Organisational Structures in the Australian Public Service

This article examines the nature of the organisational structures found within the Australian Public service (APS). Four basic dimensions of organisational structure are distinguished: the degree of formalisation or bureaucratisation, the degree of differentiation or specialisation, hierarchy and the extent of centralisation. The article will show that variations in the organisational structure of the APS are attributable to a range of factors including the political context, size, task complexity, the grading system, considerations of efficiency and political factors. The relative importance of these factors varies according to which aspect of structure is examined. Mechanistic organisational structures predominate in the APS due to the nature of the tasks performed, the imperatives of political control and the requirements of staff classification.     

Politicisation of Senior Appointments in the Australian Public Service

The vexed question of politicisation and patronage in the Australian Public Service is explored in this article. Recent dismissals and appointments of department secretaries have raised concerns about political convenience, trends towards partisanship and the erosion of ‘frank and fearless’ advice. Alternatively, governments have come to insist on ‘partnership’ arrangements between ministers and secretaries, to enhance ‘political accountability’ and install new management teams to better implement government policy. But do such forms of politicisation risk drifting toward a new ‘spoils system’ most would want to avoid?     

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 The long-established centralised system has been replaced by a new employer agenda.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.     

The Premises of Decision-Making within the Australian Public Service

Decision-making is usually studied in the context of a particular choice or institution. This article proposes an alternative, cross-cutting approach. It argues that federal policy-making involves three forms of rationality — technical, economic and political. Standard operating procedures develop around each. This simplifies much decisionmaking but may also produce narrowness of outlook and a failure to see other dimensions to a policy problem.     

Creating a Performance Culture? Performance-based Pay in the Australian Public Service

This article provides a critique of the operation of performance-based pay in the Australian public service from 1992 to 1996 and questions proposals for further experimentation with such managerial initiatives. Performance agreements underpinning performance-based pay were unable to measure adequately the performance of senior officers undertaking policy work. Appraisal reviews of these agreements also failed to increase performance feedback between supervisors and senior officers. The process of rating senior officers by supervisors, and the moderation of those ratings by senior agency management, proved to be inherently subjective and considerably increased the prerogatives of public service managers over senior officers. Linking pay to individual performance undermined teamwork and increased friction between those eligible for performance bonuses and junior officers excluded from the scheme. Yet the emphasis on individual employment relationships did not serve to undermine collective values, in particular workforce commitment to unionism.     

Advising Australian Federal Governments: Assessing the Evolving Capacity and Role of the Australian Public Service

Internationally, there have been persistent complaints that the policy capacity of governments has declined. This critique is widely accepted, including in Australia, but for the most part, such claims are assertions, made without reference to empirical evidence and data. This introduction to the Special Issue examining the Policy Advisory Capacity of the Australian Public Service considers these assertions and proposes an approach and methodology to test the discourse of declining policy capacity in Australian federal government. It introduces six case studies from across the spectrum of the Commonwealth government's responsibilities. The Special Issue concludes with an article by Evert Lindquist and Anne Tiernan assessing the ability of the APS to support decision‐making through its policy advising functions and its preparedness to meet the challenges of 21st century governance.     

New Public Management and ‘Photocopy’ Bargaining in the Australian Public Service

The industrial relations policy of the Federal Coalition Government is to encourage industrial bargaining to occur at the enterprise or individual level, free from ‘outside’ influences. While it encourages devolved bargaining at the agency and individual level within the Public Service (Australian Public Service) this policy creates tensions with its role as a centralized policy maker, economic manager and employer of the APS workforce. It also conflicts with the APS' adoption of New Public Management. In practice, the government retains considerable centralised control over agency bargaining outcomes, which is a de facto method of pattern bargaining. By analysing the substantive outcomes from nine APS agency level certified agreements (hours of work, pay and leave entitlements), the article discusses whether this one size fits all' model is evidence of an appreciation that public sector industrial relations is separate and distinct from private sector industrial relations, or another example of duplicity in the federal coalition government's ideology driven approach to industrial relations.     

Staff Selection in the Australian Public Service: A History of Social Closure

This paper argues that recruitment and promotion within the Australian Public Service (APS) have historically exemplified the practice of 'social closure'. Three periods of AP'S staff selection that correspond to what Halligan and Power identify as the bureaucratist/technicist, administrationist and political management models of executive branch regime are identified. Social closure in each instance was based on educational credentials or lack thereof. These practices have been justified in terms of various 'ideologies of promotion'. Such ideologies tend to reflect the ideal or material interests of social groups rather than the skill requirements of administrative work. The current form of social closure based on economics degrees illustrates this phenomenon. Accordingly, greater recognition of the value of non-economics degrees is required.     

The Retreat from Government Support for Social Dialogue in the Australian Public Service

This article explores the impact of the Coalition government's federal public sector reforms since 1996 in the Australian Public Service (APS). Under the Labor governments from 1983 to 1996, a range of measures operated to facilitate the development of social dialogue practices in the APS. There were also various mechanisms for consultation, information sharing and employee participation in decision-making, such as the Joint Council and Departmental Councils, statutory provisions for Industrial Democracy Plans, award provisions for consultation over business restructuring and support for consultative structures under enterprise bargaining and health and safety legislation. Nearly all of these measures have been dismantled or downgraded since the Coalition government came to office, especially those requiring consultation with trade unions or providing unions with a central role in participative mechanisms. It is argued here that the government's reforms have involved a substantial reduction in formal support for social dialogue in the APS, and a rejection of the benefits that such an approach offers.     

Future Public Service Capacity: Employment of Young People into Australian Public Services during the GFC

Public services face several workforce challenges, including impending retirements and austerity programs. Although employing more young people is a likely solution to balancing the demographic profile of public services, the literature and theory suggest that young people would have fared worse during the global financial crisis. This research tests propositions around the vulnerability of young people in selected Australian public services during the global financial crisis, in terms of quantity and quality of jobs obtained. Surprisingly, the findings suggest that many young people fared as well or sometimes better than other age cohorts during the global financial crisis in terms of both recruitment and access to ongoing jobs. There are several indications that perhaps public services provided a safe haven in a turbulent labour market.     

Change Management—Strategy and Values in Six Agencies from the Australian Public Service

Change is a ubiquitous theme in management literature, but empirical studies that seek to draw lessons from the experience of managing change are rare. By investigating patterns of change management in six Australian federal agencies, we elicit a number of factors contributing to success—though "success" is itself not a clear-cut concept in this area. We found support for a number of broad themes already apparent in the literature and suggest that change processes that have the support of the workforce require good leadership, an appropriate model of change, some room for negotiation and compromise, and well-planned communication.     

What the Secretary Said Next: ‘Public Rhetorical Leadership’ in the Australian Public Service

Every year, senior departmental secretaries in Australia deliver keynote speeches to a range of audiences. What are these secretaries talking about, and to whom are they directing their comments? This article will examine keynote addresses by the secretaries of the two key central agencies in Australia – the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and The Treasury – over the calendar years 2009 and 2010. I argue that ‘public rhetorical leadership’ by secretaries poses challenges for traditional understandings of Westminster governance. Utilising the concepts of public value theory, the significance of this ‘public rhetorical leadership’ is assessed in terms of its impacts on policy implementation and questions of accountability.     

Innovation Agents in the Public Sector: Applying Champion and Promotor Theory to Explore Innovation in the Australian Public Service

Innovation is critical to organisational success and is a process steered, and potentially thwarted, by individuals. However, despite the importance of public sector innovation given the complexity of policy issues faced and the sector's specific contextual features, our understanding of innovation processes in government requires expansion. This study, using in‐depth case analyses of three Australian Public Service agencies, focuses on understanding the ‘human component’ of the innovation process by drawing on both innovation champion and promotor theories to explore, through the lens of organisational power, how multiple human agents progress public sector innovations. The results highlight the key, and often tandem, roles of individuals at multiple organisational levels who work to inspire and motivate others to progress an innovation (champions) and those with specific power bases who help overcome organisational barriers to innovation (promotors).     

Trends in Australian and Canadian Public Service Perceptions from an Employee Survey Perspective

A comparative analysis of results from the 2011 Institute of Public Administration Australia and Institute of Public Administration of Canada surveys of public service leaders is mapped against related public sector employee survey tools results. Alignment of past results with current leader perceptions shows remarkable consistency across the jurisdictions over time. This overarching coherence points to two broad hypotheses: either senior public service leaders possess a common set of preoccupations in the modern global context, or a more critical perspective would question the shortcomings of the instruments given that remarkable change has occurred that one would expect should have driven result variance. Regardless of the conclusion brought to this preliminary analysis, ongoing identification and mapping of senior leader perceptions through such tools is celebrated as an important contribution to ongoing public service organizational health.     

The Nature and Incidence of Workgroup Innovation in the Australian Public Sector: Evidence from the Australian 2011 State of the Service Survey

Using data from a nationally representative survey of all Australian Government employees, we explore the nature of innovation implemented at the workgroup level and assess the multi‐dimensionality of the workgroup's ‘most significant innovation’ (MSI). Of the 10222 survey respondents, 48% reported at least one innovation implemented by their workgroup, with an innovation more commonly reported with an increase in the respondent's age, seniority, and service experience; among men and university graduates. The results reveal that 54% of the reported MSIs incorporate between two and five dimensions of innovation types (policy, service, service delivery, administrative/organizational, and conceptual), and most of these dimensions reinforce each other. Different dimensions of the MSI draw on different sources of ideas (with senior leaders having the broadest impact), face different ‘revealed’ barriers, require different levels of workplace creativity, and produce different beneficial effects. Our findings help strengthen an understanding of the influencing factors and the effects of multi‐dimensional public sector innovations.     

Perspectives on the Capacity of the Australian Public Service and Effective Policy Development and Implementation

It is a long held tradition of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) to invite speakers to address the Fellow's Colloquium as part of the annual symposium, with an aim to spark discussion and debate on a controversial and contemporary topic. In 2010 the debate was focused on the question of whether there had been a degradation of the professional capacity of the Australian Public Service (APS) with regard to effective policy development and implementation. The contributions of each of the four panel members are reproduced here, in part, and they reflect the diverse perspectives which informed a robust and compelling debate. Janine O'Flynn, the editor of these contributions, argues that any claim of degradation is based on rumour rather than hard evidence, and she sets out how we might think about policy capacity from a public sector management perspective. Sue Vardon, the former CEO of Centrelink and the architect of a transformation change program which redefined the delivery of public services in Australia, reflects on the strengths of the APS, but points out the current stresses that it now finds itself under. Anna Yeatman, an expert in political theory and its application to citizenship and public policy, argues that in the last twenty years we have witnessed degradation in the work of government and that this has impacted on policy capacity. Lyn Carson, an expert in deliberative democracy, points to the unrealised capacity that could come from increasing citizen involvement. Policy capacity is degraded, she argues, because we have systems that are neither deliberative nor representative. Individually these contributions spark their own controversies; together they ask us to consider the question in different ways.     

Goal Setting in the Australian Public Service: Effects on Psychological Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Do specific and difficult job goals have a positive, negative, or negligible effect on higher levels of performance in the form of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among government employees? Importantly, how do they influence OCB: directly and/or indirectly through psychological empowerment? This article on a small group of Australian federal government employees draws from the goal‐setting and self‐determination theories to provide a better understanding of how goal setting affects OCB. Findings show that goal specificity largely influenced OCB indirectly through psychological empowerment. In contrast, goal difficulty raised OCB directly and through the partial mediating effect of psychological empowerment.