Integrated leadership system in the Australian Public Service

On 16 July 2004 the Australian Public Service Commission launched a new approach to leadership capability development for the public service. This approach, the Integrated Leadership System (ILS), is described as innovative and unique by the four speakers who make up this presentation—including Andrew Podger (AO), Public Service Commissioner, Jane Halton, Secretary of Health and Ageing, Anne Simic, Head of People, Qantas, and Dr Peter Shergold, Head of the Public Service and Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.     

EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS: PROBLEMS OF ASSESSMENT

Abstract: The paper focuses on the Coombs Commission's recommendations on efficiency and effectiveness in the Commonwealth Public Service. The recommendations involve the allocation of organizational responsibility for efficiency and effectiveness to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Public Service Board, Treasury and the Auditor-General and individual responsibility to the departmental manager through the establishment of a "Forward Estimating Budgetary" process. However the Commission has given little guidance in the matter of the technological tools which must be developed in order to secure its implementation.
The Commonwealth Public Service Board has developed over the last two years a program of Staff Utilization Reviews (S. U. Rs) as one of its management improvement programs. The paper canvases the technological aspects of efficiency and effectiveness drawing upon the development and operational experience of the S.U.R. program. It concludes that much resource-intensive work must be done before the Commission's recommendations can be implemented but Australian and overseas experience confirms the potential fruitfulness of that work.     

From Rhetoric to Blueprint: The Moran Review as a Concerted,Comprehensive and Emergent Strategy for Public Service Reform

On 3 September 2009, Prime Minister Rudd announced a six‐month Review of Australian Government Administration. He appointed an Advisory Group chaired by Terry Moran, Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, to prepare a discussion paper, oversee a benchmarking study and consultations, and craft a blueprint to reform the Australian Public Service (APS) in order to deal with future governance challenges. The vision is to develop a forward‐looking, innovative, collaborative, citizen‐focused, agile, informed and highly‐skilled APS to advise and deliver policy and services for government. Ahead of the Game, a comprehensive Blueprint for action, was released on 29 March 2010. This article provides a high‐level review of motivations and process for the Moran Review, an overview of the Blueprint, an assessment of the strategy and process, and suggestions for moving forward on selected issues.     

Book Reviews

Book reviews in this article:
At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress , By GEORGE C. EDWARDS III.
The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years. By WILLIAM F. GROVER.
Regulatory Interventionism in the Utility Industry . By BARBARA R. BARKOVICH.
Private Gain and Public Service: The Association of First Division Civil Servants. By BARRY O'TOOLE.
Ulster: Conflict and Consent. By TOM WILSON.
Guide to the Presidency. Edited by MICHAEL NELSON.
Prime Minister & Premiers: Political Leadership and Public Policy in Canada. Edited by LESLIE A. PAL AND DAVID TARAS.
The Future Of Local Government , Edited by JOHN STEWART and GERRY STOKER.     

The Australian Public Service and Policy Advising: Meeting the Challenges of 21st Century Governance

This concluding article summarises the case study findings comprising the Special Issue on ‘Advising Australian Federal Governments: Assessing the Evolving Capacity and Role of the Australian Public Service’, identifies and discusses cross‐cutting issues, and considers strategic implications for future practice and research. It reviews key findings from six case studies – Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Intergovernmental Relations, Housing, the BER Stimulus program, and Defence – and assesses the policy advising capacity of the Australian Public Service, with a focus on the policy‐political interface between governments and officials. Putting recent experience in historical context, it considers the performance of the Commonwealth's policy advisory system, the impact of prime ministers and centralisation, the link between advising and analytic capacities, the system's resilience and readiness, whether recent dissatisfaction over APS advising reflect lack of capacity or a culture clash, and the responsibility for ensuring high‐quality policy advice. It recommends developing a more systematic approach to assessing policy advising capability, building on recent APS reforms.     

The New Public Service Revisited

The New Public Service describes a set of norms and practices that emphasize democracy and citizenship as the basis for public administration theory and practice. This article revisits some of the core arguments of the New Public Service and examines how they have been practiced and studied over the past 15 years. The authors conclude that neither the principles of the New Public Service nor those of the New Public Management have become a dominant paradigm, but the New Public Service, and ideas and practices consistent with its ideals, have become increasingly evident in public administration scholarship and practice.     

The Review of the APS: Is gender really on anyone's agenda?

As recently as 2016, the Australian Government stated its commitment to increasing gender equality in the Australian Public Service (APS) workforce. In May 2018, the Prime Minister announced a broad‐ranging Review of the APS, but gender equality was not mentioned in the Review Terms of Reference. An interim Review report was released in March 2019, which was also largely silent on gender issues. We examine the submissions to the Review to assess whether, and how, organisations have considered gender equality. We found an almost universal gender blindness in submissions and conclude that this may have contributed to the Review panel ignoring gender equality issues in their interim report. We further conclude that without a focus on gender equality within the Review and ensuing reforms, the APS gender equality strategy is rendered merely symbolic. We recommend the Review implement gender mainstreaming to ensure gender equality can progress in the APS.     

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Little more than a decade ago the basic structure of the Canadian public service was radically reformed. In accordance with recommendations of the Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organisation the central agencies were restructured and their relations with departments reconstructed to shift as much as possible the location of responsibility for financial and personnel management to the departments. The Treasury Board, a statutory committee of Ministers, separated from the Department of Finance which handles economic and revenue policy, became the Government's management agency responsible for budgeting as well as financial and personnel administration. It was also cast in the role of "employer" for purposes of collective bargaining, which was introduced into the Service at the same time and thereby aligned labour relations in the Service with the system which had prevailed in the private sector since the Second World War. Responsibility for recruitment and promotion of staff according to "merit" was vested in the Public Service Commission, an independent agency reporting directly to Parliament, which also has some advisory functions in respect of training. These legislatively-based changes were accompanied, especially after Mr. Trudeau became Prime Minister in 1968, by construction of an elaborate Cabinet committee system and more policy coordination at the administrative level by an expanded Privy Council Office. Structural change was reinforced by changes in methods of operation. Over the next few years new techniques in budgeting, which was placed on a program basis, policy evaluation and performance measurement were introduced. Under the guiding hand of the Planning Branch in the Treasury Board Secretariat, increasing emphasis was given to planning and research in central agencies and departments.     

DISCUSSION ON PAPERS BY Mr JACOBS AND Ms McCLELLAND

Speakers included Mr E. Matthews (Tasmanian Public Service Board), Mr L. Cleland (Australian Archives), Dr E. W. Russell (Victorian Public Service Board), Mr B. Rope (Commonwealth Public Service Board) and Mr L. Laing (Commonwealth Attorney General's Department). There was considerable debate about the use of work measurement techniques in efficiency audits. Some speakers argued that management review programs are best seen as concerned with broad indicators of efficiency and effectiveness, especially at the higher levels of the organization, and that there were many troubles about the use of work measurement techniques. Some Public Service Boards were said to have reservations about these techniques in the context of efficiency reviews.     

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.     

THE CAREER SERVICE IN THE 1980s: WHAT ARE THE FACTS?

This paper seeks to provide statistics on how the career service has developed within Commonwealth Government administration over the past decade or so. On the basis of trends in these data some speculations are offered on how the career service might look in the 1980s. The views expressed are speculations, not forecasts. In Commonwealth administration, the career service concept has by and large been held to embrace staff employed in the Commonwealth Public Service (CPS) under the Public Service Act, particularly permanent staff. While it is possible to debate the extent of the career service, this paper will confine itself to full-time permanent, temporary and exempt staff of the CPS, employed under the Public Service Act. It thus excludes staff employed under other Acts, although the opportunities for movement of CPS staff to statutory authorities and back again should not be overlooked.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Profiles of Government Administration in Asia JOHN HALLIGAN and MARK TURNER for the Australian Public Service Commission (Canberra, AGPS, 1995, 179pp)
Profiles of Government Administration in Asia JOHN HALLIGAN and MARK TURNER for the Australian Public Service Commission (Canberra, AGPS, 1995, 179PP)
Globalization and the ASEAN Public Sector SIRAJUDDIN H SALLEH and LEDIVINA V CARIO (eds) (Kuala Lumpur, Asian and Pacific Development Centre, 1995, 433pp)
The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations B DABSCHECK
Gender, Politics and Citizenship in the 1990s BARBARA SULLIVAN and GILLIAN WHITEHOUSE (eds)
Tunnel Vision: The Failure of Political Imagination JAMES WALTER
Postmodern Public Administration: Towards Discourse CHARLES J. FOX and HUGH T MILLER
Postmodern Revisionings of the Political ANNA YEATMAN
Henry Mayer. Mayer on the Media: Issues and Arguments RODNEY TIFFEN (ed.)     

British intelligence in the twentieth century

SIR STEPHEN LANDER, the Director-General of the Security Service, describes his Service's approach to the management of its archives which is based on its obligations under the 1958 Public Record Act. In this article, he indicates the quantity and type of records held by the Service and, illustrating with some examples, explains his Service's current file retention and release policies. The systematic programme of file releases to the Public Records Office, begun by the Security Service in 1997, has resulted in a considerable amount of intelligence archive material being placed in the public domain.     

The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering

The New Public Management has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business. Proponents of the New Public Management have developed their arguments largely through contrasts with the old public administration. In this comparison, the New Public Management will, of course, always win. We argue here that the better contrast is with what we call the "New Public Service," a movement built on work in democratic citizenship, community and civil society, and organizational humanism and discourse theory. We suggest seven principles of the New Public Service, most notably that the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.     

Response to Peter Shergold

Andrew Podger wrote an article in the June 2007 AJPA entitled ‘What Really Happens: Department Secretary Appointments, Contracts and Performance Pay in the Australian Public Service’. Dr Peter Shergold replied to his criticisms in the September issue of AJPA. This short response from Podger is the final rejoinder. In a second paper following this rejoinder the present Australian Public Service Commissioner comments on public service independence today.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Bruce Mccallum , The Public Service Manager: An Introduction to Personnel Management in the Australian Public Service R. J. K. Chapman and Michael Wood , Australian Local Government Kosmas Tsokhas , A Class Apart? Businessmen and Australian Politics 1960–1980 Andrew Kakabadse and Suresh Mukhi (eds), The Future of Management Education Jonathan Boston , Incomes Policy in New Zealand: 1968–1984, Wellington, Victorian University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies David Dery , Problem Definition in Policy Analysis     

Book Review

Book review in this article:
Robert W. Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening & The Future of Egalitarianism
Van R. Johnston1 2ed. Entrepeneurial Management and Public Policy
Donald F. Kettl1 The Global Public Management Revolution
Paul C. Light1 The New Public Service .
Jeremy F. Plant Penn State Harrisburg     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
MARTIN PAINTER, Steering the Modern State: Changes in Central Coordination in Three Australian State Governments .
MARIAN SIMMS, Militant Public Servants: Politicisation, Feminisation and Selected Public Service Unions .     

Book Review

A rthur M c M artin , Public Servants and Patronage, The Foundation and Rise of the New South Wales Public Service, 1786–1859 , Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1983. Pp. xiii + 345.     

A Capacity for Central Coordination: The Case of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

For the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) the year 1987 can now be seen as pivotal in marking a clear end to a period of transition in coordinating structures in the Australian Public Service (APS) that had lasted roughly 20 years. The abolition in 1987 of the Public Service Board, formerly a powerful coordinating agency, is the most obvious marker of the change. The PSB's departure left the Secretary of PM&C with a role that is now often described as ‘head of the public service’. More broadly, the 1987 changes to the machinery of government both formalised and enabled a sea‐change in PM&C's role. Before 1987 a large policy initiation and development project would usually have been considered as beyond PM&C's scope. Since then, extensive and direct policy development work by PM&C has become common. The continuing debates have been over whether PM&C actually delivers in these roles (an empirical question) and how far it should play them (a normative issue). In this article we itemise the capacity, both continuing and developing, which PM&C has to support policy development. Traditional coordination mechanisms are an important part of this armoury and PM&C has long experience of most of them. However policy initiation and development calls for other tools which PM&C has had to develop over the past few decades. There is scope for conflict between the coordination and initiation/development roles. Understanding how a central agency like PM&C carries out each of them and balances the two can potentially contribute to debates on organisational design. We also address the normative issue: whether the growth of prime ministerial impact is a result of an increase in public service support or a cause of its increase ( Walter and Strangio 2007 ) and whether it should be restrained. We accept that the new developments give prime ministers the capacity to oversee policy arenas where once they could not, but regard this as a consequence as much of demand from above as of ambition within the department.