OPEN GUELPH coordinator in the Office of the CAO, to develop a mechanism whereby staff could pitch their ideas, have decisions made quickly and connect with the tools and resources to do their jobs well.
The result is the city’ s Innovation Fund, a peer-to-peer led process where city employees can pitch their ideas to a panel of their peers, who can award resources if they believe the idea has merit.
With $ 50,000 in seed money, the program got off the ground in summer 2014 with a total of 21 pitches. Winners were announced shortly afterwards, and today, most of the ideas have been implemented.
Examples of winning pitches include a bus driver who proposed more riderfriendly signage at Guelph’ s bus hub, and a city works staffer who advocated for the purchase of wing-blade carts that would allow for easier mounting and dismounting of the blades – used for clearing snow – on city trucks.
In another pitch, the court services department asked for an investment of $ 8,000 so it could access the Equifax program database, which would allow it to more efficiently locate people who owed outstanding court-ordered tickets or fines. Implemented at the beginning of 2015, the new program brought in $ 140,000 in fines over the year, allowing for the closure of more than 800 cases.
Holder said the Innovation Fund has been so successful that Guelph has launched its second request for pitches.
“ It turned out better than we could have hoped,” she said.“ Staff felt supported by senior management and recognized for their great ideas. They felt they had a voice and were being heard.”
Collective collaboration Collaboration is a founding pillar of Guelph’ s open government initiative. Many voices make for unique solutions, a belief shared by Jennifer Smith, manager of corporate and community strategic initiatives.
Smith coordinates the City of Guelph’ s roundtables initiative, a process that brings executives together with employees, city councillors and citizen stakeholders to discuss specific
“ The fact is that transparency and accountability aren’ t just overused buzzwords, they are government imperatives.”
– Barb Swartzentruber, Executive Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Policy and Open Government, City of Guelph
challenges standing in the way of the“ perfect city.”
“ It’ s a new approach, with the tables really starting their work last fall,” said Smith.“ They are quite experimental in nature and have proved excellent testing grounds for trying out new tools and methods at the city.”
The end goal, she says, is to build the city’ s capacity for collaborative problem solving by giving more stakeholders a voice; increasing problem-solving skills( particularly methods and tools that build empathy and understanding from a user perspective); and developing practical solutions that work.
Real improvements were made with the marriage licence process, whereby citizen experience led to a number of ground level enhancements. Smith said new roundtable groups will be considered for 2017.
While Andy Best may now be in the middle of Guelph’ s open government push, it’ s clear that the city’ s progress is a collective effort that involves all stakeholders – elected officers, managers, frontline employees and citizens alike.
While the transformation is a living process involving trial and error, each success provides a solid block upon which Guelph is building the open city of the future.
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