These lessons include:

• Integrating services inevitably involves upfront costs and short-term upheaval for staff. Yet well-managed reforms can win employee support and enhance management legitimacy if transformation efforts are driven by an attractive vision of an improved outcome framed in terms of the public good. Minimal disruption to services, sustainable cost savings, more timely and accessible services, and better client outcomes are all achievable.
• Successful integration requires genuinely collaborative planning, from building an evidence base to developing and refining an integration blueprint on the basis of extensive consultation with frontline staff and stakeholders. This collaborative process will facilitate change readiness and the organization-wide mobilization of personnel.
• The composition of the integration leadership team must match the needs of the new operating environment. In addition to consideration of skill sets, competencies, and cross-program representation, it is vital that selection is also based on mindset and commitment to the new way of thinking. High turnover in senior positions is not necessarily a problem if it ensures that the right people with the right mentality are leading the project.
• Human resource (HR) professionals should be regarded as a key source of strategic advice rather than simply a provider of transactional services. HR specialists must be engaged with the planning and delivery process from the outset, preferably through membership on leadership or project management teams. Potential obstacles associated with labour relations and collective agreements will be far more effectively managed as a result, particularly if specialists are able to engage bargaining agents in the integration dialogue.
• Service integration can create new (albeit larger) siloed delivery units that do not work effectively with other government services and sectors. Routine consultation and formal partnerships with internal and external stakeholders will help avoid this outcome.
• The challenges involved in replacing legacy systems (e.g., program-specific IT systems) that were never designed to interact with each other should not be underestimated.
• Reforms will not outlast the immediate impetus of the integration program unless they become embedded in mindsets at an individual and institutional level. Training and communications should foster a sense of the common client whose needs cannot simply be compartmentalized into different program areas.
• Collaborative behaviour that supports integration and breaks down organizational silos should be incentivized through performance targets, staff appraisals, promotion opportunities, and public recognition (e.g., awards). Such behaviour should also be reviewed and monitored through culture audits.
• The development of feedback mechanisms is essential to successful implementation. Data collection and performance tracking procedures must be aligned with the performance indicators selected.

This report is of particular value to Canada’s provincial and municipal governments. With direct responsibility for the delivery of services and less budget flexibility than the federal government, the reconfiguration of existing service delivery models offers one of the most effective ways of simultaneously improving outcomes and putting human services on a fiscally sustainable path.