Workplace Relations and Agreement Making in the Australian Public Service

The Howard government has introduced major change to APS employment relations. The long-established centralised system has been replaced by a new employer agenda. Negotiations now occur at agency level and are regulated, as in the private sector, by the Workplace Relations Act 1996. Freedom of association is emphasised, as is the right for individuals to settle contracts with their employer. While the transformation is not yet complete, government policy is pushing toward a new paradigm for bargaining in the public sector.     

Melting Down and Scaling Up: Stabilizing Climate Change by Promoting Private Sector Technology Development

This paper will examine the role the private sector plays in researching, developing, and deploying technology that has the potential to deter or decrease the impacts of global warming. It will explore the degree to which the private sector can have an impact on global warming by focusing on four specific technologies: aircraft engines, wind turbines, solar energy, and clean coal technologies. We will compare the environmental impact of these technologies with the business case for pursuing each, specifically related to profitability and market maturity. We conclude that the business case alone is not sufficiently compelling to stimulate meaningful industry investment in these areas. Consequently, specific government involvement is needed for CO₂ reduction. This analysis will shed light on the role that government must play in order to more effectively engage potential private sector players in the global warming challenge.     

Computer-Based Performance Information for Executives in Local Government

Performance information is crucial to effective management. Computer-based information systems (CBIS) now play a significant role in the effective delivery of information to senior managers. Executive information systems (EIS) are emerging as popular tools to assist organisations in their strategic decision-making processes. This trend has spread from the private to the public sector, and is now evident in Australian government organizations
This article draws on the findings of a survey into the uses and benefits of CBIS and EIS, from a sample of Australian local government organisations. The study shows that lessons from the private sector are being heeded by system developers in public organisations, leading to successful EIS projects, or at least improved CBIS. The study indicates that EIS, which were originally developed for profit-oriented private companies, are now seen as appropriate for many public sector organisations, providing effective delivery of information to senior managers. Survey results indicate that improved information systems give executives a more accurate picture of their organisation's performance and so provide support for improved strategic decision-making. In addition, EIS are seen by respondents as offering significant benefits not only to managers but also to the rest of the organization.     

The Australian way of government and public sector commercial reform: from a lucky to a clever country?

In recent years, Australia has struggled to remain in the top twenty developed countries, globally. The reality is that Australia's natural resource and agricultural bases no longer serve to provide sustainable national competitive advantage. In the past decade, therefore, government initiatives have aimed to produce a range of industry policies, apparently designed to strengthen the economic base, enhance government and industry responsiveness and productivity, and to attract increased overseas investment. The modernization of Australian public sectors and the adoption of private sector business principles, especially commercialization and privatization, have been critical aspects of competitive reform. This article examines several of the key strategies adopted by Australian governments, especially those designed to enhance national competitive advantage, to determine which strategies may be working, or not working, and why. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of governments as corporate business managers and their ability to respond to commercial realities on a business management, as distinct from an ideological, basis. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Prospects for future Australian‐United States defence cooperation

Singapore’s governing elite is less bureaucratic and less separated from private interests than commonly thought. The bureaucracy has little independent strength and the political leadership is entwined with leading members of the business community, particularly the financial sector, to the point that the line between public and private is frequently indistinct. Given that democratic or interest-group constraints are minimal, transparency low and the rule of law in doubt, why Singapore’s activist economic policies have not decayed into a search for private rewards is rather puzzling. This article argues that Singapore’s record of sound government rests on informal governing institutions as well as attributes of the formal government sector. The informal institutions encompass nominally public and private actors in a systematized way, structuring the incorporation of private actors to embed the values of performance-based merit and working with, not against, government. The system of government is, however, fragile and may be showing signs of decay.     

When industrial policy shapes public sector reform: Total quality management in Britain and France

Approaches seeking to explain the development of TQM ideas in government are very much ‘business‐centric’. The goal of this article is to show that in reforming the public sector, policy‐makers did not simply follow the lead of the private sector because ‐ in the case of TQM ‐ the private sector was itself, to some extent at least, led by government. In the mid‐1980s, Britain and France launched nationwide ‘quality initiatives’ which provided money for businesses to buy management consulting expertise. Through the implementation of these policies, consultants built channels of communication with the state, and this subsequently opened possibilities for consultants to help transfer TQM ideas from the industrial policy area to the field of public sector reform.     

Participative Management and Job Satisfaction: Lessons for Management Leadership

Researchers and practitioners in both the public and private sectors agree that participative management improves employees' job satisfaction. Public agencies have also turned to strategic planning to enhance government performance and accountability. This study explores the relationship between participative management in the context of the strategic planning and job satisfaction in local government agencies. The results of multiple regression analysis show that managers' use of a participative management style and employees' perceptions of participative strategic planning processes are positively associated with high levels of job satisfaction. The study also finds that effective supervisory communications in the context of the strategic planning process are positively associated with high levels of job satisfaction. The study suggests that participative management that incorporates effective supervisory communications can enhance employees' job satisfaction. In this regard, organizational leaders in the public sector should emphasize changing organizational culture from the traditional pattern of hierarchical structure to participative management and empowerment.     

Assessing comparative efficiency of the state-owned mixed and private sectors in Indian industry

This paper evaluates performance differences between government owned, mixed sector and private sector enterprises in India for the period 1973–1974 to 1988–1989. The results establish that enterprises owned by the central government and state governments are less efficient than mixed or private sector enterprises, while mixed sector enterprises are less efficient than those in the private sector. The results contradict extant evidence finding no performance differences between government-owned and private firms in India. There have, however, been inter-temporal efficiency gains for the sector as a whole, perhaps resulting from reforms undertaken towards improving government-owned enterprises' performance.     

How Can Business Share Responsibility for Disaster Resilience?

This paper contributes to knowledge of disaster resilience policy implementation in Australia and proposes measures to strengthen partnerships between government and the business sector to enhance national disaster resilience capacity. In Australia, business makes a significant contribution to disaster relief and recovery. Even so, there are unexplored opportunities to enhance the role of business in disaster resilience, particularly through partnerships with government. The extent that state, regional and local‐level disaster plans engage business in disaster relief and recovery is described and their relatively less prominent involvement in disaster resilience is discussed. Examples of disaster resilience policies and their capacity to influence business practices to support disaster resilience are introduced with suggestions for how they can be enhanced. Some potential benefits and pitfalls of public–private sector collaboration are explored and it is noted that, in disaster resilience settings, these risks can be ameliorated through appropriate implementation.     

What's in a Sector? The Shifting Career Plans of Public Policy Students

Recent decades have seen a trend in which public policy graduates shun government and enter private-sector employment. In part, the shift reflects changing sectoral opportunities, but its magnitude and consistency are puzzling—even troubling—in light of the need for public-sector talent. Data from a two-year series of surveys and interviews with policy students reveal that many begin their training with uncertain career goals and ambivalence about public-sector work. Interest in government declines from entry to graduation, and it appears that the policy curriculum—heavy on analytic methods and conveying cautions about policy making—does little to promote a public-sector orientation. Those planning to enter government are strongly motivated by a desire to have an impact, whereas those drawn to the private sector seek financial resources and professional development. Many anticipate fluid careers and choose positions expected to offer growth, a feature more commonly associated with private than public jobs.     

Trends and Opportunities in the Public Sector: A Critical Assessment

The public sector should be designed to work on behalf of government. Government, in turn, should be designed to work on behalf of a citizen community both to pursue its collective interests and to defend the citizen community against harmful effects of private market activities. At this time, the integrity of the public sector/government has been eroded because the established forms of regulation of the market are outmoded. This has permitted transnational corporations to argue that government should respond more to their agendas often at the expense of citizen needs and claims. At the same time, citizen movements have become more diverse and sophisticated. They represent an opportunity for revisioning the work of government and the public sector.     

A contractual framework for new public management theory

This paper evaluates the potential for institutional economics to help us frame choices for the design of institutional arrangements aimed at improving public sector performance, and the lessons it offers for the development of a new public management theory. It defines the key elements of transaction cost and principal agency theory and their application to the public sector. Local government contracting, fiscal decentralization, and performance budgeting, applications that share problems resulting from divergent objectives, information costs associated with policy making and implementation, and risks to public sector accountability, are analyzed. This analysis demonstrates that institutional economics can illuminate how public management can effectively utilize private sector solutions by providing the theoretical underpinnings for government reform initiatives.     

Explaining the size of the public sector

This paper aims at providing an explanation for the size of the public sector based on the idea of “social insurance”. The main assumption made is that the public sector is less efficient but also less volatile than the private sector. The “demand-driven” level of the public sector that is derived as the one that maximizes the utility of the representative employed consumer depends positively on the variance of private output. An increase in the size of the public sector has a positive effect on expected employment and a negative effect on expected consumption. The size of the public sector set by the government which maximizes the probability of being re-elected will be higher than the “demand-driven” level if voters' preferences for employment is higher than the consumption loss associated with public employment.     

An Evaluation of Private Sector Provision of Public Infrastructure in Australian Local Government

Private sector provision of public infrastructure in Australia at all levels of government, including local government, has steadily increased over the past twenty years. Nevertheless, this method of providing public infrastructure remains controversial. This article seeks to provide a critical review of the arguments surrounding private sector provision of infrastructure in Australian local government. It examines both the case for private sector provision of municipal infrastructure in Australia and the major arguments advanced against this approach to infrastructure development. Given the conceptual argumentation and empirical evidence on private municipal infrastructure provision, it is argued that policy makers should employ a nuanced performance evaluation framework to assess the benefits and weaknesses of private provision on the basis of the specific type of infrastructure in question and the kind of services it provides rather than simply endorse carte blanche privatization.     

The optimal size of government

In the economic analysis of the theory of government, two views of government are evident. The Pigovian view sees government as a benevolent actor striving to correct for the inadequacies and excesses of an unrestrained marketplace. The ‘Public Choice’ view of government portrays government as the tool of special interest groups as likely to generate distortions as to correct them. In this paper, a model of government that incorporates both views will be developed and then empirically tested. The model developed assumes that all expenditures by the government are inputs into the private sector production. Treating government expenditures as inputs into the production of private sector output, there is some optimal size of government that maximizes private sector output. The model incorporates a general production function for private sector output. Output is a function of private labor, private capital, and government expenditures. The Pigovian and Public Choice views of government are reflected in the assumed impact of G on the marginal productivities of L and K. The model is tested using United States data and a Cobb-Douglas production function. Estimates indicate that the 1983 level of government expenditures exceeds by 87 percent the level that would maximize private sector output. Reducing government from $ 491 billion to $ 263 billion and shifting the freed labor to the private sector would increase output from $ 1187 billion to $ 1451 billion.     

Symposium: Exporting Government Services

To explore the prospects for exporting government services, guest symposium editor RFI Smith invites three agencies to comment on their experience. This overview stresses the need to specify carefully costs and benefits in taking operations offshore — both in strict financial terms and in dealing with perception and accountability issues.
The prospects for exporting public sector skills and services are at the same time tantalising and frustrating. After initial enthusiasm in the 1970s and 1980s, the management of export programs has turned out to be complex, demanding and not without controversy. Such programs have challenged their proponents to be at once sophisticated in business management, rigorous and transparent in public accountability, and sensitive to the capabilities and ambitions of private sector providers of similar services. Further, after approximately 10 to 20 years of experience in different Australian jurisdictions, aims, methods and estimates of results remain diverse.     

Selling Eastern Europe's social housing stock: Proceed with caution

Abstract

As the countries of Eastern Europe begin to reorient their housing sectors toward the private market, many quarters are advocating selling the units in the social sector—typically about one‐fourth of the housing stock—to the tenants. Whether purchasing their units is attractive to tenants depends on the sales price, current and expected rent levels, availability and terms of financing, and the strength of tenant rights of occupancy. Drawing lessons from the experiences of three countries—China, Hungary, and the United Kingdom—in selling social sector rental units, this paper concludes that too much emphasis has been placed on lowering the sales price compared with changing other conditions. This practice results in a substantial loss of revenue to government and a questionable distribution of the nation's wealth.     

The Curse of Sisyphus: Public Sector Audit Independence in an Age of Economic Rationalism

Consistent with the economic rationalist philosophy which now pervades the decisions and policies of all Australian governments, the persuasive aura of competitive markets has been used to justify the provision by the private sector of an increasing range of public services. Governments who have been consistently antagonised by the findings of the auditor-general are now attempting to use the arguments for competition in the public sector to diminish the stature and role of the auditor-general. In place of audit models which are based upon an auditor who is able to conduct audits on behalf of parliament, the auditor-general is to be increasingly isolated from the means to audit. This represents the onset of a radical interpretation of public sector audit which will usher in the last days of an independent public sector audit function.     

Why does government produce national defense?

Economists argue that government produces national defense because it is a public good, and markets fail to produce public goods optimally. This argument has two shortcomings. First, it relies on different assumptions of individual behavior in the private and public sectors. Second, it assumes that government has a comparative advantage in the production of public goods, despite evidence to the contrary. Employing the standard assumption of self-interested behavior for both private sector and public sector individuals, government has an incentive to produce national defense because by doing so it is protecting its source of income: its tax base. Incidentally, citizens benefit from the exchange of protection for tribute because their assets are protected.     

Re-evaluation of the Importance of the Public Service: Tasmania's Collaborative Program

In considering what should be the role of government in a community like Tasmania we need to understand the context within which we are working. We are a small population that is almost without exception a branch economy. No major corporations are based here – we have branch offices or divisions of major companies. We lack a managerial class – headquarters and management staff are based elsewhere – decisions made by the level of management based in our state do not take the welfare of the state into account. Our private sector does not have the capital and quite clearly the capacity to take up the challenge posed by a reduction of government services or a contraction of services. When public sector jobs are cut in Tasmania they stay cut. The private sector does not step into the breach and create jobs. Tasmania has always relied, to a large extent, on the public sector for its economic viability – with the contraction of public sector funding, the viability of the state's economy has been seriously eroded.