Reform of Australian Government Administration

I don't see anything in thwe code of conduct that I think should be removed. There is always room for improvement in wording, but I doubt the improvement would be sufficient to justify the resources expended in revising them and changing all the materials that refer to them.

I think the concept of the values are great and that we should only change these to ensure that they are improved. The values should not be a tool that can be misused and we need to strenght them with strick guidelines to ensure that the values have true meaning and strength.

The wording should be less opened, so the cannot be abused and misinterpted.

The APS values could well be streamlined but when it comes down to it, good public servants shouldn't need to refer to them to know what they should do.

As others have intimated there is a problem in practice - there are too many decisions that are not merit based and the level of public service is sometimes woefully inadequate eg disclosure in Freedom of Information.

I see massive failures in providing frank and fearless advice, including at senior levels - we have some great people but our leadership is not always of the highest quality, nor is our workplace always fair.

Well it is not hard to point out problems. What about solutions? Lets look at discrimination. "The APS is free from discrimination" this is not true and cannot be true. Relevant Federal Legislation is written to be exclusive rather than inclusive. As a consequence there is a lot of discrimination which is neither right nor fair but cannot be proven to be "unlawful". ILO Convention 58 says that all discrimination is proscribed but Australia's regulations are once again exclusive rather than inclusive. At leas the ACT legislation has a clause regarding "profession, occupation or calling" where Federal legislation does not, and the ACT cannot bind the crown!

As a consequence discrimination perpetuates and those committing it are not held accountable. Therefore the APS value regarding discrimination has absolutely no legal weight at all. So what's the point?

To me, the APS Code of Conduct and Values, epitomise the attractiveness of an APS career.

We don't maximise profitability. We serve Australia without fear or favour, in an atmosphere of interpersonal respect.

Rather than fundamentally changing the code or values, we should keep working to ensure they are properly applied. We should continue to investigate breaches of these documents and aspire to implement them continuously and completely.

The integrity of the APS and Public Servants relies on these documents. We should not promote public servants who breach these policies (eg officials involved in 'children overboard'), nor penalise those who uphold them (eg intelligence officials who report unpalatable 'truths').

performs work for clients with bona fides.

I would consider this to be a value, and one that I have found is not always upheld.
Recently the legislation was amended under a certain Act so that a certain agency now has a time limit imposed on them to respond to their clients. Until that point, the variation in response time was significant and disturbing. I can think of one case where a client, 3.5 years later is still waiting for an EL1 to respond to administrative letters.
I can think of instances where delay tactics have been used by employees who are either too lazy to make a decision or have self-imposed a reading onto the regs or Act, an understanding that wearing the client down through delays in responding is giving a bona fide application of their obligations under an Act. It is not, and such people need to be held to account in a substantive and substantial way.

The problem is not with the values, the problem lies in the fact that they are not easy to see occuring in practice. When a person has blatantly bad feedback on their work which is riddled with basic errors, and they are promoted to a more senior level 2 weeks later, through a panel which ignores a capable external applicant already at level and more qualified for the position... then your values fall down.

When an organisation is facing a tight budget and it has a desperate and obvious need to hire someone with skills in a area of high and obvious demand; and instead, a job ad is written to cater for a staff member who wants to go and study something that the organisation does not need (on departmental time) then there is a serious problem. When that person is then awarded the advertised and tailor-written higher job level, which allows for them to learn on the job (what they need to study for the course) but for which there is no organisational current or future/foreseeable demand, then values all these values are mere rhetoric.

Finally, we would not accept someone without research experience, a university degree and postgraduate qualifications heading a faculty at a university and supervising research, so why do we tolerate it in the public service?
So much for the education revolution...

We need better enforcement mechanisms -- an office set up to investigate such instances of apparent failure.

I think simplification would work. It is quite lengthy. Not that the Values aren't important. They are!

Some of the statements aren't measurable eg highest ethical standards, as others have mentioned. This could mean different things to different people.

I think perhaps they could be better served if the values were split into moral based eg individual expectations (highest ethical standards) and then the general ones eg
promotes equity in employment;
provides a reasonable opportunity to all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment.

This would make them easier to read, for some to understand therefore to apply.

I think they could be simplified. Short & to the point so they can be placed at your work area/station for all to see. Respect, Cooperation, Innovation, Responsibility are some of the words I would use. There should be actions as to how they can be achieved. Without this how do you know you are performing to these values. Gathering from responses to this & other forums there are differences in all agencies & within each area. I think too many decisions are made at the top without discussion at the bottom with the people who are required to implement them. I have attended training courses & the message is if you want people to co-operate & take an interest in their job then give them the opportunity for input. Yes this forum is giving an opportunity but really how many are contributing or know about it and to really to have constructive input you need to think about it for awhile.

the values are good. We could do more work to see that they are adopted and practiced.

There main thing i want to be changed relates to career issues.
there should be an easier process by which to move between various public service agencies. i would also like to see equity in pay between the agencies. ie an aps 3 the ato would be paid the same as an aps3 in medicare, centrelink e.t.c.

The values appear sound. However it might be worth considering the values against the actual practices which we follow to bring these values to life. I have against those which are most relevance to the reform of the Australian Government Administration, placed some comments for consideraiton:

- is a public service in which employment decisions are based on merit; for decisions to be based on merit there must be a system of selection which is administered by those willing to accept merit as the basis for employment. Currently many decisions are made for reasons other than merit and the system of using selection critertia which are generic across all roles is somewhat at odds with the system used by the private sector (using standardised resume criteria) and accepting the importance of formal tertiary qualifations (especially re management roles) as the true basis for objective employment based decisions.

- provides a workplace that is free from discrimination and recognises and utilises the diversity of the Australian community it serves; again as per comment above our workplaces must be free of discrimination and for such to take place there must systems in place administered by in particular SES who accept and buy into such.

- is responsive to the Government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the Government's policies and programs; unless such is possibly within each agency there will be no chance of it such across the APS. This can be better achieved if the APS refreshes its workforce (especially at the SES levels say every five years. Currently there is a difficulty in providing the frank, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice as many SES have been in there same roles and Agencies for too long and have very limited work experiences, and control the agendas.

- delivers services fairly, effectively, impartially and courteously to the Australian public and is sensitive to the diversity of the Australian public; this is an important value but I am not sure how we as the APS can be meeting such. The APS needs to become more realistic in accepting that in 2009 and beyond the work of the APS does NOT need to be centred in ACT. Instead the Agencies and their work should be redirected to where the clients are (and generally this is where the population is) i.e. predominantly in the Eastern seaboard states and especially in NSW and in predominantly Sydney and to a lesser extent in the other states and territories. Unless the ACT and Canberra centric view of the APS is challenged and changes it is unreasonmable to believe that we are delivers services fairly, effectively, impartially to the Australian public and are sensitive to the diversity of the Australian public. Instead we are delivering services from an ACT and Canberra centric perspective which pays no attention to the diversity of the Australian public or their needs and in particular where they are in order to receive and access our services. This value requires the APS to revisit its overarching strategy and then to restructure its organisaiotns (the Agencies) to be based and operating in a much more secentralised and dispersed manner reflecting our Australian population.

- has leadership of the highest quality; as per above comment the quality of the APS leadership is questionaable given the dearth of diversity and experiences at these levels. The majority of SES across the APS are not representative of our society. The leadership have been in their roles for very long periods of time and come to such roles often with only the experience from within one agency. Many of our leaders at the top have neither the formal qualifications nor the external work experience required of them In particular very few are formally qualified and experiecned in the field of management and leadership and have instead been promoted on the basis of their technical skills (which are generally not of use in management leadership roles). Opening up the field to those who have external (private and public experiences and formal management qualifications) would go a long way to rectifying this matter.

- focuses on achieving results and managing performance; this is only possible with a capable and qualified and experienced cadre of managers who want to manage. AT the moment i the APS we have a very limited pool of such managers and hence the results and performance and prodictivity of the APS suffer. Again the need to refresh at the SES management levels and the need to ensure that a priority is placed on this occupaitonal group will enable this value to be achieved. As well, if we as an APS are serious about the need to achieve and manage performance then the SES performance accountabilities should be linked to such criteria as performance and acheievement of KPI targets. Any bonuses currently in place for SES should be re-considered in this light and we should be asking ourselves the question is it sound, equitable, clever to be rewarding the SES with bonuses but not the greater workforce of the APS? To me this seems counter productive, inequitable, exclusionary, subjective and back the front.

- provides a reasonable opportunity to all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment; this value is rarely if ever met. To meet such an important value there must be a concerted effort to allow all peopel to apply and be considered objectively for the opportunities that present themselves. In particular the need to move completely away from the standard generic APS only slection criteria of the ILS is needed. What is needed is an opening up of all but especially SES roles to those outside by using in recruitment simply a resume or CV and comparing the qualificaitons, capabilites, and experiences of the candidates against well written job desciptions and the essential and desirable cirteria of each job as does the private sector. Also the APS needs to become more realistic in accepting that in 2009 and beyond the work of the APS does NOT need to be centred in ACT. Instead the Agencies and their work should be redirected to where the clients are (and generally this is where the population is) i.e. predominantly in the Eastern seaboard states and especially in NSW and in predominantly Sydney and to a lesser extent in the other states and territories. Unless the ACT and Canberra centric view of the APS is challenged and changes it is unreasonmable to believe that we are offering reasonable opportunity to all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment and instead we are shutting out the very best. This will perhaps also call forward the need to revisit the structure of the APS and its respective agencies against a renewed APS strategy.

- is a career-based service to enhance the effectiveness and cohesion of Australia's democratic system of government; if career based service means that people can lock onto roles for their lifetime then this value should be removed and replaced. I am not sure what value there is in encouraging people to stay put. What the APS needs is a system of refresh and renewal and movement within and across agencies. To enable such movement the APS needs to remove the current barriers which exist between state and Commonwealth public service agencies and enable people to carry with them their various entitlements (super, LSL, ARL, and PL and the like) .

- provides a fair system of review of decisions taken in respect of employees; this is critical to ensure that any flawed decisions are addressed. ANy systems in place for such should be evaluated and then revised where required. This goes to the APS integrity and ethics.

Hi, dare I say it, fellow reformers

I think the way to go with a new APS Code of Conduct and Values is to have something much more inclusive. The current focus is very HRish and does not fit with Gov 2.0. What we currently have is quite inward looking in much of its content and focus.

Taking a leaf out of Barak Obama’s book I think we need to start thinking in terms of a compact. Compact 21 – Working Together? Should cover Community : Service (that’s us) : Business. And let's not forget the Unions.

The compact should cover how we all conduct ourselves and could probably be chunked as follows:

Propose – how we conduct ourselves when planning to do something.

Discuss – how we talk to each other when refining courses of action/ideas.

Decide – how we go about deciding which path to take.

Deliver – how we go about delivering to the community, one another and business.

Evaluation - how we measure and manage success and failure.

What I am suggesting is that we have a compact that breaks down the silos and walls – of being more open and inclusive from the ground up. In practical terms this would mean writing the Code of Conduct in a way that is accessible to all parties and builds relationships.

Many of the individual values encapsulated in the current APS values and the Code of Conduct are fine. However, we do need to ask ourselves whether they are sufficient for the environment we are in and whether they will serve us well into the future? I don't believe they are and will be strained further.

Part of the problem is, I suspect, that we tend to view the values through a management or HR lens. Rather than through the lens of how we all - public service, community, business and unions need to work together to do a good job for the country. It is a safe bet that we all have a lot in common. So why continue to frame the values in an inward looking way? And why not update them to take account of changing expectations?

The public sector is a mysterious black box to much of the community. It is about time we addressed that issue and one of the ways of doing this is to lay a solid foundation through shared values.

Cheers - Steve Davies

I think if you asked any APS employee to recite the APS Values or Code of Conduct they'd struggle. We need a set of simple, easily recalled APS values so that individual agencies don't create their own (just because the APS ones are too wordy). Better still, have a set that applies to our interactions with external bodies/clients and a set that guides behaviour within the agency.