal internal channels of policy formulation
2. Advice received is non-binding, and does not represent the views of the government, providing ministers with discretion to consider the advice and, where the advice is made public, to gauge public reaction before making any decisions on the new ideas

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Conditions of success for arms-length panels

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For ministers, a successful arms-length panel process is therefore one that generates new ideas and public dialogue, which may or may not be used, either in whole or in part. By contrast, given the substantial time and effort the volunteer members of an arms-length panel will invest in their work, it can be assumed that for the panel members, success is more likely to be the extent to which their substantive advice is adopted by government and in a timely manner. Taken together, a successful arms-length panel for both the panel and the government may therefore be seen to be one that generates ideas that are:

• New or outside the range of what would normally arise from the civil service
• Acceptable to a sufficient number of key stakeholders and to the general public
• Workable, in that government will be able to implement or otherwise act upon them

This paper wishes to explore how to improve the likelihood that a panel, regardless of the subject-matter area, will be a success on these terms. From their experience in running numerous arms-length panels concerned with a broad range of subject areas, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States has identified three informal factors that act as indicators of the likelihood of the success of a panel: (1) a well-designed question, (2) high-quality staff leadership, and (3) an effective chair.^{Footnote 5} In the Canadian federal context, where there is not only the inherent success of the panel itself to keep in mind, but also the government's view of the success of the panel process to take into account, a reformulated list of these conditions of success could be broadened and expanded to include the following considerations.

1. The mandate and the question asked, including:
   • Is there a genuine problem that needs to be addressed?
   • Is there a desire within government to address it?
   • Who in government is asking the question and what is their ability to implement the advice?
   • Why is an arms-length panel appropriate for the question?
   • Is the question clearly structured?
   • Does the panel understand its mandate and the question?
   • Is the question answerable?
   • Is there relevant and accessible information available that can be applied to the question?
2. The panel, including:
   • The composition of the panel (size, mix of backgrounds, skills, representativeness, and stage in career)
   • The role of the chair
   • The panel recruitment process
   • The administrative basis of their appointment
3. The support for the panel, including:
   • The size and composition of the secretariat (their backgrounds, affiliations, skills, and the use of consultants)
   • The need to launch the secretariat before the panel is struck
   • The challenges of staffing the secretariat
   • The location and organization of the team
   • The secretariat in relation to the panel and to the government
   • The roles of the secretary and executive director
   • The importance of sufficient time and budget in supporting the panel process
4. The review process, including the basic elements of the process:
   • Foundational briefings
   • Development and delivery of the research plan
   • Domestic and international consultations
   • Process of dialogue, norming, and assimilation among the panel members
   • Report drafting, review, and discussion among panel members
   • Professional production and release of the report
   • Winding down the panel and secretariat
5. The advice itself, including:
   • The objective of relevant, high-quality, balanced recommendations, and a realistic sense among the panellists of the government's potential response

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Examining the conditions of success

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These conditions of success are dependent not just on the actions of the panel, but also the ministers and officials who design, launch, and support the review process. This section examines each condition of success in detail in order to assist officials with designing and delivering panels that are more likely to succeed.

1. The mandate and the question asked

It is paramount that the government be seen to be going into a panel process with a genuine challenge to be addressed. The panel members need to believe that they are being asked a question that is relevant and important to the country. As they are usually volunteers and will be giving up substantial personal time, the problem they are to address has to be compelling, and there has to be a sense that the panel's advice can and will help address it.

Who is asking the panel the question also matters. Does that minister have, or have they been granted, the authority to ask the question and to implement the panel's advice, or to coordinate implementation of a response to the panel's advice once received? This is not only important from a legal perspective—the panel needs to be appointed by the authority able to seek advice in a given policy area—but it is likewise psychologically important to the panel. At the end of the day, does the minister seeking advice have the authority to implement recommendations, and will this advice ultimately make a difference?

It is important that the responsible minister provide a clear written mandate, and so the drafting of the mandate letter is key. The mandate should set out the problem, the scope of the exercise and, if known, any specific sub-issues or options the government would like considered. It should make clear any areas or issues the government wants to preclude from the panel's purview. On this latter point, however, the government should be prepared for the possibility that the panel may expand the question, redefine it, and even choose not to answer the actual question posed. Once an arms-length panel gets going, their interpretation of "speaking truth to power" can involve evolution of the original question if the panel believes that the government is asking the wrong question or missing key pieces of the puzzle. The responsible minister and officials should be mentally prepared to address or live with developments of this nature.

Early discussion of the mandate by the panellists and the government principals involved can help set shared expectations at the outset and, throughout the dialogue, develop a shared understanding of the question to be answered. Furthermore, periodic meetings with the responsible deputy and minister allow for mutual adjustments of the understandings of the panel's mandate and expectations regarding its forthcoming advice. If done appropriately, these discussions need not undermine the panel's independence.^{Footnote 6} But even with a clear mandate letter and early discussions regarding their mandate, government should be prepared for panel-led adjustments over the life of the review. The chair, in turn, will need to remind the panel of its mandate from time to time to keep panel members focused (The secretary may, to a lesser extent, also intervene, but they may not be as well received by the panel members, and risk eroding any confidence that they are there to support the panel.).

A key element of a successful mandate is whether the question being posed to an arms-length panel is likely to have an actual or a clear response. Can it be influenced or addressed by the Government of Canada and the requesting authority? Is it something that an amateur and volunteer panel can reasonably understand, examine, and provide meaningful advice on over the course of the finite review period? This last question merits particular attention. It is important to take stock of the information available in support of the panel's work prior to its launch. If the government is seeking a fact-based approach to the topic (as opposed to an experience-based approach), it is important to know whether there is actually information or data available that is relevant to the topic to be addressed, and in a format the panel can access within the length of its review. Related to this, can experts in the subject area be engaged on the topic for the panel? If it is unclear or unlikely that the information and expertise will be available, the question will either go unaddressed or more likely, the panel will redefine the question into terms it can realistically respond to.

2. The panel itself

To be effective and to be able to answer the question being posed, the panel has to have the right size, skills, knowledge, perspective, and disposition to work as a group to conduct the review and come to closure on advice. In addition, for legitimacy, it is important that the composition of the panel be seen by stakeholders to be diverse and representative of the appropriate constituencies involved within the policy area in question.

Regarding size, the smaller the panel, the easier it will be to come to shared views and yet the less diverse the views may potentially be. In addition, depending on the panel's approach to decision-making, an even number of panellists increases the likelihood of divisions unless a consensus-based approach is agreed upon early in the process.^{Footnote 7} Given the need for regional, sectoral, linguistic, gender and other diversity, and to encourage a mix of expertise and experience, a panel of five or six members may be the smallest possible. However, panels of this size may also allow particular personalities to play unduly large roles. In order to blend the variety of backgrounds and views, consideration could therefore be given to slightly larger panels. Regarding representation, it is vital that the backgrounds of the panel members be relevant to the subject at hand, and that the mix of panel members does not draw overly from one interest or group or overly favour one aspect of the issue of interest above others. There is also a tension between representativeness and conflicts of interest. When it comes to external advice, those who are most knowledgeable about an issue are often most likely to have interests in the advice provided.

Managing the potential for actual or perceived conflicts of interest will vary by policy area and the nature of the questions being asked. In general terms, strategies to avoid this problem can include using recently retired personnel, drawing on experts external to the specific context (e.g., international experts), recruiting a member of the relevant academic community or, perhaps more problematically, drawing on a balance of competing interests so that their collective advice requires an internalization of the trade-offs required. Certainly all panel members should be required to declare any conflicts to the secretary and chair. That being said, given that the panel members are approached by government, their assumption will be that government knew what it was doing in approaching them, and so could react negatively to any perception that they are behaving improperly in agreeing to serve.^{Footnote 8} Even when the minister and department have been accepted and declared any conflicts of interest, and developed processes to manage them, the general public, the media and interested stakeholders can react negatively, undermining the legitimacy of the panel and its advice. It is essential that all conflicts be declared and documented, and processes diligently observed.

To work effectively as a group, it is helpful if the panel members see themselves as peers. This can imply their having the same seniority within their organizations, public stature or otherwise. Intangible as this may seem, parity in the level and stature of panel members influences their ability to function as a group and so come to shared views. It also influences the way in which they engage with the government, stakeholders, and their secretariat. Care should also be given to the mix of personalities, if they are known, to avoid any pre-existing tensions when selecting panel members. Panel cohesion is important for effective operations not only during the course of the review, but also for the period during and after the release of the report, when a factious panel can make their disagreements the focus of media, instead of their ideas. This is especially true if one or more panel members release dissenting advice, creating a story about disagreement and a failed process instead of the advice itself.

The role of the chair is fundamental to the process and to the success of the panel. The chair has to clearly understand the question to be addressed and the nuances and limitations in the mandate of the panel. The chair must oversee the formation and development of the panel from a group of individuals into a cohesive group, lead the panel in setting out their approach and process to answer the mandate question, tease out the aspects of the mandate issues that require research, information gathering, and then guide the process of information assimilation and ongoing deliberations of the panel toward concrete outcomes and advice, supported by the secretary throughout. Once advice has been settled on, the chair then plays the central role of preparing for the communication of the advice and being the spokesperson for the panel among government, stakeholders, and the media.

Regarding the selection of the panel chair, it should be ensured that they are viewed externally and internally in government as the "first among equals." As the principal bridge to the government, the chair should have a familiarity with the public policy process and the workings of the Government of Canada. The chair should be comfortable interacting with ministers, their staff, and central agency political staff as, depending on the nature of the panel and the difficulty of the mandate, interaction may be required at some stage (see discussion of the release of the report below). Also, the panel chair's reputation and status will be an important asset to the external consultation process, helping to draw in participants and legitimize the panel's work. The chair also plays the central role after the release of advice in communicating the panel's conclusions to government and through the media. Consideration can be given to engaging the chair first, consulting them on the panel mandate, the composition and membership of the panel and, after decisions have been taken by the government, have the chair also assist in reaching out to other potential panel members and in their recruitment. Some panel chairs have required a role in recruiting the panel as a condition of taking on the mandate.

In order to build buy-in, prospective panellists should be asked for their views on the mandate during the recruitment process. It is also very important that the panellists be given a clear assessment of the time obligations involved in accepting. This will allow them to knowingly accept the obligation, and allow panel members to mentally predetermine the nature and scope of their engagement over the course of the review. It will also protect the chair from inevitable tension later if the time commitment grows heavy on the members. It is extremely important not to artificially minimize the commitment when recruiting panel members. Managing the panel workload is a vital part of the success of the process, as much about the behaviour of the panel members during the review as it is pacing of the chair or support from the secretariat. If the panel mandate is inherently complex and panel members enter the review with the intent to explore all avenues of all issues, at the cost of not taking a strategic approach to their time and interventions, the result is a quickly escalating workload for them and the staff supporting them. The panel members then risk exhausting their goodwill and energy.

The legal nature of the panel appointment is important as well. Governor-in-Council (GIC) appointments by Cabinet provide panel members with a symbolically and psychologically solid mandate because they are approved by Cabinet. GICs typically accord better travel support, and the option of a formal schedule of remuneration for their time. Alternatively, most ministers may appoint advisors under their departmental or other statutes, and the costs and remuneration of the panel members can be addressed through the department or the Secretariat, in effect retaining them as professional service contractors. Ministerial letters of appointment and personal service contracts are obviously much easier to put in place than Cabinet approvals, yet they have substantial drawbacks. At an operational level, the latter approach treats the panel members as contractors and is burdensome by way of paperwork for panellists, restrictive for travel and related expense claims. This establishes an inappropriate dynamic in which the blue-ribbon expert stakeholders are treated legally by the bureaucracy as service vendors under contract. Where the issue being addressed by the panel cuts across departmental lines, ministerial letters also may communicate a narrow mandate to the panel members. And lastly, while there is a growing body of advice on conflict of interest for GIC appointees, including advisory services from the Office of the Commissioner, there is no similar clarity and support for ministerial appointees.

3. The secretariat to the panel

The secretariat has a broad range of functions in the work of an arms-length panel conducting a review, including being the secretariat for the panel members and their meetings. This includes contracting and administering the research and analysis agenda of the panel, managing the extensive documents and records generated for and by the review, producing an ongoing stream of briefing and analysis products, writing and producing the panel's reports, and supporting the launch and communications around the release of the final report and recommendations.

It also entails administrative oversight, including managing panel costs and logistics, organizing and then delivering the consultations, managing panel travel, hospitality and accommodation for events, and often, production of a final report in both languages.

In addition to the skills and experience to conduct these tasks, it is essential that the secretariat have staff members with substantive knowledge of the policy area the panel is examining. This allows for quick turn-around of some panel questions, but also ensures that the secretariat will know where and how to access information and talent in government and in the external community that can support the panel's work. As most issues worthy of a panel review process are complicated, it is normal that the subject-matter at hand involves the responsibilities of several departments. Ideally, the composition of the secretariat reflects the departments with a stake in the issue. This not only ensures that staff have the right mix of knowledge, skills, and experience, but also networks: The secretariat should be a small group at the centre of a range of contractors and government department sources of expertise, bringing streams of information together into accessible products in support of the panel's deliberations.

The secretariat should be recruited and operational prior to the panel launch, allowing the panel to focus on their work and enabling staff to provide support from the outset. This, however, can entail very short timelines and, given that reviews tend to be a year or less in duration, requires very flexible approaches to staffing the secretariat personnel, such as secondments, informal arrangements, contracted consultants, and temporary agency personnel. It also requires supportive management in the departments providing the personnel. They have to be willing to put up with dislocations in their own teams to allow key personnel to participate in the review.

The combined requirements of secretariat staff—that they have good substantive knowledge, strong networks inside and outside government, experience working with senior stakeholders, and cope well with the inherent ambiguity, short deadlines and pressure of the review—make more senior personnel desirable. That being said, participating in a review process provides a unique and foundational experience for new workers within government. As a result, a team composed of a good mix of both senior and junior staff is advantageous. In practice, recruiting working-level officers is not difficult, but executive-category staff can be very conscious of the risks inherent in participating in the panel process, and the uncertain landing for them after its conclusion. As a result, it can be harder to recruit from this community. Wider government initiatives, such as government spending review exercises, can also influence recruitment, as officials worry about what their options would be post-panel.

The panel is supposed to operate in isolation from government, and yet depends on the resources of government (including access to a wide range of information) to deliver on its mandate. As a result, the panel relies on its secretariat to be the intermediary. To work, the secretariat has to establish its bona fides with the panel as being distinct from the government, and at the same time retain an effective and ongoing dialogue and interaction with their former colleagues throughout the duration of the project. A key first step is locating the secretariat outside of government premises, and establishing a unique identify for itself and the panel, including a web presence for the panel and the review, distinct branding, and a way to contact the secretariat directly. However, the larger challenge is to maintain this balance over the life of the review. Staff will be pulled by the interests of their home department, while the panel also strains this balance from time to time by using the secretariat staff as a proxy for government, such as seeking explanations for policies, practices, and past decisions, testing out their emerging ideas on staff, and asking staff to act as intermediaries to unobtrusively explore views within government. Lastly, as external stakeholders, some panel members may have had negative interactions with government on the topic at hand, or more generally start the process skeptical that secretariat officials can be unbiased in their work and views.

Many of these roles fall to the secretary to the panel.^{Footnote 9} The foremost role of the secretary is to support the chair and panel, and allow the chair to focus on managing the panel process and building consensus among panellists over the course of the review. The secretary can and should be a source of strategic advice to the panel, but must do so through the chair in order to avoid being an active participant in the internal deliberations of the panel, to the extent possible. Secondly, the secretary organizes the work of staff, is expected to be proficient in policy development and, as noted above, manages the relationship with government, often done in conjunction with the chair. Although the secretary is usually a career senior civil servant (often at the assistant deputy minister [ADM] level), operating within the rules and procedures of the government, they must demonstrate loyalty to the panel and a full commitment to supporting the panel in fulfilling their mandate. Throughout the process, the secretary, working with the chair, needs to actively safeguard the panel's independence.

Given the limited time panel members have to give to the panel, a key function of the secretary is to provide a structure to the work of the panel and manage the flow of information to and from the panel. In this regard, it is essential that the secretariat at all times be responsive to the requests and interests of the panel members. Where possible, the secretary should also try to sequence, package and otherwise manage the information flow to the panel so as not to overwhelm them or distract them with low-value information. Given the diversity of personalities and work styles among panel members—some wanting extensive detail on all topics, and others wanting only summary information in select areas—this may not be possible. At the same time, the secretary should also manage the flow of panel requests and direction to staff, given finite resources and, even more so, the primary role of the chair in setting the pacing and scope of the work of the panel.

Where there is an executive director supporting the secretary, they can perform a range of essential functions, including the day-to-day management of secretariat personnel and their work, the secretariat workplan, and the budget. In addition, the executive director (usually at the director general [DG] or senior director level) can play an important liaison role as a complement to the secretary by participating in external venues and chairing interdepartmental meetings. Having an executive director is particularly effective where the secretary has other duties or is not full time.

Careful consideration should be given by government to the appropriate duration of the review and timing for the delivery of the report. Ultimately, the duration of the review will be a function of when the advice is required and work will be structured and scaled to the time available. That being said, bringing together a panel of external stakeholders, forming a cohesive panel, undertaking the review work, and formulating a substantive report takes a fair amount of time. Even where advice is required on a short timeline, there are limits to how short a review process can be, with three to four months probably representing the shortest period possible for a quality product. In addition, the more complex the topic or the more fact-based the approach required or desired, the more likely a longer period is needed. Here, the limitation is the panel itself. As noted above, panel members are volunteers when it comes to this policy-making advice activity, and 12 months could well be the upper limit that they are able to provide for a review, given their normal responsibilities and obligations. The strain of participating in the review will be real and grows over time, as the demands of their normal occupations accumulate.

The panel budget is determined by the duration of the review and the extent to which high-cost activity is required, such as extensive contract research, retention of advisors with specialized knowledge or skills, travel and consultations, potentially international, professional production of the report, and the overall level and duration of staff support for the review.^{Footnote 10} In addition to secretariat costs, there are also costs that will incurred by the sponsoring department and the departments implicated in the review, which will be recorded outside of the review's budget. For instance, the sponsoring department may lend staff for the period of the review, cover aspects of human resource, finance and administration costs, provide assets and equipment and even, along with other interested departments, provide research and information-gathering services during the review period through the secretariat for the panel. That being said, panels need actual cash budgets to travel, hire experts, and incur other hard costs to undertake their work. These funds can come from special financial allocations, often from outside of the usual budget cycle if there is urgency to the panel's work, and so can require the simultaneous approval of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and then a Treasury Board submission. Or, more prosaically, the cash support for the panel will be funded from existing departmental resources, typically from the department of the lead minister. It is advisable to establish a formal arrangement between the lead department's deputy minister and the secretary of the panel, clearly identifying the budget, delegation of authorities, and interaction processes between the department and secretariat. In addition to avoiding unnecessary confusion and conflicts later, this also communicates the independence of the panel process.

4. The review process

At the outset, taking into consideration the due date of the panel report, the secretary should propose to the chair a workplan and schedule for the review, setting forth the stages of the panel's work, and identifying the dates of the critical milestones for the panel to establish the pacing and activity of the review. Early panel discussion and review of this workplan and schedule, followed by regular update and review, is an essential tool to assist the chair in keeping the panel on schedule. A typical sequence for a panel review would be: (1) foundational briefings for the panel, (2) panel review of the research plan, (3) development of a consultation paper and undertaking the consultations domestically and internationally, (4) a process of panel dialogue and synthesis, (5) an iterative process of report drafting, and (6) release of final report.

Foundational briefings

Although the premise for having an arms-length panel is that they are experts in the subject-manner being reviewed, in practice, the knowledge of panel members can be uneven, with panel members each knowing different aspects of the issue. Further, a key part of beginning the panel process is for the panel to take stock of the existing knowledge and views regarding a topic, and in particular, to understand what the government itself thinks of the issue at this time and why. For these reasons, the essential first step of the panel is a series of foundational briefings in which government and external subject-matter experts brief the panel as a group. The goal is a shared sense of the subject-matter the panel is examining and the identification of any gaps or areas where further inquiry is required before the panel can provide their advice. This process should include ample time for panel dialogue after the experts have left the room, and for panel reconsideration and review of the mandate question, in light of what they are learning.

The foundational briefings should cover the mechanics of being a panel member, such as conflicts of interest, remuneration of costs, the duty to manage review materials appropriately, and making clear to the panel that their materials, work and deliberations will be subject to federal access to information legislation. Innocuous as these topics may seem, they can elicit strong panel member concerns, especially where individuals are drawn from stakeholders active in these areas (for instance, conflict of interest rules) or unused to government rule structures (e.g., government requirements and limitations on travel and hospitality reimbursements). It is very important to approach these subjects slowly and carefully, explaining their importance to the panel members.

Development and delivery of the research plan

The second phase in the life of the panel is to identify the areas where the panel needs further information. Given the short timeline for conducting a review and the long lead times required to conduct or contract research, the panel is forced to structure their thinking and identify and agree upon these key issues very early in their collective life. In the event that there are finite financial resources, there is also a limit on how many questions can be pursued and so they have to make choices. It may help for the panel to use a rough mock-up of the storyline of their final report as a discursive tool to help them with identifying the information and analysis required to tell the story they have in mind. Here again though, time is required in the schedule for the panel to discuss this outline, if it is to be useful to them as an aide to help organize their thinking. As outlined further below, it is useful to discuss at an early stage simple questions such as how many recommendations they expect to make, and how substantive and fact-based will the supporting arguments be. Is original research or survey work required for what they hope to address? Once the questions or issues requiring further work are defined, the secretariat can contract the appropriate experts or, if not possible, staff themselves can commence the research and information-gathering activity.

Research and other contract work for the panel is governed by government procurement rules. These rules pose real challenges for the review given the short time available for research to be assigned, conducted, and then assimilated by the panel, and due to the limited expertise often available for hire under short notice, and the panel's stated preferences as to who should do the work. The sponsoring department can greatly assist the small panel secretariat by taking on contracting support, and early discussions are recommended between the secretariat and the department to ensure advance notice of a number of sole-source contracts and subsequent contract amendments as panel members pose second-round questions or request further information.

Domestic and international consultations

Once the research agenda is underway, the panel can turn to its third phase: consultations. This is best done against a framework such as a consultation paper, in which the panel sets out its mandate and the questions it is to address, provides limited and pertinent context for stakeholders, and in turn asks them a set of questions arising from the panel's initial thoughts and questions about their subject-matter. These questions not only assist with structuring their dialogue with the public, but also provide a framework for the panel and secretariat to gather, organize and assimilate the information received. The discussion paper also can be used to structure and organize the work of producing the final report by providing a template for approaching and discussing the topic, allowing selection of a tone and look and feel. As a discussion paper, it is flexible and can be changed, but many initial decisions can be made that benefit producing the advice report later.

The actual consultations can take a number of forms, including a web-based solicitation for written briefs through the panel's website, professional surveys, face-to-face consultations in various parts of the country and with various groups, and international consultations to meet with foreign subject-matter experts, interests, and other governments. Stakeholders, especially at the heart of the subject matter, usually have an expectation of face-to-face dialogue with the panel and, given that domestic issues can vary by sector and region of Canada, care is required to ensure sufficiently representative consultations. These can range from meetings, to very small group interactive sessions (particularly effective for allowing the panel to dive into topics with stakeholders), to town hall sessions that are open and inclusive. The panel can do these as a group or allocate among themselves certain communities or regions. Panels now have the option to conduct interviews virtually over distances at a substantially lower cost, but this approach can invite inequality, or the perception of inequality, if experts or certain stakeholders expect in-person interactions with the panel, and so a logic for who is spoken to in what way is required, and clarity and consistency is important.

The administrative support required for national and international consultations is extensive, as is the organizational management of the information received. Care and attention are required to manage the information such that the panel can access it in manageable formats. If the issue is topical, there will be a large number of written briefs. Statistically significant surveys require a substantial number of respondents. Broad-based outreach in domestic consultations will generate a large body of transcripts. All of this will have to be processed and distilled into an accessible format in which information can be sorted, grouped and retrieved later. That being said, the individual work styles of the panel will again come into play, and some panel members may want access to all information received, no matter the volume involved.

Dialogue and assimilation of the information gathered

The process of panel dialogue and assimilation of material may be more or less complicated depending on the complexity of the topic, the extent of pre-existing consensus among panel members on approaches and potential advice, and the structure of the approach taken in the research and information-gathering stage and the consultation phases of the review. For instance, the research papers produced by experts under contract might serve as sufficient basis for panel dialogue. By contrast, it may be necessary to generate intermediary products to help the panel absorb the range of information and organize panel deliberations. In this latter case, staff or contractors can be assigned responsibility to comb through the literature reviews, consultation and survey results, and contract research reports in order to distill the material into short discussion papers. The panel can in turn identify among themselves leads for sub-topics, form loose working groups, or leave things relatively unstructured.

Regardless of the approaches taken, successive face-to-face panel meetings will be required for the group to work through the materials, share views, and arrive at agreement on how they will tell their story and the advice they want to provide. This is especially true at the front end of the process, when panel members need to meet as a group face to face to adjust to each other as personalities. Once they have established human capital, more on-line tools and interactions work better. Interim virtual calls and email can supplement this cycle of meetings, but not replace it, especially where there are points of disagreement.

Report drafting

During the activity of researching and consulting on the review topic, it is easy to lose sight of the central function of a panel—producing a report containing its advice. As a result, a large measure of the success of the panel will be its ability to write a clear, logical, and readable report.

As mentioned regarding the research workplan above, very early in the life of the panel, it is useful for panel members to discuss in general terms the kind of report they wish to produce. This can include looking at other recent external advice reports to government as examples, discussing how many recommendations they will make, the report's potential length, the tone they wish to take and their stance in relation to the government (friendly advisor, external critic, etc.), whether it is to be fact based or experiential and opinion based, and whether it will be very detailed or high level and principled. In addition, during the panel discussion to identify their key research questions, they may also have had a chance to work through, in very general terms, a rough outline of their final report. These early discussions build a shared understanding of the report they wish to produce and so greatly assist the secretariat in organizing its production. As part of this session, it is valuable for the chair to lead a discussion on what is success by way of the impact of the report. Most reports do not see all of their advice accepted quickly. The panel's morale and subsequent comfort with their work after the panel is completed benefits from time-setting expectations regarding what is success by way of implementation of their advice. The approach taken during the research and information-gathering stage can also be very helpful for report writing. If organized well, the reports contracted or discussion papers written by staff can be used as source material to shape a rough outline as a first draft of the report.

With respect to writing the actual report, a panel member may wish to do so, the panel may prefer to engage a professional writer, the secretariat may take this on, or some combination of these approaches may be used. In the event that a professional writer is used, one with knowledge of the topic is extremely advantageous, and early inclusion of the writer in panel meetings to listen to their deliberations is recommended to allow the writer to understand the panel's ideas and voice.^{Footnote 11} In contrast, caution is advised regarding having one panel member play a leading role in drafting, as views will differ and members may be uncomfortable with their colleague articulating the collective advice. Usually having an in-house pen in the secretariat is advisable, under the direct engagement of the secretary who is interfacing with the panel daily.

Some panel members may only really become engaged once they have a first narrative draft of their report in front of them. Outlines and summaries don't effectively convey the flow and tone, nor the logic leading to the draft recommendations. For this reason, the secretariat should anticipate the possibility of changes from the panel at this stage in the scope, content, approach, and ideas to be covered in the report, and allot sufficient time and flexibility to cover for this eventuality. Again, face-to-face group dialogue at this stage is important to ensure the panel is comfortable with making the hard choices and trade-offs, and united around their emerging product. How the panel approaches the review and development of the report drafts is very much a question of their available time and energy, work habits, and interests in the review on an individual basis. A key challenge for the chair is therefore the establishment of a process for writing the report that moves the panellists over successive drafts toward agreement on its contents. A number of complete rewrites of the report are possible, while subsequent drafts will start to focus in on select areas where agreement is most elusive (That being said, some panel members may continue to make comments across the review at a detailed level up until the end of the process.). To simplify this to the extent possible, it is advantageous to achieve as much clarity on the intended recommendations as possible during the earlier assimilation and discussion stage, in order to focus the report writing process on how best to communicate ideas, rather than continuing to work through the ideas themselves. One tactic to consider as a next step prior to circulation of the full report would be writing and circulating a draft executive summary first as a stand-alone document for dialogue and collective review.

At a mechanical level, there are also a number of editing tools that can help the drafting process, such as inserting notes into the revised text explaining where the writing team was unable to make changes requested and why, and distributing a complete compendium of all comments received from the panel members with each new draft of the report. This last product is particularly helpful as panel members need to see their comments within the context of the entirety of views received during each round to understand the changes made or not made.

Panel members who are detail-conscious may spend substantial time and effort in editing text, which can in part be alleviated by ensuring professional copy editors will review the text thoroughly in the production phase. This production phase will start sooner than panel members intent on revisions may wish, as it takes substantial time for copy editing, translation into both official languages, professional formatting and graphics, formatting and accessibility work for web publication and production and delivery of hard copies as needed. It is important that adequate time therefore be built into the panel's schedule from the outset for this production period, and that the schedule be kept in front of panel members throughout the review process. It is important to remember that advice provided for the Government of Canada will be in both official languages, and that panel members will expect the text of the report to be consistently well written and communicated. If the working drafting is in English, the timeline and process must provide ample time for members to be comfortable with the quality of the French text, as this version is in fact the official final document for much of the Canadian public.

Although not directly related to the report itself, the panel may also want to release some or all of their research reports, information products such as survey summaries, or discussion papers that the panel drew upon in its work. These, too, will therefore require panel and staff time to review to ensure approval of the content and time for editing, some measure of formatting, and translation.

A final step in the production of the report can consist of the chair circulating penultimate drafts to a select circle of readers for confidential comment. Leading opinion leaders, subject-matter experts, and thoughtful officials with responsibilities in the policy area being reviewed are all potential reviewers, but great care is required in their selection to ensure discretion and confidentiality. If possible, it is best to get written comments to provide to the panel on an anonymous basis and for the panel to then review the comments and discuss any final changes. (A review of the draft by an anonymous panel of experts is a formal part of the process of writing assessment reports for both the Council of Canadian Academies and the National Academy of Sciences.)

Release of the report

Early planning for the release of the report is also important as the panel has to come to agreement on their key messages and supporting media documents, how they intend to manage communication with the media and stakeholders, and development of the normal range of communication products related to their review. A key aspect of the success of the panel's work will be attracting strong media and stakeholder attention, so emphasis will be placed on ensuring a suitable venue and attractive and clear communications messaging. While communication products need adjustment right up to their time of use in light of changing contexts, these products should be shared with panel members as soon as possible to allow for comment and discussion. This will allow panel members an opportunity to consider how best to tell their story as the report-writing stage winds down. Communicating a clear and consistent message also benefits from having a designated spokesperson or persons. Normally, the chair assumes this role on behalf of the panel, although other panel members may take on specific supporting roles. Where the chair is not proficient in one of the official languages, another panel member may take on the lead for communication in the other language.

As noted earlier, the chair can also take on limited pre-release discussions with decision-makers to provide the government with some advance time to consider and prepare itself for the report and respond to the advice. However, this obviously poses substantial risks to both the panel—regarding whether it is actually being arms-length—and the government, regarding the appearance or reality of tampering with the very advice it outsourced to non-government actors. Regardless of the choices made on whether and how to engage the government in advance, these are activities for the chair or other members of the panel rather than the secretariat. The same issues pertain to provision of the report: Whether the panel provides advance copies to the government and, if so, how much in advance of the release date.

5. Winding down

The final stage in the life of the review is closure. For the secretariat, this involves the compilation, sorting and saving of all materials related to the review into an orderly body of documents, the sequenced return of staff to their departments, and the transfer of the body of records, remaining assets and resources, and any outstanding obligations, to the sponsoring department.

For the panel it is more complicated. From a mandate perspective, the panel ceases to exist shortly after delivery of their report, and secretariat support for the panel members halts quickly thereafter. From a public and stakeholder perceptions perspective, the panel members have a half-life of government-sanctioned authority to speak to this topic, which decreases steadily as they slowly return to their own normal context.

Lastly, a vital consideration in the success of a panel is its ability to stay unified, cohesive and on message throughout the immediate post-release period and thereafter. A panel that has members saying different things about their work than the main approved messages will invite media attention on their differences rather than the content of their ideas. This is to reiterate the importance of building a shared sense of the communications approach and strategy for managing communications among the panel members in advance of the release date.

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The advice

85.68%

Regardless of the specific content of a report, as discussed in the introductory sections of this paper, success in the content of external advice is recommendations that are:

• Relevant to the problem or question asked of the panel
• Well supported by facts and reasonable assumptions
• Clearly argued and presented
• Balanced by explicitly or implicitly taking into account the range of competing stakeholder interests and current realities facing the government (for instance, the limitations deficit reduction places on new spending, or the limits of the role of the state or federal jurisdiction) and therefore likely to be acceptable for stakeholders and the government
• Formulated in a way that is actionable and focused on achieving specific objectives

As a final point, it is important that the panel be aware that success is not complete acceptance of their advice in the short term. While some ideas will be adopted in the short term, it is normal for recommendations to take significant time to work their way into and through the policy process. Other recommendations will prove too advanced, unstructured, or otherwise undoable at this time. Success in arms-length advice is as much about changing the landscape of an issue, and opening doors for new possibilities, as it is about telling the government what to do.

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Conclusion

100%

Arms-length panels represent an important form of policy leadership that generate public policy ideas outside of government. They enable extensive public consultation and engagement on complex questions, and yet allow ministers to retain appropriate decision-making and accountability. For this reason, we can expect them to continue to be widely used by government.

To be successful, arms-length panels have to generate ideas that are:

• New or outside the range of what would normally arise from the civil service
• Acceptable to a sufficient number of key stakeholders and the general public
• Workable, in that government will be able to implement or otherwise act upon them

In order to assist officials in designing and delivering panels that are more likely to succeed on these terms, this paper therefore examined a range of underpinning conditions of success that influence the ultimate outcome of the review process. Specifically, the planning and delivery of the review process and the quality of secretarial support play fundamental roles in the success of the panel. However, potentially even more important is the care and attention required in the formulation of the panel mandate and the selection of panel members.

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