Report 5 - Access to Information Review Task Force

TRUST WITHIN AND AMONG ORGANIZATIONS AS IT RELATES TO THE ACCESS TO INFORMATION FRAMEWORK

Erosion of Trust

Just as reciprocated expectations and positive attitudes tend to make trust spiral upwards, when expectations are not reciprocated and affectations are negative, trust spirals downwards (Jones and George, 1998). When values, attitudes, moods, and emotions do not favour trust, trust will not develop. Similarly, when trust is subject to any violations of mutually agreed upon expectations, trust is reduced (Sitkin and Roth, 1993) and the downward spiral begins. Distrust appears at the point where the trustee is no longer deemed trustworthy (Jones and George, 1998).

Factors contributing to eroding trust surface in recent Information Commissioner's Annual Reports and summaries of the consultations conducted by the Access to Information Review Task Force. For example, when public officials adopt the view that loyalty to the Minister is a higher value than is obedience to law, rely automatically on exemptions instead of exercising their discretion and when they respond with reluctance or resistance to the recommendations of the Information Commissioner - trust suffers. When deputy ministers and ministers are subpoenaed and subjected to aggressive cross-examinations by the Information Commissioner - trust is put into question. When additional rules, regulations, sanctions, and formal mechanisms of direction, control, and accountability are recommended under the banner of promoting trust - the more the implication is left that institutions and their members cannot be trusted. Finally, when resources are lacking; information management practices are poor (or absent); perceptions are inaccurate; goals, responsibilities and workloads across 140 institutions subject to the Act are not standardized; rules to be applied are constantly changing and even Officers of Parliament disagree with each other on their interpretation; there are disagreements about how to accomplish objectives; investigations are perceived as capricious and unpredictable; and there is a failure to support Access to Information Co-ordinators and program staff - the stage is set for intergroup conflict and mutual trust is further eroded.

Trust among stakeholders in the Access to Information community at the federal level appears to be weak if the recent reports from the Information Commissioner and the summaries of the consultations conducted by the Access to Information Review Task Force are reliable guides. There are tensions and confrontations between the Office of the Information Commissioner, the Prime Minister's Office, and with other ministers and deputy ministers whose departments have received poor "report cards."
The Information Commissioner must walk the fine line of aggressively defending the public's right to know while still working co-operatively with ministers and departments. The tools used by the Information Commissioner in striking the balance and achieving Access to Information objectives include strong investigative powers, Annual Reports to Parliament, persuasion, negotiation, and mediation. In the view of the Information Commissioner, the first of these provides strong incentives for adherence to the Act, but should be used sparingly, by consent, and co-operatively to foster mutual trust between the public service and the Office of the Information Commissioner.

The Annual Reports serve to generate parliamentary interest and media publicity, and are intended to bring attention to access process shortfalls with a view to correcting deficiencies and engendering trust. However, recent Annual Reports have featured vivid accounts and strong language criticizing government and its departments for attempts to block access. Instead of engendering trust, their admonishing tone may damage the reputation of the public service and hurt existing trust relationships.

Repairing Trust

The literature suggests that injured, violated, or broken trust cannot be re-established between parties until each party willingly renegotiates the relationship or until the injured party willingly reconciles to the violations(s) and is able to restore the former positive attitude about the other. Lewicki and Bunker (1996) agree, and propose that repairing trust begins with a four-step process: first, the trust violation must be recognized and acknowledged; second, the cause of the violation must be determined; third, the violation must be acknowledged as having been destructive; and last, responsibility for the violation must be accepted. Once these steps have been undertaken, the repair process may begin.

The repair process, according to Lewicki and Bunker, sentimental though it may seem, is simply for the victim to request, or the violator to offer, some form of forgiveness, atonement, or action designed to undo the violation and rebuild the trust. By apologizing, the violator is offering to engage in actions that will restore the previously negotiated balance of rights, obligations, duties, and responsibilities. The victim is then in the position of dictating whether the trust can be rebuilt and the terms and conditions under which that will occur.

In the context of the Access to Information community, political and other sensitivities in the identification of victim and violator may impede the repair of broken trust relationships. The repair process in this case, therefore, may have to be limited to addressing and correcting those factors which are suggested as having contributed to the erosion of mutual trust (see Erosion of Trust above) and concentrating on trust building.

Building Trust

The Public Service Commission (1995a) reports that building and maintaining trust starts with the creation of an organizational culture based on believable and shared values. Formal vision statements, mandates, organizational objectives and missions may serve as symbols of the organizational culture, but are all meaningless unless they are visibly put into action. Rather than brainstorming a specific trust-improvement strategy, efforts are better spent ingraining trust in the culture of the organization. In other words, building trust involves an institutional or top-down commitment to values and a concerted effort to ensuring these are consistently maintained (Public Service Commission, 1995b). Five general principles around which building trust revolve are participation in the decision-making process, autonomy, feedback, supportive behaviour, and open communication (Ibid.).

Trust within and among organizations requires certain expectations, mutual obligations, and a special combination of rights and duties. Carnavale (1995) reinforces and adds to the principles mentioned above by suggesting that trust can be bolstered by safeguarding freedom of speech, opportunities to be effectively involved in decisions, enforceable constitutional protections, guarantees against abuse of power, expectations that politics and conflict will be ethically managed, possibilities for critically self-reflective learning, and individual self-development.

The development of trust may differ from one organizational form to another. Nevertheless, in general, it is dependent upon some combination of characteristic similarity and positive relational experience, with broad societal norms and expectations setting a baseline (Creed and Miles, 1996). Instituting educational programs designed to enhance acceptance of diversity, to reduce the barrier of dissimilarity, and building relational experiences within and among organizations each serve well in the development of trust (Ibid.).

However, Carnevale (1995) provides the reminder that people and organizations react directly and in kind to the amount of trust directed at them, and he cautions that trust cannot be commanded or manipulated into existence. Participatory designs intended to fortify trust and morality are usually not given enough time to work. Furthermore, he believes that the public sector is too often guilty of swallowing whole every fashionable idea that emanates from the private sector, without regard for the unique and demanding operating domains of public institutions. Trust becomes a casualty of investments in bad schemes. It can also suffer as a result of the short attention spans committed to these "innovative" and "participatory" ideas. Trust is an attitude that is voluntarily granted to others only after assessing whether the recipients are worthy of such consideration. It is built or earned rather than dictated or orchestrated. Building trust must start with leadership.

Leadership is the absolutely essential factor in building conditions of faith and confidence in organizations (Carnevale, 1995). Effective leaders recognize that trust is indispensable for the well being of their organizations, the people who work for them, and the people who are served by them. Leaders understand how an individual experiences trust in other people, groups, or organizations and how trust evolves between people, groups, or organizations. To achieve trust, leaders must keep their word, honour agreements, look out for subordinates, care about citizens, talk truth to power, and model the behaviour they expect from others (Ibid.). In the context of the Access to Information framework, Ministers and senior public servants must jointly lead the way in building of trust and creating a culture of openness and compliance. Building trust in a collaborative community, such as the one surrounding the Access to Information Act, may be more easily achieved using less formal, less legalistic, and less adversarial methods.

How Values Affect Trust

As is emphasized in Chapter 2 of the Information Commissioner's 2000-2001 Annual Report: none of the challenges surrounding a culture of openness can be overcome unless elected officials, senior managers, and public servants begin placing values such honesty and transparency high on the agenda in the conduct of government business, particularly in the context of the Access to Information Act.

Values serve as goals for which to strive (Olson and Zanna, 1993; Rokeach, 1973; Jones and George, 1998). For example, organizations whose cultures emphasize honesty and competence will naturally strive to achieve these values in their inter- and intra-organizational relationships. Researchers and scholars agree that values also promote a high degree of mutual confidence, contribute to the generalized experience of trust, and even serve to create a propensity to trust that surpasses specific situations and relationships (Mayer et al., 1995; Jones and George, 1998).

When values are shared within and among organizations the result is co-operation and collaboration. Moreover, shared values help ensure against attributions of inadequacy and provide assurances that knowledge and information will be used for the greater good, and that others will act in good faith and be guided by the shared standards. They steer people to strive for communal relationships characterized by helpfulness and responsibility, and to contribute to the development of such relationships. Communal relationships, in turn, are likely to promote interpersonal co-operation, teamwork, and trust (Jones and George, 1988). Conversely, when shared values are absent or when trustee and trustor are unsure of each other's values, free exchange of knowledge and information is unlikely. Not only is the risk of not knowing how it will be used unacceptable, but the perception that its possession is a source of power is a disincentive enough (Fama and Jensen, 1983).

Towards Openness

Research suggests a strong relationship between levels of trust and openness (Gibb, 1964; Schein, 1969; McGregor, 1967). When people and organizations trust that they are free from reprisal, they will reveal what they know or search for information they need to be true to the reality they face (Carnevale, 1995). Openness produces trust and trust encourages people and organizations to use candour. When being open is not punished and/or confidences are not violated organizations and their members are encouraged to continue to be open or even more frank. The cycle deepens and duplicates itself based on the self-heightening nature of trust relations (Ibid.).

Trust develops hand in hand with openness (Carnevale, 1995). However, openness has constraints and limits. Officials are feeling that they are living in glass houses, constantly exposed to the public gaze and the fear of disclosing sensitive information or subjecting themselves to criticism may restrain bureaucrats from acting in ways that may be perfectly appropriate but do not comport with the idealistic image that they feel compelled to portray. Consequently, they may spend large amounts of time in symbolic activities to create good images for their departments and for themselves (Graber, 1992). Openness also tends to discourage innovation because politicians and bureaucrats alike do not wish to be caught out on the proverbial limb. They know that bold proposals are likely to encounter naysayers and that they are likely to be killed through premature exposure to public scrutiny (Ibid.).

Government officials are understandably very protective of personal information they hold and cautious about the release of information that information from other governments and third parties that is invariably provided on the basis of trust and that it will be held in confidence. They are concerned about incurring liability for the government and endangering permanently the trust relationship with the provider of the information and thereby shutting down the supply of critical information for government. .

The Information Commissioner, for his part, has to ensure the confidentiality of the information reviewed and conduct his investigations in private. The Act provides that no one is entitled to the comments made another party to the Commissioner. The Information Commissioner must balance these requirements for some secrecy on the one hand with, on the other hand, the need to be as transparent as possible for his investigative process in order not to generate mistrust and with the benefits of disseminating his interpretative findings to provide guidance to both users and public servants.

Conclusion

Trust is seen as a foundation for co-operation and as the basis for stability in social institutions. It is an essential element of democracy, effective change management, successful collaboration, and organizational success.

Access to information is indispensable in ensuring a healthy democracy. Its operations and processes involve numerous trust relationships that, according to the diverse sources are currently eroded. Notwithstanding the necessary attention on reforms to the Access to Information Act, a commensurate level of attention is required to provide leaders and managers with an understanding of the importance of trust within and among the institutions of the access community. Leaders, managers, and all actors who are involved in the access process need to devote resources to build and to nurture trust within and among their organizations. A more rigorous code of behaviour and the aggressive pursuit of situations that build trust should generate the higher standard of trust on all sides that is the sine qua non of better performance

The issue of trust must be considered in every aspect of Access to Information reform. It may take time and effort to restore a higher level of trust within and among organizations in the context of the Access to Information system, but the investment will yield immeasurable dividends.

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