Strategic policy development and APS values

Steve Sedgwick
Public Service Commissioner

Keynote address to Leaders in the Public Sector 2010 Conference

Introduction

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land, the Eora people, and paying my respects to elders both past and present.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today, particularly after last night’s Federal Budget. 

As close readers of the Budget documents may have noticed, the APSC has received significant additional funding to implement a number of the recommendations of the recently released Blueprint for the reform of Australian Government Administration.

The Blueprint was the work of an advisory group chaired by the Secretary of PM&C, Terry Moran.  The group brought together a number of senior public servants (including me) and external experts from academia and business.

The Advisory Group concluded that the Australian Public Service is not broken. 

But like any organisation that aspires to be a high performing one, it needs to continually reinvent itself to remain relevant to contemporary needs and take advantage of emerging enabling technologies and other opportunities to do things better.

It made 28 recommendations grouped around 4 themes.  All 28 recommendations have been accepted by the government.

The Blueprint is directed at the work of the APS.  I appreciate that most present today are not commonwealth public servants.  However I know from discussions with my state counterparts that the issues it raises are common across many jurisdictions – and the Blueprint certainly has implications for how the APS will address its strategic policy development.

The Advisory Group’s 4 themes capture the key things that a high performing public service just has to get right. 

We are looking for a public service that:

• Meets the needs of citizens;
• Provides strong leadership and strategic direction;
• Contains a highly capable workforce; and
• Operates efficiently and at a consistently high standard.

It is not the purpose of this presentation to give you a detailed account of the 28 recommendations. 

Taken together they amount to a challenge to the Public service to ensure that it remains outward looking and forward thinking, with a clear focus on delivering the services, regulatory frameworks and supports necessary to meet the needs of citizens today and into the future.

Strategic Policy Development

The particular focus of today’s presentation is Strategic Policy Development and the Australian Public Service Values. 

Both of these concepts figure prominently in the Blueprint’s recommendations.

Indeed in many ways they lay at the very heart of enabling a public service to achieve its mission. 

Good policy development, merit‑based appointments and the importance of enduring values are a common thread which link how we respond to the seemingly ever more complex, ever-changing environment that we find ourselves in from time to time, right back to the establishment of a permanent, unified and politically neutral civil service via the recommendations of the Northcote –Trevelyan report in 1854. 

And, of course, policy development has its natural twin in any high performing public service – namely effective and timely implementation.

The Blueprint seeks to encourage better and more consistent performance across the APS in both domains.

It reasserts, for example, that the Secretary is the Minister’s principal policy adviser. 

Of course that principle does not imply that all departmental advice has to be provided to the Minister personally.

Rather, an effective Secretary will arrange the advising function within the Department to ensure that this work is properly discharged.

And, he or she will lead by example and ensure that advice provided is well based and underpinned by behaviours and attitudes that are consistent with the APS values.

I’ll say more about those values shortly.

For the moment, however, lets mark this space with the common observation that the personal commitment of both parties to the giving and receiving of honest advice and the quality of the relationship between Minister and Secretary will greatly affect the views that others working in the portfolio have about the nature of the advising function.

Their behaviour will more powerfully signal the importance they attach to open, frank and evidence based advice than any words either may utter.

Secretaries and senior public servants have particular responsibilities to model such values and set the culture within their organisation.

It is a no brainer to accept that good advice will be timely, clear, persuasive, evidence based (within the limits of the evidence available), balanced, creative, focused on the issues that matter and, hopefully, be capable of cost effective implementation.

It is also a truism that the contestability of policy advice has grown over the years:  Ministers have a range of sources of advice from which to draw ranging from advocacy groups to academics and personal advisers.

And at the same time the pressure for forward looking and timely advice has intensified.

What will compel the attention of ministers to public service advisers is not an assertion on our part that they should listen to us but the demonstration by us that we provide consistently high quality advice that is informed by a wide range of perspectives and has a professional appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of alternative views.

The Blueprint encourages public servants to embrace diversity: not only in employment (which is an enduring challenge, and one that we need to do better at meeting) but also in our outreach to understand the views and seek the wisdom of a broad range of people.

Many of the problems we face are becoming more complex, and often cross academic disciplines or departmental responsibilities or even jurisdictions.

The likelihood that full wisdom will reside within the bosom of the one portfolio in such cases is not high.

Collaboration and openness to good ideas wherever they are found are key.

The Blueprint contains a number of recommendations to strengthen the relationships between public service advisers and academics (including those in think tanks).

The Blueprint encourages public servants to exploit web 2.0 technology in ways that are consistent with the APS values and the Code of Conduct to garner ideas from citizens and from the world’s wide web of specialised expertise through participation in professional dialogues amongst communities of policy interest.

It supports freer availability of information, having regard to privacy concerns etc, to underpin better quality analysis by academics and others with a professional interest in public policy issues and options. 

The Blueprint places particular responsibilities on Secretaries to facilitate cross portfolio collaborations and to engage, when developing policy options, with those whose expertise is service delivery. 

It specifically requires a systematic re-examination of the way that programs are delivered to identify more “joined up” ways of working to better meet citizens needs, including over time to examine options to better “join up” delivery with other levels of government.

And the Blueprint challenges us to think more, and to do more, about the strategic element of the phrase “strategic policy development”.   

I understand that Ben Rimmer, our next speaker, intends to develop further the question of what makes policy “strategic” so I won’t steal his thunder except to make two points.

The first is that increased emphasis on the importance of thinking more deeply about how we fashion strategic policy advice is a recognition that some problems are inherently complex, even seemingly intractable or “wicked”, and require a determination to work across disciplines and organisational boundaries to address them adequately.

The second is that strategic issues are inherently longer term, most likely played out well beyond an electoral cycle, and in some cases are even intergenerational. 

Think, for example, of climate change or the consequences of our ageing population. 

However these are simply the more obvious examples of issues that require innovative forward thinking to craft new solutions to emerging issues -  and which require more systematic approaches within the public service to build both internal capability and a network of professional relationships with other subject matter experts to address them.

The Blueprint has a lot to say about the importance of planning the public service workforce better; and to identify and build such capability ahead of need.

I will come back to this before we conclude this morning.

The important point for the moment, however, is that this imperative to better plan our workforce links to two of the roles of a Secretary that are less well understood today than they should be, though they have long been important to the vibrancy and relevance of the public service.

These relate to the responsibility of Secretaries (and, in a state context, I would imagine Directors General) to recognise that they are the stewards of two enduring organisations.  

These organisations are their department and the public service at large.

In the latter case this responsibility is one shared with the collegiate group of Secretaries and the APS Commissioner.

As the senior leaders of these enduring organisations we (and here I mean Secretaries, Directors General and their senior leadership team) need to ensure that these organisations do the research and build the capability necessary to respond to emerging issues that may not become relevant until during the tenure of the next Minister or Government.

This responsibility sits alongside that of assisting today’s Minister to discharge the agenda of the government of the day.

It requires us to scan the horizon in an attempt to identify issues that may emerge and build capability in advance; even more importantly it requires us to build resilient organisations that are agile and adaptable and well placed to cope professionally with the unexpected.

Part of this capability will need to be internal to the organisation.

Better capacity to undertake strategic policy development will exist when public service workforces incorporate:

• deep technical skills appropriate to their responsibilities;
• possibly higher degrees of scientific literacy and technological awareness so that it is easier to integrate different perspectives and thinking styles;
• a range of modelling techniques (eg econometric modelling), statistical data analysis and the like;
• stakeholder engagement skills; and
• a penchant for thinking creatively and for looking at problems with fresh eyes or, at least, 
• for seeking out and valuing the contributions of those who have such skills. 

An important element of an effective organisation’s strategic response, however, is likely also to rest in the quality of the relationships built over time with external actors:  academics and other thinkers; clients (who increasingly know their own mind and want to be engaged); and advocacy groups. 

Importantly, effective strategic policy development requires attitudes, resources (especially time) and ways of working that allow disparate skills to be applied to difficult problems to fashion joined up and collaborative solutions. 

Making sure that policy development teams include those with hands on experience will also be vital.

Of course there is much strategic policy activity already within the APS.

The APS has a good record of policy development work, as the Blueprint acknowledges, including to bring teams together to deal with emergencies, new priorities etc.

Recent examples here include the recent work to establish the government’s response to the GFC, the work of the Henry tax review and the development of the health reforms.

However an important insight of the Blueprint is that all agencies should re-examine their own capability to ensure that these skills are more consistently distributed across the APS than currently – and, moreover, that the nature of the problems we now face gives new urgency to our doing so.

Growth of these capabilities needs to be managed not just left to evolve by happenstance.

It is an important part of the stewardship role of leaders.

Earlier in these remarks I noted that one of the fundamental underpinnings of public service for 150 years has been adherence to a strong set of values.

So lets now consider how good policy work supports and is supported by a strong framework of values.  

Importance of APS Values

Broadly speaking, values are things that we believe have worth and should guide our actions in practice. 

They can be intrinsic, worthy of themselves, or they can be instrumental, as a means to an end. 

They can, but do not necessarily need to have, an obvious ethical basis such as fairness, accountability or honesty.

Values can also provide us with bedrock statements of ‘who we are’, and are as applicable to organisations as they are to individuals. 

In an organisation as disparate and diverse as the Public Service, they can provide a set of unifying themes that recognise that no matter how different individual agencies are, and no matter how different the kinds of work in which we are engaged, there are fundamental commonalities that bind us in the way we approach our duties.

Under the APS’s current framework there are fifteen (15) legislated Values, complemented by the Code of Conduct. 

They can be conveniently grouped in terms of the relationships and behaviours they affect, namely:

• the relationships between the APS and the government and Parliament;
• the relationship between the APS and the public;
• relationships in the workplace; and
• personal behaviours

The Code of Conduct for the APS sets out the standard of behaviour expected under the Values by all APS employees and Agency Heads. 

Indeed, the values are an explicit and enforceable part of the Code of Conduct, with one element providing that APS employees must “at all times behave in a way that upholds the APS Values and the integrity and good reputation of the APS”.

Particularly relevant to this discussion is the value that “the APS is responsive to the government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice…”

I am happy to observe that according to the most recent State of the Service Report, 92% of APS employees are familiar with the Values. 

This is not to say, however, that there is not scope to better articulate the values that define us.

Reform of APS Values as underpinning Strategic Policy Development

Indeed the Blueprint challenges us to do so, with a recommendation that they be revised and better embedded across the Service. 

The Blueprint recommended a new articulation of APS Values to a smaller core set that are meaningful, memorable and effective in driving change. 

There is no intention to move away from the foundation provided by traditional Westminster concepts.  We do not intend to undermine what we have already built.

However, as the Blueprint puts it, there is a case to look again to see whether we can distil those core values in more meaningful ways so as to:

• Promote APS collegiality and unity;
• encourage excellence in public service;
• clarify expectations of public service behaviour to foster public trust; and
• affirm the importance of including consideration of human rights issues in policy making.

To this end, the Commission has been tasked to conduct a series of consultations in coming months.

The consultations are to involve employees and stakeholders from the government, community, private sector and relevant unions.

The consultations will take as their starting point the five qualities that the Blueprint has proposed:

• accountable;
• frank, impartial and non-partisan;
• results-oriented;
• ethical; and
• merit-based employment.

Lets take those five and tease them out a little.

Accountability

The Blueprint supports the traditional view of the relationship between the Australian Public Service, the Government and parliamentarians who operate under the law within a democratic political system. 

This relationship is expressed in the current APS Values as follows:

The APS is openly accountable for its actions, within the framework of Ministerial responsibility to the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public[1} .

But the Blueprint also talks about accountability within a broader meaning arguing that the roles and expectations of leaders – for example in embedding the reforms within their organisations – must be clear and individuals accountable for their performance.

Do we need to broaden the current conception of accountability?

Frank, impartial and non-partisan

Effective public servants conduct themselves in such a way as to deserve and retain the confidence of Ministers. 

The art is to ensure that their behaviour will also enable them to establish the same relationship with subsequent Ministers or Administrations.

Together with accountability, the principles of frankness, impartiality and non-partisanship are at the heart of a strong, productive relationship between public servants and the elected Government.

As the Prime Minister has said:

We cannot afford a public service culture where all you do is tell the Government what you think the Government wants to hear…  The Government must receive the best advice, based on the best available information and evidence. {2}

But should a value of this kind be limited to relations between the APS and the Government? 

In an environment where the APS delivers services to the community, makes decisions about entitlements, and is being encouraged to engage more fully with citizens as we move increasingly to citizen‑centric models, shouldn’t a value of this kind have a broader application?

Results-oriented

The current APS Values emphasise the need for APS employees to achieve results. 

A key question for the consultation that the Commission is about to embark on is ‘What does being ‘results-oriented’ look like in an APS that must move swiftly to implement the Government’s current priorities but must also be future focused in its policy advice and management practices.

More generally we might ask, how do we embed good risk management practices (rather than risk aversion or ignorance of risk) and still ensure timely delivery of major new activities?

Ethical

The fourth quality proposed in the Blueprint is “ethical”. 

While ethical conduct should be important to any high performing organisation it is especially important to the performance of the Australian Public Service, given that we and the programs we administer are funded by the public purse and our legitimacy depends on continued public trust. 

The Australian community has a perfectly proper expectation that APS officers act ethically.

Merit-based employment

Finally, merit-based employment is a core APS value, protecting the service from patronage and favouritism while helping us to recruit the best people into our ranks. 

It is also a value that encourages and enables the Australian Public Service to have a diverse workforce that reflects the diversity of the community that it serves.

Success on these fronts will help us to develop the capabilities needed to understand the issues facing our community and craft and deliver well targeted strategic policy options that meet its needs.

No doubt many more issues will emerge as the consultations proceed.  History shows that the relatively easy bit in reviewing the values will be to consult widely and draft new words.  The harder bit by far is to gain their acceptance and embed them deeply in personal behaviour.

The latter will take aligned, strong and effective leadership across an APS that believes that there is added strength in greater unity.

Importance of Leadership in developing strategic policy  

Leadership, strategic leadership, is absolutely critical to developing the frameworks that will embed the Values and improve the strategic policy capacity of the Australian Public Service.

This was reflected in the Blueprint, with a reinvigoration of strategic leadership across the Australian Public Service, being described as one of the key priorities for reform. 

Leadership will be critical to establishing and supporting strategic thinking across the Australian Public Service, to ensuring that we take a longer-term focus while not neglecting the immediate and everyday work.

On this subject, the blueprint is clear. 

The APS needs to take a different approach to planning one of its most important resources – its workforce – which will require much more consistency and coherency across agencies in the areas of workforce planning and capability development. 

This will require a holistic approach to move beyond just “people management” to “human capital development”.

This is an approach that accepts that our people are our greatest strategic asset. And that the capability of our organisations needs to be planned for and systematically developed. 

A key part of this is to identify, develop and nurture future leaders, not only of each individual organisation within the APS but recognising the importance of leadership that promotes the unity and cohesiveness of the APS as a whole.

Prime ingredients for our leaders to have are drive and vision – the capacity to look forward and outward to focus clearly on the needs of our community and the issues that it faces; to generate ideas; to clear or minimise the obstructions to their execution; to create a culture in which ideas flow freely and innovation is rewarded; to create opportunities to sensibly take risks; and to empower staff to perform within a clear accountability framework. 

The ability to cut through and say “that’s where we’re going” and then to explain why and how, with regard to the longer-term strategic priorities, is fundamental to modern public sector leadership. 

APSC’s role in support Leadership Development and Human Capital Development

There are a number of proposals arising from the Blueprint for Reform that will support the development of the next generation of APS leaders who have these qualities. 

I’m sure that Ben will want to address a couple that relate to the policy responsibilities of PMC.  So let me deal with those that fall to the APSC to progress.

We have been asked, to quote the Blueprint,  to establish an APS-wide Human Capital Framework that draws on labour market analysis to outline standards, strategies, systems and data management requirements across:

• Workforce planning;
• Leadership;
• Talent, succession and performance management; and
•  learning and development.

The Framework would be used by agencies to develop fit‑for‑purpose workforce plans. 

Agency performance will be benchmarked as part of broader APS human capital benchmarking conducted by the Commission and reported in the State of the Service Report.

The Commission will develop a Human Capital Priority Plan that identifies systemic workforce issues (for example, skill and capability gaps, diversity and workforce ageing). 

The plan would draw upon:

• The workforce plans developed by agencies;
• The results of APS human capital benchmarking;
• Agency capability reviews (of which more later);
• The citizen survey (ditto) and the surveys we now conduct to inform the annual State of the Service Report; and
• Analysis of internal and external labour market information.

The citizens’ survey is to establish their satisfaction with government programs, services and regulations.

In time, these surveys could be extended to include all levels of government, if there is agreement to do so.

At this stage, however, the APSC is funded to examine the possibility of introducing such a survey for Commonwealth agencies, drawing as appropriate on instruments developed overseas, especially in Canada.

Our first step will be to analyse existing agency surveys.

The Human Capital Priority Plan will initially be based on the recommendations set out in the Blueprint. 

Over time it will comprise APS‑wide and agency specific strategies that proactively respond to identified workforce needs and systemic challenges in a cooperative and cohesive way (for example, the development of targeted recruitment and retention programs).

The proposal to introduce capability reviews draws on the experience of other jurisdictions, especially the United Kingdom. 

The reviews will not only cover key aspects of agency capability in the area of strategic policy, but also include its leadership, workforce capabilities, service delivery, and broader organisational effectiveness.

The outcomes of the reviews are expected to lead to agreement between the agency head and the Australian Public Service Commissioner about the actions the agency will take to  improve its capability, progress against which will figure in the assessment of the performance of the agency head.

The Blueprint also calls for the introduction of new learning and training arrangements to strengthen the leadership of the APS.

We will establish a new Strategic Centre for APS Learning and Development within the APSC. 

The Centre will centrally procure programs that relate to core activities that shape the APS. 

These core programs will include the areas of strategic policy, implementation and regulation.

The Centre will also conduct quality assessments of the available professional development programs and courses (in particular leadership / management programs), centrally negotiate prices with providers and disseminate information to agencies.

The activities of the Centre are to align with an annual learning and development strategy to be developed by APSC based on the Human Capital priority Plan.

The new Strategic Centre will also be responsible for talent management at the whole of APS level.

This program will help to ensure that the Australian Public Service has the highest quality people to navigate agencies through future challenges.

The operations of the Strategic Centre will be overseen by an Advisory Board, comprising agency heads and a number external people who will be drawn from the academic, private or not for profit (third) sectors.  This will ensure we remain focused on achieving our goals.

I believe that this Centre will be a major strategic advance for the Australian Public Service, improving the relevance, immediacy and quality of learning and development across all agencies. 

Leadership and Stewardship

It is no accident that the Blueprint establishes new governance arrangement for the APS – ones which recognise that all Secretaries and the APS Commissioner have collective responsibility to hand on to their successors an APS that is stronger than the one that they inherited.

We have earlier referred to this as the responsibility to be a good steward of the APS. 

This includes the responsibility to develop and manage the human capital of the Australian Public Service, to ensure that the men and women who make up the Service have the necessary capabilities, capacities and strategic skills and embody the ethical standards, values and client focus required to serve successive governments and deserve the trust of the Australian community. 

This too, is entirely consistent with one of the key animating ideas of the Blueprint Reform that people are at the heart of reform, that it will be our people who seek excellence and who drive change. 

It is our people that will continue to deliver for the Australian community in the years ahead. 

Thank you very much for your time today.