Former PS Head: Five problems with the state of the public service

Two recent articles in The Mandarin on problems with the APS—one from a former APS Head and the other a former Minister.

Terry Moran

Terry Moran (former head of the Australian Public Service and currently national president of the Institute of Public Administration Australia) sees major problems with human resource management in Australia's public sector.

Moran's article, Five changes we need in public sector HR (The Mandarin, 21 August 2014) was an edited version of a speech he delivered to the Australian Human Resources Institute Public Sector HR conference in Melbourne on August 19.

Merit principal in selection and promotion

Moran's first concern is in the area of nepotism and cronyism. More than just concerned about the unfairness of selection processes, he notes that these perversions even put at "risk whether individual citizens and businesses will be properly dealt with under the law and the regulatory environment derived from it".

Worse, he thinks that "there’s a danger that the problem of improper appointments may be beginning to go further — and into the world of political patronage. This is very dangerous space for our sector to be in".

He notes that "the merit principle in the public service goes right back to the Northcote Trevelyan Report over 150 years ago, which established the modern civil service in Britain and was the basis for all state and Commonwealth public services. And that sense that selection and promotion should be based on the best person for the job has been at the heart of the UK and Australian public services ever since".

Moran would like to see a renewed respect for the merit principle in selecting and promoting people for jobs as the basis for staffing public service departments and agencies.

Improve capability within the sector

Moran would like to see a deepening in "the breadth of capabilities in the sector. There is always a tension between the need for generalists and specialists — but my sense is that currently we have gone too far towards the generalists".

In particular, he thinks that there will be an increasing dichotomy between head office functions and service delivering regional offices. This trend will drive a requirement for staff to become more specialised either in tailored service delivery or in the six main areas of ministerial accountability:

• policy
• strategy
• budgets
• appointments
• performance of the system
• engagement with the community

Improve diversity

Moran's broad view of diversity problems in the sector stand in stark contrast to some notable stances by Secretaries. He notes that the public sector could do more to reflect Australia’s diversity, noting the areas which most require improvement are:

• staff with a non-English speaking background—about 15% of the Australian population speaks a language other than English at home and an even higher percentage of the population are from a non-English speaking background; however, the latest figures from the State of the Service report found that NESB representation in the APS was at about 5.5%

• a lack of diversity in work background—fewer of our sector seem to have a background in the private and not-for-profit sectors, and consequently the sector tends not to be good at understanding the needs of industry and community groups, and where those needs align with national needs

One result of the lack of diversity is that the public sector tends to "default to the standard economics line that comes out of treasuries around the country, which is that a well-framed market will fix any problem. But the commercial universe is poorly reflected in government policy development. Sophisticated industry policy processes that will help to support Australian businesses in becoming more competitive suffer as a result".

Furthermore, "many of the capabilities that are expected in the private sector are lacking in the public sector. By this I mean things like the evidence-based approaches applied to the complex problems experienced by large organisations and top-end specialist skills in areas like:

• commercial strategy
• business planning
• project management
• capability development
• accountability systems"

Performance management

Moran thinks that "performance management processes still seem to use a performance appraisal system that is based on a personal qualities and characteristics framework, which is pretty antiquated in 2014".

"There really is a strong attitude amongst some public sector leaders that “performance management is not my job and it gets in the way of my real job”. I always found that attitude baffling because I could very clearly see it paying huge dividends — for the organisation led, for the political leaders I served and personally for me as a leader. I worry that some of my colleagues don’t see that link".

"A far better approach would be to use a mixture of assessing people or teams on the results they deliver — which is tricky because there are some areas where outcomes are hard to measure, but at the very least it could be based on some outputs from the budgets, and a 360 degree feedback model measuring what peers, superiors, stakeholder and subordinates perceive to be your performance and contribution to your organisation.

"Of course this only works if there is top-level attention paid to it ... And to be honest I think that more public sector leaders should demonstrate commitment in this area and make the results count".

Public servants should speak out

Finally, Moran would like to see public sector employees receive "a bit more latitude to get engaged in discussion. I think we are far too nervous about this as a sector ...  we need some broad guidelines about social media engagement and protecting processes that are important for good government, but I think we have become far too cautious".

He notes the significant transparency measures in place in New Zealand and that the "public sector sky hasn’t fallen in on New Zealand for doing that — and indeed I think most governance theory says that in most cases the more transparent your policy process is, the better the results that you will get".

Gareth Evans

In an interview with The Mandarin (5 September), Gareth Evans (former Labor Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) opines that the politicisation of the bureaucracy "has created an environment in which the first imperative for any public servant is to cover his or her arse" and that "the triumph of the apparatchik in ministerial offices has gone many steps further than it sensibly should have".

Asked whether the politicisation of the public service has affected policy, Evans responds that "there’s plenty of evidence for that": "Too often ministers have been making policy by thought bubble, rather than a full understanding and appreciation of all the different elements that are involved".

"The best policymaking is done on an iterative basis when ideas are going backwards and forwards, when the envelope is being pushed by adventurous ministers, and often being resisted by more cautious public servants. But also when there’s the capacity for public servants to do adventurous things themselves and to make sure their advice is well and truly appreciated."