Towards a Model Public Sector Integrity Commission

This article examines the current debate in Australia about public sector integrity and the idea of a standing anticorruption commission. From this debate the article outlines a specific type of ‘public sector integrity commission’ that in principle should have the necessary powers and techniques at its disposal to minimise corruption while ensuring efficiency and fairness. The debate has been most active in jurisdictions that have not had an anticorruption commission – mainly in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania – but debate about integrity commissions has occurred in all jurisdictions. The authors argue that anticorruption commissions are essential to ensure the integrity of the public sector and that a model commission should: cover all elements of the public sector; independently investigate serious and mid‐level complaints; have own motion powers to investigate any matter; have summary authority to apply administrative sanctions; make use of a range of investigative tools; not be tasked with combating major and organised crime; and be held accountable to citizens through a parliamentary committee and a parliamentary inspector.     

Goats or wolves? Private sector managers in the public sector

Public administration reforms have propagated the use of private sector management skills in the public sector, and an increased openness to managers with a private sector background. This has created a debate between those who think private sector experience improves public institutions by bringing core managerial values such as results orientation, efficiency, or openness to innovation, and those who argue that private sector experience can damage core public sector values, such as impartiality and equity. Despite the abundant anecdotal evidence, broad empirical evidence on the effects of private sector experience on public managers' values remains limited. Using data from a survey among central government top managers in 18 European countries, we show that public managers with private sector experience have, as expected, more core managerial values. Yet, unlike the conventional view, core public values do not suffer.     

Collective Bargaining and The Performance of the Public Schools

Students of American politics rarely study public sector unions and their impacts on government. The literature sees bureaucratic power as rooted in expertise, but largely ignores the fact that bureaucrats often join unions to promote their own interests, and that the power of their unions may affect government and its performance. This article focuses on the public schools, which are among the most numerous government agencies in the country, and investigates whether collective bargaining by teachers—the key bureaucrats—affects the schools' capacity to educate children. Using California data, analysis shows that, in large school districts, restrictive labor contracts have a very negative impact on academic achievement, particularly for minority students. The evidence suggests, then, that public sector unions do indeed have important consequences for American public education. Whether they are consequential in other areas of government remains to be seen, but it is an avenue well worth pursuing.     

Coordination in Youth Affairs: The Politics of Non-Decision-Making

One of the components associated with the widely heralded shift to 'new managerialism' in the public sector has been an increased emphasis on coordination between government departments as a means to enhance effective service provision. This article examines the capacity for coordination to fulfil this objective. Drawing upon a case study of coordination in youth affairs in Western Australia, the article examines the process by which the coordination mechanisms become enveloped in the 'politics of non-decision-making'. By this is meant that a set of power relationships create tensions at a number of levels — between commonwealth and state government agencies; between state government agencies and within individual agencies — which act to prevent effective decisions from being taken. The implications of this case study for the capacity of 'new managerialism' to produce effective policy outcomes in complex social policy areas is highlighted. Evidence from this study suggests that, in an era of restricted resources and heightened competition within the public sector, agencies are pushed to more clearly define their boundaries.     

Public Sector Collaboration: Are We Doing It Well and Could We Do It Better?

Improving collaboration by public sector agencies is an important element of many public sector reforms. Common approaches include introducing responsibilities under legislation and policy decisions, the provision of information and guidance, and strengthening third‐party oversight. To identify how collaboration is being practised, this paper reviews evidence from over one hundred reports by Auditors‐General and Ombudsmen in Australia and New Zealand to identify key attributes of collaboration, and assesses these further by examining three reports in detail. It concludes that problems that have been known for many years continue to constrain public sector effectiveness. Although continuing existing approaches may assist in improving collaboration, the paper argues that there is a need to adopt more systematic approaches to organisational capacity for collaboration. It further identifies that changes in the external environment such as technology‐based innovation may demand rapid progress and change in relation to collaboration.     

Collaboration and Integrated Services in the NSW Public Sector

The paper discusses some of the findings of a review of whole-of-government activities in the NSW public sector conducted for the NSW Premier's Department. Some major sources of the difficulties people encounter in whole-of-government initiatives are identified, together with some factors essential for success. Since there is no one 'right' model for whole-of-government activity, criteria are proposed for identifying the most appropriate whole-of-government response to different types of problem. In conclusion the paper summarises some key benefits and achievements of a growing whole-of-government ethos in the NSW public sector, and some possible strategies for further strengthening whole-of-government approaches.     

Digital Government: A Primer and Professional Perspectives

Digital technology is a critical enabler of public administration reforms. It can improve the efficiency and productivity of government agencies and allow citizens to transact with government anytime, anywhere. It can also deepen the democratic process, empowering citizens to participate in policy formulation. In this article Andrew Botros, the director of Expressive Engineering, and Maria Katsonis, from the Department of Premier and Cabinet (Victoria), explore the challenges of the digital world for the public sector. Katsonis presents a primer on digital government tracing its evolution from the e‐government movement of the 1990s to Government 2.0 in the 2000s to today's digital‐by‐default agenda. As technology and its role in public sector reform have progressed, so too have the governance, cultural, and leadership challenges deepened. Botros examines NSW approach to open innovation with the Premier's Innovation Initiative in NSW, the state's open data experience, and Transport for NSW and its management of public transport data. He argues NSW's approach involves a significant innovation trade‐off, requiring fresh thinking in digital‐era collaboration.     

Effectiveness: the next frontier in New Zealand

Central agencies face a critical test on how to approach the resolution of issues and problems related to improving the New Zealand public sector management systems from the author’s perspective. A decade has passed since the legislative changes were approved that initiated major financial management reform, and much of the initial reform energy has faded. It is time to assess what has and has not been achieved, and to search for ways to continue to move forward. There is a sense of anticipation, as well as some apprehension, across the New Zealand public sector, particularly in light of the election of a new Government. As New Zealand moves into a new phase of reform, one of the key challenges is to take advantage of what has already been achieved. New Zealand has one of the world’s leading public sector management systems, and should take advantage of that foundation. The key issue focused on in this article is effectiveness. A critical part of raising effectiveness is enhancing information. Better information is needed on outcomes, and it should be packaged in more accessible and relevant ways. More disciplined evaluation of the effectiveness of what is done is necessary. Systems that encourage public servants to raise their horizons should be improved or put in place. Managers who understand what they are doing and why are critical to reform success. Purchase agreements—or output agreements—will play a pivotal role, but they need to be improved. A fresh approach to output specification to better accommodate the range of output relationships that exist is required. Central agencies can facilitate customization of output specifications by being clearer about the basic output framework, and more flexible about how that framework is applied. Outcome measures should be refined and used along with outputs where feasible. Better ways must be found for managing problems of inter-agency coordination. Technology offers a new set of tools, but IT facilitates rather than creates effective relationships. Other coordination mechanisms that help agencies to communicate and to make trade-offs must evolve. New Zealand can move into a new phase of building a “world’s best” public sector. The public sector has an appetite for action at the moment, and a willingness to debate the issues. How this potential will be used is, to a great extent, the critical issue faced by the new Government.     

Training and public sector reform: an integrated approach

This article is partly a response to McCourt and Sola ( 1999 ), who raised a number of important observations about the role and limitations of training in promoting public sector reform in Tanzania. In particular, their discussion of the relationship between individual and organizational change is referred to. The article outlines a possible alternative to the straight training approach to capacity building, and suggests it as a possible model for the kind of OD intervention mentioned in McCourt and Sola, The author describes a programme of capacity building for rural district councils in Zimbabwe, which tried to avoid the mistakes of earlier public sector training programmes. In discussing ways of integrating human resource development into programmes of capacity building and public sector reform, the article adds to the debate about process and blueprint approaches as discussed in this journal by Cook, ( 1997 ), Blunt ( 1997 ) and others. The article concludes with an attempt to assess some of the achievements and failures of the training programme after the initial three years. It draws attention to some of the external factors in the programme operating environment which combine with the internal coordination and management aspects, in determining the overall achievement of such a complex programme. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE: A PERSPECTIVE*

Abstract: The Australian diplomatic service receives a fair degree of criticism, some misconceived, but some directed constructively at improving its economy and efficiency. The traditional objectives of Australian overseas representation are not questioned; rather the debate centres on the vast range of choice in the ways in which these broad objectives can be met—on such matters as how elaborately the task of overseas representation should be performed, where, and how large, overseas missions should be, how the diplomatic service should be staffed, and whether the pattern of coordination between the diplomatic service and other parts of the public service is appropriate. The complex issues involved in these areas of debate form part of the background against which the everyday work of the diplomatic service is set. This work includes political and economic reporting, the usual consular business, and “one-off” occasions ranging from the preparation of major bilateral treaties to war or revolution. Language and cultural differences make the carrying out of these tasks more difficult. Recruits to the diplomatic service are usually graduates in their mid-twenties with strong university qualifications, which are supplemented by formal training and by experience in different posts abroad and in Australia. The trend to greater specialization of diplomatic staff suggests a need for closer contact between the foreign service and other parts of the Australian Public Service, universities and the private sector. The past few years have been a period of questioning and criticism in all parts of the public sector, including the diplomatic service. At the same time the role played by the diplomatic service has grown more difficult. It is time that discussion focused on the key question—the need for comprehensive representation of Australia overseas—rather than on those who service this representation.     

Integrity Systems and Local Government

Australia's third sphere of government is local government, consisting of about 675 councils nationally, responsible for an average of 6 percent of total public sector expenditure (around $18 billion) annually. This article reviews key integrity issues confronting local government, based on experience in NSW and Queensland. Current issues confirm integrity to be a significant concern manifesting in a large variety of forms, both in council administration and in local government politics. A new generation of responses are increasingly tailored to recognising local government as a permanent, elected sphere of government, accounting directly to the public, while, supported by state regulators, individual councils also pursue better practice in the management of their own administrations.     

Assessing Integrity Systems: Introduction to the Symposium

The following Symposium on Australia's national integrity systems, drawn from an Australian Research Council‐funded project conducted in 2002‐2004 by researchers from Griffith University, Charles Sturt University, University of Sydney, RMIT University, Monash University and the Australian National University, together with Transparency International Australia. The first three papers examine the public integrity regimes at federal, state (NSW) and local levels. The remaining four papers develop three themes as a framework for assessing strengths and weaknesses in Australia's major integrity regimes: consequences, capacity and coherence. The papers were originally presented in sessions of the Australasian Political Studies Association (University of Adelaide, September 2004) and the 5th National Investigation Symposium (NSW Ombudsman, Independent Commission Against Corruption and Institute of Public Administration Australia NSW, Sydney, November 2004).     

The Capture Theory of Regulations—Revisited

Amidst the rekindled interest in regulating the market that has emerged since the 2008 financial crisis, most attention has been paid to the debate between those who call for more regulation of the private sector in order to protect the public good, and those who claim that such regulations would do further damage to the economy by unduly constraining business. This essay seeks to refocus the debate about regulation by examining an alternative criticism––the theory of regulatory capture––which argues that regulations are routinely and predictably 'captured' and manipulated to serve the interests of those who are supposed to be subject to them, or the bureaucrats and legislators who write or control them. Ample evidence suggests that regulatory capture is indeed widespread and takes a variety of forms, which are reviewed here. Rather than debating whether more or less regulations are needed, the paper suggests that what is needed is a way to make regulations stronger––more capture-proof. It closes with a major policy change that would help accomplish this goal.

Output–Purchase Funding and Budgeting Systems in the Public Sector

Output–purchase funding systems are systems in which payments made to service delivery agencies by government are an explicit function of quantities of outputs delivered by those agencies. This article considers the feasibility of such systems for the funding of tax–financed public services. It focuses on the implications of key characteristics of public sector outputs and specifically upon the prevalence of heterogeneous outputs, the predominance of services (as opposed to physical goods), and the presence of many "contingent capacity services."     

Pathways to work for low‐income workers: The effect of work in the temporary help industry

This paper provides new evidence to inform the policy debate about the effect of a newly important industry—the temporary help industry—on the labor market outcomes of low‐income workers and those workers who are at risk of being on public assistance. The core issue of whether temporary help work harms the long‐term prospects of disadvantaged individuals depends critically on the alternatives available to the worker. Temporary employment results in labor market outcomes that are better than not working at all. For example, while nonemployed public assistance recipients have only a 35 percent chance of being employed a year later, those who were in temporary employment have almost twice the likelihood of being employed in the same period. These findings, if correct, would support the use of temporary agencies by welfare programs. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

The Queensland Public Sector: Recent Developments in Employment Relations

With the incumbent Labor government embracing a recentralisation of industrial relations, public sector agencies in Queensland are experiencing a dramatic shift in the framework of employment relations. This paper discusses the approach of the previous Coalition government to managing the public sector workforce and the emerging approach of the Labor government. The comparison of contrasting governmental approaches to public sector employment relations throughout the 1990s suggests that successive governments have balanced very differently the three main pressures they have faced: political, managerialist and industrial relations.     

Anticipating Uncertainty: The Strategy-Structure Problem in Public Bureaucracy

The connection between administrative structure and policy strategy for public agencies is neither well understood, nor widely appreciated in political science. Much more emphasis is placed on the structure of linkages between bureaucracies and other political institutions. In this article, 1 advance an argument explaining the importance of strategy in policymaking for public agencies, and demonstrate how the concept needs to be refined in order for it to have meaning for public sector organizations. Strategy is analyzed in terms of two categories of uncertainty: generalized and contingent. Because of the ubiquitousness of generalized uncertainty in public policymaking, developing a capacity for anticipating uncertainty problems is critical in strategy formation. Whether that capacity exists is a function of administrative structure. 1 further present an argument for why structure deserves consideration as a political and technical matter, and not simply as a consequence of political preferences.     

Are prisoners Clients?

Public servants should identify their clients. As a statement of modern practice it seems unobjectionable. The emphasis of modern management has shifted from die inputs and processes to the outputs and recipients of government services. The language of the public sector has been infused with the rhetoric of the private, with discussion of customers and clients, rather than, as previously, recipients and patients. In many places the benefits are apparent, with officials less concerned with ensuring that every minute process is satisfied and more directed to the needs of those whom they service. My concern here is not to challenge the notion that a concentration on clients and customers is desirable; in places it clearly is. Rather I want to suggest that while a client focus may be applicable in some facets of public policy it is not universally so. There are instances where the attempt to classify everyone as clients may be counterproductive and strip the concept of useful meaning.     

Lights on the shadows of public procurement: Transparency as an antidote to corruption

The increased focus on marketizing mechanisms and contracting‐out operations following the New Public Management reform agenda has sparked a debate on whether the close interactions between public and private actors might drive corruption in the public sector. The main response to those worries has been increased transparency, but so far empirical evidence of its efficiency remains scant and mixed. This article argues that the beneficial effects of transparency on corruption are contingent on type of transparency, and in particular, who the intended receiver of the information is. Drawing on newly collected data of more than 3.5 million government contracts between 2006 and 2015, the analysis shows that overall tender transparency reduces corruption risks substantially, yet that the effect is largely driven by ex ante transparency, that is, transparency that allows for horizontal monitoring by insiders in the bidding process.     

DEVELOPMENTS IN NEW SOUTH WALES PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION*

There are probably more changes taking place in public administration than at any previous time. In some sectors (like health) staff are now used to change; it has become a normal part of their everyday life. In other sectors (like road transport) it is a new experience. Some changes are the latest chapter in a long and continuing story. Clear objectives, downstream autonomy and performance monitoring have been issues for as long as most public servants can remember. The fresh ingredients added by New South Wales Incorporated are the management incentives that make a direct appeal to the self-interest of senior executives, and the ideology of competitive neutrality that mimics the price signals which motivate private enterprise. The intended results are less political patronage, smaller government, more accountability, better morale and higher productivity. Stated in these terms they are unlikely to cause controversy; the current political consensus is that they would constitute worthy goals for any government. However important differences of opinion will probably emerge over the order of priority for these goals. For example, how much should higher productivity be sought if it threatens accountability or morale? There is also likely to be debate between those who want everything in place immediately, even if it means industrial strife, and those who prefer a softly-softly approach.