Governance advisory panel for Treasury

The Secretary of the Commonwealth Treasury, Martin Parkinson, has established an Australian Treasury Advisory Council. This group of respected leaders will make up a governance and advisory board that will help replicate the discipline provided by a private sector governance board.

"I think this is an exciting innovation and one which other APS organisations may also find valuable. It is also an example of not needing to reinvent the wheel, as our approach is modelled on the experience of our New Zealand counterparts" said Dr Parkinson in a recent speech.

The inaugural members of the Council are:

• Ms Elizabeth Bryan – currently Chair of Caltex
• Ms Tracey Horton – former Dean of University of Western Australia Business School and currently Non-Executive Director, Skilled Group and President of the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• Ms Belinda Hutchinson – currently Chair of QBE and Chancellor of Sydney University
• Ms Akiko Jackson – a management consultant in the financial services industry
• Mr Kevin McCann – currently Chair of Macquarie Group
• Dr Michael Vertigan – who has had a long and illustrious career in the public sector and academia
• Mr Gabriel Makhlouf – the New Zealand Treasury Secretary

Dr Parkinson also noted that the APS Capability Review of Treasury identified four areas on which Treasury will need to focus.

• Finding better ways to manage and monitor priorities and performance. Although Treasury produces very high-calibre output and perform well, this can often be because of the dedication of staff and strong culture of excellence, rather than due to having systematic processes that manage organisational performance. 

• Treasury is currently shrinking from over 1000 people by shedding around one in three positions. It has already shed about 15 per cent of staff. Clearly, since Treasury doesn't control the responsibilities given to it by Government, change of this magnitude means delivering similar outcomes in a very different manner. In the past, it's response to increased demands was to increase efforts: by working harder and longer. Needless to say, this is not sustainable, and it also crowds out any attempts to think differently – and smarter – about prioritising resources. 

• Treasury also needs to work more on collaborating and engaging with others. This is something Treasury has been working on since the Strategic Review, with the Capability Review finding that it had made a significant investment in improving engagement with stakeholders. However, these skills still need to be developed more broadly across the Treasury, and embedded into everything it does.

• Finally, Treasury needs to get better at leading and managing change while adapting and innovating it's way of working. The Senior Executive Service, in particular, is going to have to concentrate more on leading organisational change and culture in the future, building on their existing strengths as policy advisers. 

In order to address these challenges, Treasury has put together a ‘Capability Action Plan’. This consists of four work streams, which broadly correspond to the four focus areas and are owned by various Senior Executive Service sponsors throughout the Treasury.

This is largely a continuation and expansion of previous internal reforms. Notably, Treasury has been implementing it's Progressing Women initiative, which includes:

• setting a target for female representation in the SES of around 35 per cent by 2016, and over 40 per cent in the longer term
• establishing the Inclusive Workplace Committee, with internal and external members, which the Secretary chairs – all of Parkinson's decision-making powers regarding diversity issues have been delegated to this group
• mainstreaming flexible working arrangements within the Treasury – committing to an “if not, why not?” approach, whereby staff may change their working arrangements unless there is a clear business reason why that would not be suitable
• providing unrecognised bias awareness training to staff
• making the measurement and reporting of gender diversity a regular practice, including as part of our reporting to staff on recruitment, promotion and performance assessment

Dr Parkinson's speech was to the Institute of Public Administration Australia on 20 March 2014.