Book Review

Book reviewed in this article:
F rank S tacey . The British Ombudsman.
Report of the Commonwealth Administrative Review Committee     

BOOK NOTES

T. H. KEWLEY, Australian Social Security Today .
RUSSELL MATHEWS, Australian Federalism 1979 .
ALAN THOMAS, Broadcast and Be Damned .
RALPH PER VAN and CAMPBELL SHARMAN, Essays on Western Australian Politics .
DAVID DONNISON with PAUL SOTO, The Good City: A Study of Urban Development and Policy in Britain .
ROBERT ALBON (ed.), Rent Control, Costs and Consequences .
MICHAEL E. CORBY, The Postal Business, 1969-79: A Study in Public Sector Management .
Efficiency in Government Expenditure .
H. SADDLER and others, Public Choice in Tasmania .
ROBERT J. HAYNES, Organisation Theory and Local Government .
D. J. WALMSLEY, Social Justice and Australian Federalism
PETER RYAN, Redmond Barry, A Colonial Life 1813–1880 .
Directory to Commonwealth and State Government Services in South Australia .
Administrative Review Council , Fourth Annual Report.
RUTH ATKINS, Albany to Zeehan: A New Look at Local Governments .
Relations between Levels of Government .
Endowed Lectures, 1974–1979 .
Proceedings of the National Government Accounting Convention .     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
C hristopher C. H ood , The Tools of Government: Public Policy and Politics
G erald C aiden and H einrich S iedentopf (eds), Strategies for Administrative Reform
D avid H eald , Public Expenditure
Equality in Diversity: Fifty Years of the Commonwealth Grants Commission , Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service     

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: THE COMMONWEALTH EXPERIENCE*

Abstract: This paper outlines the background and rationale of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation and discusses the specific nature and operation of the FOI Act, including some current issues emanating from the interpretation of some of its provisions by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and the courts. The overall cost/benefit balance of the Act is considered, with particular reference to the recent report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on the operation and administration of the Act.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
D. C. PEARCE, Commonwealth Administrative Law
BERNARD WILLIAMS et al, Politics, Ethics and Public Service.
JACQUELINE GOODNOW AND CAROLE PATEMAN (eds) Women, Social Science and Public Policy
D. C. ROW AT (ed), The Making of the Federal Access Act: A Case Study of Policy-Making in Canada     

What Really Happens: Department Secretary Appointments,Contracts and Performance Pay in the Australian Public Service

This account of the practice in the Australian Public Service (APS) for appointing department secretaries, using contracts and rewarding for performance, is based on my own experience in being appointed, reappointed and not reappointed, and in receiving and not receiving performance pay. It also draws on my experience as Public Service Commissioner in assisting with appointments and performance pay of secretaries. I also discuss weaknesses in the current system, and the drift to ‘politicisation’. I was first appointed as a department secretary at the end of 1993 after 25 years in the APS including 15 years in the Senior Executive Service (SES) in three different portfolios (Social Security, Finance and Defence). I was secretary of three different departments (Administrative Services, Housing, and Health, some of which went through changes in name and responsibilities during my tenure) before being appointed as Public Service Commissioner from the beginning of 2002. I retired from the APS in June 2005.     

探索建立行政执法部门岗位风险防控新机制——以通州工商局“三联三防工程”为例

“三联三防工程”是通州工商局探索建立的岗位风险防控新机制。“三联三防”是指行政执法部门主动联合纪委建立岗位廉政教育工作机制，重点防控廉政风险；主动联合法院建立依法行政工作机制，重点防控执法风险；主动联合检察院建立预防职务犯罪工作机制，重点防控渎职风险。这一机制的建立，有效地整合了资源，借助多方专业力量，形成风险联防合力，从而打破了当前政府部门廉政建设内部循环的封闭格局，提高了行政执法部门廉政风险和履职风险防控的水平。     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Patrick Weller, Dodging Raindrops – John Button: A Labor Life
W. Funnell and K. Cooper, Public Sector Accounting and Accountability in Australia
Mark Latham, Civilising Global Capital: New Thinking for Australian Labor
G.B. Adams and D.L. Balfour, Unmasking Administrative Evil
G Terrill, Secrecy and Openness: The Federal Government from Menzies to Whitlam and Beyond
L.R. Jones and F. Thompson, Public Management: Institutional Renewal for the Twenty-First Century
Productivity Commission, Inquiry Report, Report No. 5, Implementation of Ecologically Sustainable Development by Commonwealth Departments and Agencies
Randal G. Stewart, Public Policy: Strategy and Accountability     

OECD Symposium on the Future of Public Services

The OECD Ministerial Symposium on the Future of Public Services took place in Paris, 1–6 March 1996. Professional Developments reproduces below the Statement by the Chair at the conclusion of the Symposium. The OECD comprises 26 member countries, including the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It also now includes Mexico and the Czech Republic.     

Implementing Open Innovation in the Public Sector: The Case of Challenge.gov

As part of the Open Government Initiative, the Barack Obama administration has called for new forms of collaboration with stakeholders to increase the innovativeness of public service delivery. Federal managers are employing a new policy instrument called Challenge.gov to implement open innovation concepts invented in the private sector to crowdsource solutions from previously untapped problem solvers and to leverage collective intelligence to tackle complex social and technical public management problems. The authors highlight the work conducted by the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration, the administrator of the Challenge.gov platform. Specifically, this Administrative Profile features the work of Tammi Marcoullier, program manager for Challenge.gov , and Karen Trebon, deputy program manager, and their role as change agents who mediate collaborative practices between policy makers and public agencies as they navigate the political and legal environments of their local agencies. The profile provides insights into the implementation process of crowdsourcing solutions for public management problems, as well as lessons learned for designing open innovation processes in the public sector.     

Changing Relations between Government and Citizen: Administrative Law and the Work of the Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman

This article examines the individual complaint‐taking role of the Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman over a 28 year period between 1977–2005. This study was conceived through a curiosity to determine how a 30 year old administrative law institution is reacting to accommodate a dramatically altered legal, political and economic environment. The suspicion was that, in the absence of legislative amendment to its jurisdiction and role, the Commonwealth Ombudsman must strategically change due to the demands of these external forces. The overall quantitative finding from the data analysis is that the internal strategic direction of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is indeed altering. In terms of dispute resolution it is increasingly using its discretionary powers to turn individual complainants back to government departments/agencies. The data analysis reveals that this administrative law institution is shifting from a reactive individual complaint taker to a proactive standard setter for government administration. This article suggests that this movement may impact upon citizen ‘rights’ or perceptions of their rights to have their individual complaints heard against government. This in turn may have a ripple effect for notions of democratic accountability and the relationship between the citizen and the state.     

SUSPENDING COMMONWEALTH EMPLOYEES WHO ENGAGE IN INDUSTRIAL ACTION

In this note the various powers of the Commonwealth employer to suspend employees engaging in industrial action are examined and the need for the Commonwealth Employees (Employment Provisions) Act 1977' is considered. The legal rights and obligations of the Commonwealth employer and employee regarding suspension rest fundamentally with the contract of employment, but they are commonly modified and supplemented by legislation and industrial awards.     

Departmental Machinery of Government Since 1987

The editors gratefully acknowledge the permission of the Department of the Parliamentary Library (Information and Research Services) of the Commonwealth Parliament for permission to reprint this extract. A full version of this Research Paper (No 24 1998–99) can be found at www.aph.gov.au/library. The Department of the Parliamentary Library has an extensive research collection which may be of broader interest to readers of the journal.     

TARGETING EFFICIENCY OF SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMS*

Abstract: The program budgeting and related reforms initiated by the Commonwealth in 1985 require federal departments and agencies to set objectives for their programs and to develop performance measures to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs. This paper examines the targeting efficiency of Australia's social security programs and finds that these are among the most efficient of OECD countries.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Glyn, Davis and Michael, Keating, The Future of Governance: Policy Choices
Geoffrey, Bolton, Edmund Barton: The One Man for the Job
John, Halligan and Roger, Wettenhall, A Decade of Self-government in the Australian Capital Territory
Christopher, Sheil, Water's Fall: Running the Risks with Economic Rationalism
Gerard, Carney, Members of Parliament: Law and Ethics
Stephen, Hamnett and Robert, Freestone, The Australian Metropolis: A Planning History
Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision (SCRCSSP), Linking Inputs and Outputs: Activity Measurement by Police Services: Research Paper     

No Home for Housing: The Situation of the Commonwealth's Housing Policy Advisory Function

The Commonwealth's policy capacity with regard to housing policy and provision has been erratic and patchy. Partly this is because housing was not traditionally a formal Commonwealth responsibility but something in which Commonwealth governments episodically intervened, and partly it was because Commonwealth ministers often did not exercise demand for policy advice in this area. When policy capacity was exercised it tended to define housing narrowly as a welfare initiative, thereby limiting its conception and excluding other important questions and problems involved with housing as a policy domain. This trajectory meant that the advisory deficiencies of the Commonwealth were often exposed at exactly those times when they were most needed. It also meant that the Commonwealth lacked the detailed knowledge and understanding of housing issues when it was called upon to deliver various programs. The article argues that the Commonwealth needs to adopt a more strategic housing policy that addresses longer term needs as well as the economic, social and environmental consequences of its housing policy.     

BOOK NOTES

Book reviewed in this article: Edward Ames . Income and Wealth. Douglas Needham . Economic Analysis and Industrial Structure. Glen A. Murney . Theory of Financial Structure. Rudolph Gomez . The Peruvian Administrative System. R. N. Thakur . The All-India Services. Bharati Bhawan, Patna, 1969.     

Sir Henry Bland and the Fraser Government's Administrative Review Committee: Another Chapter in the Statutory Authority Wars?

The release of the 1976 Commonwealth cabinet records on 1 January 2007 provided the opportunity to review the work of the Administrative Review Committee (ARC) appointed by the Fraser government and headed by Sir Henry Bland and so to open up a hitherto little appreciated chapter in Australian administrative history. At first glance, it appeared that Bland's ARC had been strongly opposed to widespread use of statutory authorities, for so long a regular part of Australia's machinery of government, thus providing an interesting point of comparison with the Uhrig inquiry of 2003-04, which attracted much notice for its antipathy towards statutorily independent agencies. Given the unusual methodology of the ARC, it was also likely that an account of its work would shed further light on public inquiries generally, perhaps assisting in development of a typology of such inquiries.     

Implementation of Aged Care Policy in the Australian Federal System

In 1983–84 the Commonwealth and state governments trialled the introduction of the geriatric assessment team (GAT) program. Twenty years of Australian Health Ministers' Conference (AHMC)¹ minutes and records (1969–88), files within the Queensland and Commonwealth health departments (1983–88) and interviews with major stakeholders revealed that implementation can extend over many years and can require a confluence of factors for a policy idea to come to fruition. This article examines the dynamics involved in the implementation of the GAT policy and reveals that expert advisers played a central role in policy innovation and implementation and that the federal system could both obstruct and facilitate policy implementation. While there was evidence of delay and conflict, the Australian states through their expert advisers were significant contributors to the development and implementation of aged care policies. Many of the intergovernmental relations were often characterised by a high degree of cooperation at least at the officer to officer level. The 'coercive' nature of the federal system may need to be revisited.     

THE PUBLIC SERVICES AND CO-OPERATTVE FEDERALISM

A paper of this type clearly calls for some definition of terms. Although "The Public Services" are usually seen to comprise the State Public Services and the Australian Public Service, in reality of course, government institutionalized services to the public go beyond these seven agencies. All the statutory authorities—Commissions, Corporations, Boards and Trusts—are part of public administration; so also are local government bodies. There are in the various public services some agencies which form part of the public service proper (i.e. a Department defined as such under one or other of the Public Service Acts) whereas in others they have the independence of a corporate entity. In South Australia for instance the whole state water supply and sewerage services are provided by one public service department, the Engineering and Water Supply Department. In the other states those services are provided by more than one agency and these range from government departments and local governing bodies to statutory authorities. A similar division of responsibility exists in the road construction area where some states perform their highway undertakings through the agency of a statutory authority, while others prefer the tighter Ministerial control of a government department.