Reform of Australian Government Administration
Challenges facing the public sector: share your thoughts (15-17th October)
The discussion paper Reform of Australian Government Administration: Building the best public service in the world identifies, in Chapter 2, six key challenges that are facing the public sector at the federal level in the next 10 years:
- The increasing complexity in the nature of many policy problems such as global warming, illicit drugs and addressing social disadvantage.
- Citizens’ increasing expectations of government as people are becoming better educated and more affluent and as business faces increasing competitive pressures.
- Demographic change, including the ageing population, means that the working age population as a proportion of the total Australian population will fall by around 8% over the 40 years to 2047 . The public service will need to compete more effectively for talented employees.
- Technological change provides great opportunities for improved service delivery and greater efficiency. It also poses challenges for the public service such as reforming policies and procedures to allow better exploitation of technology as well as effectively managing IT systems over their lifecycles.
- Globalisation – in today’s interconnected world, financial and economic developments, ideas and a range of threats are transmitted around the globe in an immediate way. Recent examples include the global financial crisis and swine flu. The public service needs to be able to effectively respond and adapt to these developments.
- Increasing financial pressures faced by government are influencing the resource levels likely to be available in the public service and are driving the need for greater efficiency and effectiveness in all government operations.
We are interested in your views on whether the discussion paper has correctly identified the key challenges in the strategic environment and their implications for how the public service will need to operate.
Questions for discussion:
What are the most important challenges facing the public sector in the next 10 years?
What are the implications for how the public service at the federal level will need to operate?
One challenge relating to the second dot point is the increasing disparity of income and opportunity in Australia now compared with even 10 years ago. We are a less cohesive and egalitarian community. This shows up too in education level disparity and consequent inability of many to join in the high level debates that Australia needs to have to cope with challenges such as global warming. To get re-elected, governments divert resources to small inefficient programs such as baby bonuses, small business programs, border protection etc which consume disproportionate administrative time and do not address key issues.
Other comments have gone to succession planning issues, better support for higher level staff. This is important. Ageism is alive and well in the public service too. There was no interest in retaining staff in their 50's in the Department I left, rather take in more graduates. Older people will stay to address new challenges. I found one and stayed until 65!
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The lack of overflow arrangements is a corporate planning issue and consequently falls into the upper management work basket. However the lack of corporate arrangements for overflow of work is not the only limiting factor. The lack of autonomy that team leaders and lower level managers have on affecting work loads compounds the quarantining of work within sections. The lack of autonomy stems from the highly regulated business procedures, documents and protocols that cascade down from upper management.
It is great to see the discussion about 'systemic reform'. Hopefully a whole of government approach would promote transfer of resources between different APS organisations. However the diseconomies of scale created because of the size of APS organisations (eg. Cumbersome work processes and documentation requirements that aim to ensure services are the same across all of the APS organisation's sites, assurance processes etc.) might be further compounded by a second tier of regulations dictating the interaction of different APS organisations between one another.
Perhaps a means of avoiding choking any working relationship between APS organisations with excessive structuring of work processes is to think like modern day legislation drafters; focus on the intent and avoid going into detail - allow the judge to use the stated intent of the law to work out whether the specific case before them is in breach of the law. This would naturally create more autonomy for lower level managers and team leaders to apply the broadly defined work processes.
Whilst a 'systemic reform' is being planned (and no doubt will take a long time before anything is implemented) a 'whole of organisation' (as opposed to a 'whole of government) approach to business could be trialled. That is to say, trial arrangements at the corporate level for work to flow between departments and trial giving team leaders and lower level managers more autonomy by doing away with a big chunk of corporate procedures.
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CHALLENGES?
Financial pressures
The greatest challenge facing the public sector over the next decade will be financial.
The effect of an Emissions Trading Scheme (in any of its proposed forms) will most likely force many mining and manufacturing activities out of Australia [just look at today's Financial Review and you will see coal mining operators threatening to pull out of Australia because of the ETS]. This will diminish the government's revenue base.
Then there's the ageing population problem (increased social security payments and fewer employees to tax), greater need for new IT facilities etc. etc. all of which are threatening future budget balances.
The government will require the APS to provide the same level of services whilst reducing the funding provided to APS organisations. This will force APS organisations to become more economical.
KEY IMPLICATIONS?
Transferability of resources and organisational flexibility
As APS organisational budgets become tighter and government measures become more complex (and are required to be implemented more swiftly - eg. Measures in response to the GFC) resources within each organisation will need to be more manoeuvrable. Consequently the old reliance on simply taking on additional employees in times of increased work loads will not be feasible.
Therefore employees will need a diverse range of skill sets and a broad knowledge base so that they can move between departments in response to changing work loads.
Current APS employment culture might have inadvertently created a culture of multiskilling. The reliance on 'higher duties' and positions being made available for only a short term (most often due to the work stemming from a project) means most employees have worked in a number of departments within an organisation. Such employment models have disadvantages (eg. Cost of training staff, cost of the recruitment process, lack of efficiency from new employees) but do lead to multiskilled employees. But from my experience there is no sharing of excess work between departments within an organisation. Some teams/departments can be flat out whilst others are very quiet.
I see a major challenge related to succession planning of staff coming through the ranks is the increasing number of political appointments to CEO positions of "subject matter experts" rather than experienced, professional public administrators.
The appointment of a lawyer, engineer, research scientist, or crime fighter to 'lead' a Commonwealth Agency rarely works. These people have an undoubted role as advisors/experts but are rarely consumate "administrators". They tend to focus outward of the APS.
Experienced public sector deputies can often counter balance this, however, most are stifled as the CEO recruits more subject matters experts and solid accountable administration becomes a secondary concern.
This can sometimes be observed at Senate Estimates hearings - an eminent scientist (example only) trying to address the baffling world of the FMA Act or other complex legislation. No matter how thoroughly their SE Briefs have been prepared they are still very obviously inexperienced administrators.
Agencies without good public administrators at the helm usual "bleed" staff thereby losing corporate knowledge, capabilty and seasoned successors.
Hear Hear Back to the Future, if you want to see a good example of your point just look at CASA, which has always had its CEOs appointed because they are a pilot rather than good leaders or professional administrators and frankly by any measure it is a basket case and has been for many years. For example they are more than 10 years into a 2 year project to rewrite the aviation regulations. Senior management is there to lead, make sound decisions and instill a sound organisational culture, flying planes or catching crooks or any other specialist activity doesn't come into it.
This is a really good point; and not one that I have ever thought of.
To continue the aviation analogy, Qantas has a board of directors and a CEO. What ever one's opinion of the airline might be, I think it is safe to say these people were selected for their business acumen. Qantas also has a 'Chief Pilot', who is highly respected by the board and CEO and who is I am sure consulted on decisions concerning technical issues that require specialist advice. Perhaps the APS needs to consider a similar approach to that used in the corporate world.
Succession planning and looking at ways to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things are paramount for ensuring a robust APS over the next 10 years. People need to be ready to move into roles becoming vacant due to natural attrition. Staff across the board need to be assured they have opportunities to undertake interesting and varied work and that they are valued to ensure the APS can compete with private enterprise when trying to attract and retain employees.
The APS needs to look at new trends from a technological perspective to find innovative ways of dealing with clients/customers to improve service delivery and that makes first contact resolution a done deal. Even a whole of government approach to accessing governement services is worth exploring.
'We are always talking about reducing red tape for the public or the private sector, what about reducing internal redtape' - this was posted earlier and I couldn't agree more.
As I see it, the most importanct challenges facing the public service relate to people, information and technology.
How do we retain people and keep them motivated in our do more with less culture? Unfortunately, as this goes on there is a very higjh likelihood that this culture will break people. The consequenses of this are:
- increased compensation costs (forcing people to do with even less)
- difficulty in attracting new staff
- even more pressure on those remaining (which only compounds the cycle).
I don't know what the answers are but I offer the following for discussion:
- we need to focus on our core functions. If an agency is undertaking functions that do not deliver, or support the delivery of its core functions, why should it continue doing them?
- We are always talking about reducing red tape for the public or the private sector, what about reducing internal redtape
- Previous suggstions about support staff are relevant. Unfortunately most of us have become 'specialists' at the expense of the generalist support person. The change in profile of the public service over the last 20 year is evidence of this and our recruiting practice of recruiting expertise rather than nuturing it further compounds the issue. We need to re-engage support staff at the entry levels. However, we also need to ensure that we don't typecast these people as 'support' for their entire careers. Some may be happy enogh to do this but most will want more. We need to grow people to ensure they have the opportunity to achieve as much as they are capable of; to become specialists and our replacements.
I will deal with the other two issues later
Rodger,
In the case of the project I referred to, I was appointed to the job through a "mate", was not formally qualified for it (few were 15+ years ago) nothing was in writing, there was no formal budget (but over its life and given the number of users, the project cost very little). I was motivated to stay on the case longer than any formal employee of the office because the arrangement suited me and I was free to do other work when the bureaucratic nonsense and office politics got too much.
Try implementing that when so much time is spent on and attention is given to governance issues!
Now retired, in my time I have worked as a part-time database developer in tertiary education administration processing international applicants. Over 15 years, with assistance from frontline clerical staff, I developed and enhanced a computer system which ran on the smell of an oil rag hardware wise and, because the lines of communication were short, seemed to provide maximum assistance to those generating the output of the office. Along came the heavies who had not worked in the department mandating the application process be folded in to the then current student administration program.
Predictably, despite the expenditure of much more money, the imposed system did not work as well as the internally developed one. Corporate memory was lost and the replacement system is now about to be re-replaced. Initially mangers in the department collaborated in introducing the new system because it was seen to please their immediate supervisors and they were not accountable for increased costs if the new system added to costs. Which it did.
The bottom line lesson for a wider Public Service? Less reliance on the chain of command and a more open and enquiring minds applied to those who labour in the vineyard.
This approach might have shortened the First World War too.
Apropos a previous writer's comment about some information being unpalatable to a Minister, I would add the following
There is always a tendency in a government bureaucracy to bend to the will of the Minister -indeed, to attempt to anticipate it. This is much more obvious in the Queensland public service than in the federal bureaucracy but it does exist in the latter. This can result and has resulted in injustices being perpetrated. about which the Minister may or may not have cognisance. Ministers are not always told unpleasant truths. “Permanent” heads no longer enjoy secure tenure but serve at the pleasure of the government of the day or on some contractual arrangement. One result is that a permanent head may not feel that he can put forward unpalatable views which he knows will not be welcomed by the Minister. From this it arises that the permanent head will be loath to give the “frank and fearless” advice formerly expected of him. Over time, the Secretary may perceive his major responsibility as being to make the Minister look good.
This is one of the Gordian knots of public administration; on the one hand, the permanent head needs security of tenure if he is to be “frank and earless” with his Minister. On the other hand, tenure can make it very difficult to dislodge a time-server – or worse, a fool or saboteur. Government must decide which course it wants –tenure or not. It may be possible to devise a system by which a permanent head could be retired, transferred or dismissed WITH CAUSE. There would need to be safeguards to prevent government disposing of good officers who merely don’t get on with the Minister or have the wrong political colouration. Perhaps an independent panel (like the former Promotion Appeals Committee) could be appointed at very senior levels with a federal magistrate as its head to determine such cases. Alternatively ad hoc committees of persons drawn from commerce and industry might be considered, again with a magistrate as chairperson..
Reformat the key challenges as follows: 'Strategic challenge - Description of implication' i.e. the formatting of the current dot point "Globalisation - in today's..". Insert the "Strategic challenge heading" for those dot points where this is not stated.
1 - Delete "The increasing complexity in the nature of many" because generation asserts that the problems they face are more complex than those encountered in the past - without any objective measurement.
Replace words "Policy problems" with "Policy challenges" as we are identifying key challenges not problems.
Copy the issue of 'global warming' to point 5 under "Globalisation".
Consider whether examples reflect political biases of the authors e.g. if we include "left-wing" policy challenges such as addressing social disadvantage, then it is also fair to include "right-wing" policy challenges such as illegal economic migrants, family values and the welfare state. By contrast, the issue of illegal drugs (could be better reworded as crime and corruption), global warming, competition policy are not by their naming indicative of any particular bias - and its inclusion is acceptable on that basis.
2 - Does research supports this? Suggest we replace the word "increasing" with "changing"
4 - Reword as follows: "Technological change provides great opportunities for improved transparency, work from home (inline with current private sector practices), service delivery and greater efficiency."...
6 - Consider adding a seventh dot point "Transparency - " as this is a major challenge which has arisen more clearly in the past decade (see Transparency International)
CHALLENGES - TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
IT projects are one of the biggest ongoing challenges public sector organisations face. The success rate of major IT projects is remarkably low and the prospects for success in terms of on-time, on-budget and full benefits capture seem to operate inversely to the size of the project. The bigger the project the smaller the likelihood of success, recent Immigration, Customs and ATO major projects are spectacular examples.
This is likely to continue to be the case into the future, IT keeps changing and pushing out the boundaries, therefore lessons learned from earlier projects are largely lost because the next project is always very different, and usually the teams are different too. If we accept this as true, and overwhelming evidence says that it is, then the technological challenge is not about embracing new ways of working or coping with increased flows of information. These things are a given, unavoidable and have been for some time. The real challenge in my view is how to take advantage of advances in technology and achieve the integration necessary for whole of government solutions, without needing enormous IT projects to enable them. Keeping it simple, collecting only the information that is absolutely necessary, understanding our ideal business processes very well before desinging/building anything are the only ways to achieve this and get out of the cycle of expensive, accident prone, half-baked and rapidly redundant IT systems that we seem stuck with presently.
Having worked in the Public service for over 30 years ---- I feel that we need to nurture those that have the expertise and employ people to do the mundane tasks to allow those with the specialist skills to better use their talents.
I also see that for a better Public service we need to grow our own staff.
In some departmentments -llong service and understanding of clients is a very important part of how we are perceived by our clients.
CHALLENGES - INCREASING PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS
Having worked in the APS over many years, including in some highly visible public facing roles, I agree that public expectations for transparency, accountability and consultation have needed to change, and thankfully have done so. I think that while it is worthy for individual agencies to continue to push the boundaries where they can on these issues in their own spheres, I feel that there is as much or more to be gained in having a unified approach across all agencies and across all organisations. Why do consumers and shareholders have any less rights to have reasonable expectations established and met by private sector organisations, than taxpayers/citizens do from public sector organisations?
A unified framework that sets levels in this area for public and corporate sectors would help to make more plain to everyone what they should be able to expect when they deal with any organisation. This would help to promote a more healthy public and private sector culture. Naturally some will say that the two are different, but the principles they should follow and the standards that they set do not have to be. I think that if there were uniform principles followed across the board in Australia, the opportunity for shonky operators and poor performers public and private to continue to operate and be tolerated would be minimal.
Many issues are not actually that complex to deal with, it is just that the solutions are often politically unpalletable. Successive governments' commitment to ensure that no one is ever worse off, makes solutions complex since there is all sorts of gradfathering that citizens just give up. eg I have postgrad qualifications in economics and worked in Treasury for years and struggle to do my own tax return because of the complexity of the tax system and the use of technical legislative jargon. I have friends in the private sector who haven't bothered trying to get the small business investment incentives on their tax return because and unemployed people who have gone into Centrelink but ended up not bothering registering as unemployed because the rules and forms are so complex.
In terms of financial pressures, there are some agencies where most SES don't have admin support due to cost cutting, so that we spend our time answering phone calls, managing trivial emails, photocopying, managing ouer diaries etc so that we don't have time for thinking strategically or innovatively and when we do have innovative ideas, we don't have time to share or implement them.
In terms of competitiveness for talent, I want to go and get private sector experience that I can bring back to the APS later in my career, but if I do, I would have to re-serve 10 yrs to start to accrue long-service again, lose nearly a year's worth of personal leave, lose access to the PSS and just receive CPI indexation on a major component of my accrued super balance etc. The cost to me and my family if I do go to the private sector is huge, so when I do go, it will be for a major payrise and I probably won't come back to the APS. Until these incentives which have been designed to discourage movement between the public and private sectors are redesigned, the flow of talent between the sectors will remain severely stunted.
I agree with the challenges put forward in the discussion paper, particularly relating to citizens' expectations of government in providing strategic yet timely solutions.
The public don't realise that the solutions often need to be developed, co-ordinated and implemented across a range of Government agencies and that the processes can take time.
Therefore, a key implication needs to be a greater willingness for APS agencies to work collaboratively and quickly, and recognise the skill sets of staff who can build relationships and develop mutually beneficial outcomes.
We need to find ways to use the talents of employees more effectively. It does not make sense to have great lateral policy thinkers or specialist IT officers doing photocopying, filing and processing accounts.
It is time to consider whether a proportion of available positions should be filled by shared admin support staff (maybe one to a team of 10-20). Using support staff means that they do admin functions often enough that they become highly proficient at these functions unlike the current situation where a lot of people do particular tasks relatively rarely and take extra time as a result.
Using support staff would free up the time that specialist staff have to do what they were hired to do. It could also reduce the overall wage bill (support staff for low level admin functions could be hired at APS1 - 3 levels while specialists are generally at EL or SES levels)
Well i guess someone better put some thoughts on the table to get things rolling along.......
Challenges: trying to put in place proper succession planning for staff coming up through the ranks to fill the SES positions, and from that trying to capture all that corporate knowledge they have
: trying to attract and retain the right staff for the public service (PS)
:the expectation of the PS to work harder with less resources - while we aim to be effective and efficient there is a fine line that too little may mean increased level of stress, burn out and no work\life balance and subsequently people leaving the PS
Implications: If the public want the PS to be more responsive and flexible, then i think people need to carefully consider the logistics of how that may occur - that is possibly changing the structure of the department, how Departmental and Administered monies is appropriated, do we/should we go back to some centralisation of core activities or do we need to devolve further - make departments smaller??? Ideas are get in theory but can they be put into practice?
i think updating the APS values and code of conduct is a good idea, but we should have better mechanisms to dismiss people without having to go through a long convoluted process.
Just wanted to start by saying- I am excited for this discussion. That said, I will now have a think about the above....
Welcome to the PM&C first online forum.
This forum is now open for comment on the questions above. Please feel free to login or register to comment or simply return to this page over the next 3 days to follow the discussion.
And welcome to the onlne world, at long last. I'd like to use this first entry to point to a number of things which might help your department. I see links are not allowed. Could you factor in that links are the primary benefit in using the web, and so u might like to change the no link policy. Both gov2 (taskforce) and publicsphere (both by Kate Lundy and in NSW) initiatives will be of interest to you. You'll have to Google them cause I can't link.
Would you also consider that instead of running a huge number of individual forums on separate agency web sites that, as the PMC, you have opportunity to bring together and standardize on very similar inquiries which are beginning to spring up in three levels of governments. The aim at your end, as I know this online world is new to you, might be to get a(nother) policy in place, for reforming the AGS. But keep in mind that by your policy might be formulized, the world has moved on again. So if you have anyone (PS) who might act as a moderator - probably one of your PR people - it would be good to try and get into a weekly report or synopsis of the discussions.
You will find that having a small (interactive) team, like AGIMO have at the gov2 taskforce, will be the only way to handle all the feedback, and give feedback.
Anyway good luck. Hopefully PM&C might help to reduce the distance between internal and external silos of all descriptions, and expand the civil space.