The hiring and subsequent firing of a communications chief by a public agency this week generated a familiar tale about "friends and insiders" in the provincial capital.
But there is a broader yarn of opportunism behind it: how the province's health authorities managed to undo a government-ordered efficiency drive.
The hook:
Bypassing its own hiring rules, the Vancouver Island Health Authority awarded Stewart Muir a plum contract as chief of communications. Mr. Muir happens to be married to the Premier's senior adviser, Athana Mentzelopoulos. (All that communications talent, and still nobody in charge recognized the bad optics until it was spelled out in the media this week.) Once the story made the headlines, the health authority cancelled Mr. Muir's contract, after just nine days on the job.
The decision:
The notion that each of the province's six health authorities needed its own communications chief was challenged by the provincial government three years ago. In the 2008 Throne Speech, the B.C. government announced a new vision for health care, promising to integrate a dozen services provided by the health authorities. The savings would be directed to patient care. "Our goal is an efficient, effective, integrated health system that promotes the health of all citizens," said then-premier Gordon Campbell. As a start, four health agencies in the Lower Mainland were ordered to pool their communications shops, along with services like security, diagnostics and pharmacy. The communications merger alone would save $1.5-million annually.
The players:
Kevin Falcon, the health minister of the day, was the driving force behind integration. But he stepped down in November to seek the Liberal leadership, and then lost the health portfolio in the March 14 cabinet shuffle. Senior brass at the health authorities, never enthused about the integration project, were quick to act the moment Mr. Falcon took his eye off the ball. And it didn't take them long to calculate that the new Health Minister, Mike de Jong, wasn't seizing the initiative.
The evolution:
The communications merger happened 18 months after the Throne Speech, but it was a financial success, saving $1-million in its first year even after paying severance to dozens of staff. But the CEOs of the health authorities chafed at the new regime – think of a mayor who doesn't have a police chief to call his or her own.
The province once promised health care that was "closer to home." The brass at the health authorities wanted their own messaging and branding closer to home. The job of chief communications officer is to provide "strategic advice" on media relations and to deal with the government caucus and the Ministry of Health. A pipeline into the Premier's Office doesn't hurt.
In February, while the B.C. Liberals were in the middle of picking their new leader, the CEOs made their first move. They clawed back their human resources departments. And they got away with it, with no public fuss or repercussions from the Health Ministry.
Emboldened, the executives for the health agencies met in April and agreed to repatriate their individual communications empires. Without putting anything in writing, they assured Health Ministry officials they would keep their spending in line with the levels achieved through integration.
The first public hint that something had changed came a month after Mr. Falcon was named Finance Minister, when the Provincial Health Services Authority posted a job for a chief communications officer reporting to the president and chief executive officer. The positions, which pay between $140,000 and $180,000 annually, have been restored now to each health authority.
The outlook:
When asked this week, the current Health Minister was vague about the de-integration efforts. Mr. de Jong said the "general direction" around trying to co-ordinate services and efforts is still the policy. "I hope when you look at it, that you will conclude the initiative is still very much in play," he said.
It is true that other services, like purchasing, remain integrated to some degree. But the initiative has stalled, and Mr. Falcon was refreshingly blunt this week about why.
"I was pushing hard for [integration]as you know, but there was some resistance to that," he said in an interview. "It is one of those processes you have to drive very, very hard, otherwise it is not going to happen organically."