Episode 3: Thoughts on the first case study: imposed digitalization
Hi and welcome back to the podcast about my research project on access to justice in the era of digital transformation in the public sector.
As I said in the previous episode, I will use this podcast to talk about the things that concern or occupy me during my research and to report on how the project progresses. I’ll first talk a little about methodology and data collection, and then go on to discuss some first preliminary findings from the first case study.
At the moment I’m very happy to say that the field research in Quebec, my first case study where I’ve spent five weeks, has gone very well. The Protecteur du Citoyen, the Quebec public ombuds, has been very supportive which has helped enormously to make good progress in data collection. During the last weeks I’ve been organizing and conducting interviews with ombuds staff and NGO representatives as well as organizing and conducting focus groups and interviews with citizens, that is, ombuds users in Quebec and Montreal. I managed to talk to more than 30 ombuds staff and 25 citizens as well as around 10 representatives of other organizations, including NGOs as well as Ministries and public administration bodies, working in the field of social justice and administrative support for citizens. Most interviews took place in person, but some also online or on the phone, whichever the concerned person preferred. Also, to cover the North of Quebec, which is very different from the South, in particular it’s much less populated and the population is to a large extent Indigenous; so to cover that reality as well I have planned a few online interviews with support and community organizations.
Managing this large number of interviews and focus groups in two different cities was quite a challenge. Identifying relevant organizations of different kinds and the persons to speak to in a place you don’t know can be a difficult task. Then contacting them to ask for an interview, recontacting them if you don’t get a reply, organizing appointments and locations, and keeping track of all that are the next big tasks. At the same time, since the next case study is already waiting, I also have to make preparations for the next field trip, including identifying and contacting potential interview partners in other places.
What I find crucial about contacting potential interviewees is that you will have to approach every time. I have been contacting so many different actors – ombuds staff, citizens, NGOs, government representatives – so for every group or persons and for every organization you really need to formulate your inquiry in different ways. Describing my research interest in different ways is not only necessary because they can each provide different perspectives on the issue, such as experts on legal support, Indigenous community support, or health service complaints, but also because it’s important that they can connect to the issues and questions I’m interested in. Otherwise, it will very easily happen that people think they have nothing to say in the matter; so, they will deny the interview because they think that they’re not the right person for my questions. And the fact that I follow an explorative approach in my study has both advantages and disadvantages in this regard. It makes it easy to formulate quite different questions for different persons, but it bears the danger of becoming very broad and potentially unfocused. But in my opinion finding the focus is actually a part of the whole endeavour.
And what I also found very important, though not surprising since it is a well-known methodological aspect, is that the snowball approach has proven quite productive, in the sense that there were several persons with whom I did an interview and who then facilitated contacts to other potential interview partners. So, this was very helpful and definitely enriched my data and broadened the spectrum of perspectives.
Okay, so now, I guess what most people typically are interested in most are the findings. I’ll share with you some first preliminary conclusions from all those interviews and focus group discussions. As you remember I’m interested in challenges related to access to public services, and I understand access in a very broad way; it includes potential barriers both before accessing services and during using them. And I’m looking at this also, but not only, from the perspective of increasing digitalization. As it’s an explorative study, there are many different aspects that I could talk about, but I’ll focus here on a few.
To sum it up, there are quite a few problems which when they are added up show that there are many construction sites as we would say in German – many things that need to be fixed and it’s not easy to know where to start.
For now, I will focus on the issue of digitalization. When we think about Canada, a country of the Global North, we typically assume that most people will have access to Internet and digital services. However, there is quite a number of regions, and I’m focusing on the province of Quebec now, where there is no or no stable and no broadband Internet available for different reasons, among them the large distances and the harsh winters. And there are also parts of the population, such as some hunters for instance, who sometimes have no need and no desire at all to use a computer or even the Internet on a mobile phone.
Nonetheless, several citizens have expressed the opinion that digital tools and platforms are increasingly imposed on them when using public services; oftentimes they find that they don’t a choice anymore other than using the online services. That, however, does not only require an Internet connection but also access to a device as well as the respective skills or literacy.
Speaking of literacy, and this is another major problem, when we talk about access to public services: In 2013, a government study found that 53% of the Quebec population were functionally illiterate, and by the way 49% was the Canadian average; which basically means that these persons have difficulties with tasks that need more than basic reading; a more recent study from 2022 by the Quebec Alphabetisation Foundation suggests that things have not improved much. How will these people – that is about half of population – be able to understand all the terms of an administrative or legal procedure and fill in complicated forms online to apply for any benefits? Many interviewees said that even though they have a good education and sometimes even though they have been working in legal contexts, they find it difficult to understand and fill in correctly all forms. Another problem with these forms is that it’s not always clear which of the boxes you should check, to know in which of the categories your case belongs; and often you don’t have the possibility of adding anything, as you might have when the form was on paper.
And this relates to another fact, which was mentioned in some interviews, namely that the government – as many other things – is increasingly becoming a self-service place. Instead of a public official telling you exactly which would be the right form and giving it to you, now as a citizen you have to go find it yourself – somewhere and if you’re lucky it will be the right one.
In the interviews people also complain that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk to someone in the PA. Also, often you won’t get the name of the official you’re dealing with; so you don’t actually know who you’re interacting with; and this makes it very difficult to eventually hold someone accountable for their action. Emails are sent to and from general addresses, not signed by individual persons. And in order to see someone in person, you sometimes need to book an appointment online – which seems a bit bizarre.
Several interviewees have also pointed out that the digital services provided by different public bodies are very fragmented; some ministries offer certain online services, while others don’t; for every ministry or agency you need another password because they’re using different platforms. It was suggested a few times that a one-stop-shop for public services in a unified platform could make it much easier for citizens; not having to get to know how to work with seven different tools and platforms.
Another aspect related to this, that was discussed quite often is that interviewees, both citizens and experts, sometimes have the impression that the services are not actually designed for the benefit of the users. Even if government agencies might think about citizens’ needs in the beginning, in the process of developing a tool, often the organizational needs will get more attention. Also, it was mentioned that consultation processes which should actually be designed to include the needs of different groups of citizens are sometimes seen rather as a check box exercise in the sense that agencies will do some kind of consultation mainly to be able to say that they have done it. Who was really consulted and in which way often remains unclear.
Overall, the interviews suggest that public bodies often do not listen sufficiently to the needs of citizens. Which is somewhat disturbing given that the citizens are the ones who should be served. The public administrators are public servants, that is, they serve the public.
What’s more, many interviewees think that the development of digitalization goes too fast in the sense that many people don’t have enough time to adapt. Many people find that the transition to online tools and services is not well accompanied and people in need of support are left to the side – and there are many people in need of support, not only some of the elderly.
Overall, from the interviews with different actors, citizens, ombuds staff, and other experts one could get the impression that through increased digitalization the public administration is creating more barriers rather than making access to its services easier for all parts of society. It might also be questioned whether the law that is now coming into effect in Quebec in order to protect the French language, and which foresees that all public services must be used in French, whether this restriction will make access to services any easier for persons who do not speak French at a level where they feel at ease to go through an administrative procedure; and English actually is an official language in Quebec.
So as you see it’s not all that easy; and those were just a few of the problems or challenges that citizens and public bodies are confronted with and that seem to require action sooner rather than later. Adding to that, there is quite a number of other problems that are not related to digitalization, but that also represent barriers in accessing public services; among these are bad previous experiences such as discrimination and related to that mistrust towards government bodies and their representatives. In the history of Canada, including Quebec, governmental action has led to a situation where these issues have been and are still particularly detrimental to the Indigenous population in many ways. I will talk a bit more about that in the next episode which will cover my next case study, the Northwest Territories, which has an Indigenous population of a bit over 50%.
Thanks again for listening and stay tuned!
