The art of Public Service Review

Where the advisory group especially failed policy-making about the public service was the absence of discussion papers about contentious matters. A leading instance is the question of mobility in the service.

Mobility is the fall-back position for lazy thinking about personnel management. It is the throwaway line for many matters, from stale performance to limited horizons in policy-formulation. It is perceived as a solution to all manner of defects including inadequacies in program implementation.

It has had a prominent place in APS talk for four decades or more. But the debate is stuck, and has been stuck for a generation. No-one has bothered to identify the variety of forms that mobility can take, how much mobility there actually is, whether there should be more, and what are the benefits sought and obtained. There is a formidable hypothesis that, on mobility, the APS is an over-achiever.

It could be done in the context of a searching study of promotion and staff selection practices of the public service. These are expensive, time-consuming and seemingly frozen in the 1960s. Some departments and agencies have made substantial changes; others should be thinking about doing likewise.

Some similar active thinking might have been brought to bear on the policy capacities of departments and agencies. Because of modern technologies this should be the strong suit of a modern public service (as of any large modern organization).

The advisory group passed up the opportunity to draw out the public service on these subjects. There is no reason why the Public Service Commissioner should not take them up.

Nearly every body that reaches out for the mantle of reform aspires to have its thinking enshrined in legislation. In some cases they labour under the false idea that this will entrench their insights.

The advisory group particularly seeks this outcome for its views on the Values which it believes should be “revised, tightened and made more memorable.” The Government should ignore this vanity. The existing statement is excessively long but to alter the Values along lines proposed will simply add confusion.

One of the attractive aspects of the blueprint is proposed amplification of the role of department secretary with the Biblical concept of stewardship. It is again proposed that this should be embodied in the legislation.

Again, the case for statutory action is non-existent. The secretary’s role is a matter for doctrine, not legislation. It would certainly be timely to have another considered exposition of the role of the departmental head, and one based on the present public service legislation. But tinkering with the legislation would be superfluous, a substitute for rather than an embodiment of thought.

Many commentators have drawn attention to the failure of the blueprint to address the question of consultants; like ministerial staff, they are a no-go area.

But, given the ambition to transform the APS into a body with “an intrinsic culture of evaluation and innovation,” use of consultants should have been prominently on the agenda.  A central strength of a public service is capacity to think for itself.

Australia is not alone in needing to address this issue. A recent Canadian report tackled what it described as “the explosion of the consultant culture in Ottawa.”

“A generation ago, departments had expertise in-house, and if consultants were employed, it would be to test out ideas already generated by the bureaucracy or to fix a short-term problem.”

“Today, there is an underground policy triangle of regular officials, consultants (often long-term and retired public servants) and lobbyists.”

The report simply proposed, as the blueprint should have done, “Discourage the use of consultants in line positions in favour of building up the capacity of the regular public service.”