During the COVID-19 pandemic Canadians had to rely on social services more than any time in our modern history. Millions of citizens were kept safe and received economic lifelines by programs that were created and deployed by governments and their private sector partners with unprecedented speed.Canadian services agencies were at the front line of the crisis navigating an explosion in demand and workload. While the overall response has been extraordinary, the pandemic has also revealed vulnerabilities in many organizational structures, delivery models and systems and provided us with some issues to consider about the next generation of citizen services.While the recent election campaign will be remembered as pandemic election, it was primarily focused on vaccines, and to a lesser degree the post pandemic economic recovery. I believe the generational advances in citizen services made during the pandemic were welcomed by Canadians and had a lasting impact. Our research indicates that Canadians and their civil servants welcome the change they saw and want to see more it.Accenture recently published a global survey of more than 7,000 people who'd received a social service within the past two years, and 600 executives currently leading social services, employment, public pension and child welfare agencies. Canada was one of the 10 countries include in the study- and we fared generally well.The survey revealed that nearly a quarter of Canadians (24%) expect to use more social services in the future. With an aging population we will also see increased demand and complexity for health and social services.Are we ready for this change? Our senior public servants are not so sure. The survey shows that 46% of Canadian public service executives rated their own organization as highly prepared for current and future challenges, down from 49% pre-pandemic.What is clear is that “business as usual” won't be enough to meet future demands—and that citizen services must be reinvented to meet society's changing needs and expectations. As these forces play out, what do the ultimate end users—residents themselves—think of the social services they're currently receiving?We found that more than half (58%) of Canadian recipients of assistance said agency performance during the pandemic was strong or very strong, on par with peer countries (55% in the UK and 62% in Australia).Our survey also identified several bright spots to build on. For instance, Canadian respondents reported receiving services in new ways:
- Services delivered to them virtually during the pandemic (23%),
- New kinds of services were immediately made available (18%),
- Services closely tailored to their specific needs (15%).