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Perceptions and performance - The Australian Public Service experience
Helen Williams AO
Public Service Commissioner
(Part of an IIAS Symposium on Pride and Performance, Bologna, June 2000)
The year 2001 brings the centenary of Federation in Australia and also heralds the centenary of the creation of the Australian Public Service (APS), distinct from the bureaucracies of the individual Australian States. Looking back over those hundred years, the APS would find little comfort overall in judging itself against public and media perceptions. The generally good humoured irreverence of the Australian people, combined with a healthy respect for their taxes at work, have come together to make public service criticism something of a popular sport. Cases of tardiness, error or an increase in pay or conditions are widely publicised. Improved service delivery or efficiency gains are considered less newsworthy.
Such attitudes can be demoralising to the Service, particularly in periods of work pressure or of uncertainty due to rapid change or downsizing. Apart from the general public, however, the Service has other, more direct, sources of feedback, including Ministers and Parliament, the leaders of the Service, representatives of industry and individual clients. Positive feedback from these groups can do much to counter the prevailing public cynicism.
Fortunately, the intrinsic attraction for new graduates of working with national government and the ideals of public service do not seem subject to these adverse public perceptions, and the quality of recruits to the APS is very high. The challenge for the Service is to provide the level of work interest and the environment that will compensate for the higher salaries available to those at the more senior levels in the private sector. General morale can be an important factor in the competitive pressures at these levels.
Defining the Problem - A Decade of Review
In the years following Federation in 1901, the size, functions and expectations of government in Australia grew substantially. By the 1970s, there was a growing conviction on both sides of politics that the structure and management of the public sector was no longer appropriate for the demands placed upon it, and needed fundamental revision. The search for a practical response led to a decade of reviews, two of which warrant particular mention: the wide-ranging Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (RCAGA) set up by the Labor Government in 1974, and the 1983 Review of Commonwealth Administration (RCA) set up by the following Coalition Government as a result of more specific administrative failures. Both reports focused on systemic issues and on the structure of the administrative process, avoiding criticism of the Service itself. The RCA Report was particularly sensitive on this point:
We are deeply concerned by a tendency to regard abuse of public servants as a latter-day blood sport1.
The background to the growing perception of systemic failure of government administration can be found in the submissions to RCAGA. In considering these criticisms of the Public Service at the federal level, however, it is interesting that its actual ethics have not been targeted. Responsiveness, service standards and economy have been under question, but the ethics of the APS have generally been both recognised and respected. This has been drawn out by the present Prime Minister who has noted that the APS has shown:
.... an extremely high degree of integrity and honesty. One of the really remarkable things about public life in Australia has been the very low incidence of any sustainable allegations of corruption or impropriety on behalf of the federal bureaucracy.2
The most frequent criticism submitted to the RCAGA was not, in fact, directly related to performance, but was:
.... based on outright hostility to the size and cost of the public bureaucracy. We do not see this criticism as being properly directed at the officials of the Public Service. It is essentially a protest against the activities of government itself.
The more specific criticisms, including criticisms from within the Public Service itself, fall into four groups. First, the Service as a whole was seen as wasteful in its use of manpower and resources, with organisational structures that were over-centralised, hierarchical and inflexible. Secondly, it was argued that the bureaucracy, especially in its upper echelons, had "an exaggerated conception of its proper role in the process of government."4 It tended to be insensitive to, and negative about, the objectives of elected government when these conflicted with the individual's own assessment of the public interest. Submissions called for a deeper understanding of the accountability framework and a better partnership between government and senior officials.3
Thirdly, submissions focused on the relationship between the Service and the community. The most common criticism was that many officials working face-to-face with members of the community were unsympathetic to the needs, wishes and sensibilities of clients, and that they were indifferent to complaints concerning both the need for information and procedures for client involvement. Officials felt unsure about their role in the interchange between the public and government, and tended to stand aloof from the feedback loop.
Finally, criticisms canvassed a variety of issues about the administration as an employer. They noted the need for less cumbersome procedures and for less rigid organisational structures that stifled the initiative of staff and managers. But they also noted allegations of bias in recruitment and promotion procedures, favouring certain social or educational groups. There was a need to balance efficiency and equity:
Greater recognition and reward of skill must be balanced by action to penalise failure....Accountability is the price that must be paid for more equitable, more demanding and more rewarding staffing practices.5
Upgrading Performance - Two Decades of Reform
Such criticisms, together with the recommendations of the reviews, formed the basis for a period of ongoing reform which has touched virtually every aspect of Commonwealth administration. For almost twenty years, reforming the Public Service has been high on the agenda of both the main political parties. The Labor Government's 1984 amendment of the Public Service Act tentatively began the process of devolving employer powers to Agency Heads and increasing the scrutiny of performance at the senior levels of the APS. Moves followed to improve financial management and reporting, with the emphasis shifting from inputs to outcomes and results, and there was a growing focus on the structure of service delivery, the quality of services and the speed of decision making.
In parallel with government action, the leaders of the Service, in particular heads of central agencies, were also working on options for administrative reform. Reforms in the area of resource management, for example, were introduced only after a further systematic study of financial management problems by the then Department of Finance and the Public Service Board.6 From 1987 onwards, such work continued under the more formal guidance of a Management Advisory Board (MAB) set up to advise the Government on the management of the APS. MAB produced a series of 24 discussion papers canvassing proposals for more effective management in a range of areas including budget flexibility, devolution, contracting for the provision of services, asset management, performance information and the use of recognition and reward in performance management. It provided important impetus and direction to the ongoing management reforms that were put in place in the decade following its creation.
Parallel Reductions in APS Employment
The impact of the reform agenda on the APS must be seen in the context of parallel and interrelated changes in the size and coverage of the Service. From a high point of 177,742 in 1987, there has been a decline in the absolute numbers of APS staff (that is, staff employed under the Public Service Act) to 113,268 at June 1999, a drop of 36%. Even after adjusting for coverage changes caused by privatising and outsourcing of former APS functions or transferring functions to agencies not covered by the Public Service Act, the size of the APS dropped by 27%7, reflecting the net reduction in staff providing the remaining range of services.
Despite a general acceptance in retrospect that the Service at its peak had become overmanned, the reductions have had an understandable effect on staff security and morale. Beginning as part of the search for greater efficiency and economy, and noting a major drop in numbers in 1975-76 with the move of the former Department of Posts and Telecommunications out of the APS, by 1987 the staff reductions were also reflecting revised government thinking on the overall role of the Service, perhaps showing the impact of the kind of public dissatisfaction with the size and scope of government that was demonstrated in submissions to RCAGA8. Since that time, and under governments of both political persuasions, the Federal Government's role has become more strategic and, correspondingly, core APS functions have narrowed considerably.
Redefinition of the role of the APS inevitably raises the long-running tension between private and public sector provision of government services. The RCAGA's 1976 report brushed the issue aside (although, perhaps reflecting the period in which it was written, the Commission's comparison is expressed in terms of the level of work input rather than the quality of outcome achieved):
The charge that the general level of effort and dedication shown by members of the bureaucracy compares unfavourably with that in the private sector has not, in the Commission's view, been substantiated.9
Since that time, however, Australian governments have moved increasingly to use the private sector as a benchmark for judging both the performance and cost of public sector provision. The current Government's interrelated policies of contestability, concentration on core government activity and maximum choice for citizens have combined to increase consideration of the best and most appropriate provider of services in their broadest sense.
Prompted by a 1996 Industry Commission report on Competitive Tendering and Contracting by Public Sector Agencies, the Government asked all agencies to review their activities to decide whether the activities are the primary responsibility of the Federal Government, should be devolved to a more appropriate level of government, should be privatised or should be discontinued. Where it was considered that a function should remain the responsibility of the Federal Government, agencies were asked to consider whether competitive tendering and contracting could be used to improve efficiency and effectiveness. This has resulted in the movement of additional functions outside the APS. For example, a range of information technology infrastructure services has been outsourced, and the former government employment service has been superseded by a job network of private and voluntary sector providers. The rethinking of the role of the Federal Government is, at the same time, challenging the Service to lift its performance.
Meeting the Challenge - the Reform Settings
The framework of reform that has been introduced by the current Government since coming to power in 1996 has built on the base of the "management for results"10 work done by previous governments, supported by the bureaucracy under the auspices of MAB.
A highly performing public sector was a central plank of the new Government's micro-economic reform agenda in its search for increased national competitiveness:
Our vision for the future of Australia clearly recognised that the public sector was as important as the private sector to Australia's international success.11
The Government and the bureaucracy each had a role in achieving the necessary change. The Government would put in place the policy and structural settings, removing the central prescription and regulation that were standing in the way of flexibility and responsiveness and setting up stronger evaluation and accountability mechanisms. The onus then moved to Agency Heads to use the new flexibilities to increase the performance of their agencies while being accountable to government and the Parliament for the use of public funds.
The Government's reforms, which have been pursued across the spectrum of public sector management including the areas of human resources, workplace relations, financial control and service delivery, can be seen as based on three interrelated principles:
- the Public Service should be run along the same lines as the rest of the workforce except where there are public policy reasons not to do so;
- in order to provide the flexibility for agencies to meet the demands of individual workplaces, there should be a general movement away from prescription and regulation to an APS that is driven by its values; and
- there should be considerable further devolution of employer powers to Agency Heads who would be held accountable more directly for the use of those powers.
Early moves towards implementing the new framework were achieved with the passage of the Workplace Relations Act 1996, where the aim of increased labour market flexibility for the workforce as a whole has been met through comprehensive agreements between individual employers and their employees. On similar lines, Agency Heads have been given the authority to make agreements directly with employees within a framework of broad policy parameters to protect the Government's interest as overall employer. The parameters allow considerable scope to tailor pay and conditions to the particular requirements of agency business plans, on the basis that improvements in pay and conditions must be linked to, and funded from, productivity gains.
Virtually all APS staff are covered by either collective or individual agreements and many Agencies now have second round agreements in place. Performance management systems, including performance assessment and flexible hours of work to meet the needs of customers and employees, were the most common features of the first round of agreements. Productivity improvements that were negotiated to provide scope for enhanced pay and conditions included simplification and clarification of the formerly complex leave arrangements and entitlements, curtailment or cashing-out of allowances, and revision and simplification of work classification structures. 12
Agreement-making has served to focus the attention of staff throughout the APS on the importance of identifying efficiencies and of negotiating provisions to assist agencies to achieve productivity gains. It also provides a clear example to industry of the public sector succeeding under the same framework as the general workforce. Similarly, a range of performance-linked rewards, introduced to provide incentives for achievement, have focused attention more clearly on the results to be achieved. Performance agreements between staff and supervisors are now the norm and are generally tied to the advancement of employees through pay points, either within classifications or within broad bands of classifications.
But the slowly growing disparity of pay and conditions, whether it results from differential bargaining between agencies or from performance-linked pay schemes, can be a source of tension among APS staff. Feedback suggests that some of this tension results from a sense that there is less than a level playing field between agencies in their ability to provide for pay enhancement and, in relation to performance pay, from some lack of confidence in the objectivity of the process. It is an area that is currently under considerable scrutiny. The Auditor-General is due to report on Certified Agreements in the APS, and a Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee Inquiry into Public Service Employment Matters is currently looking at "the disparity between agency agreements in performance pay and the impact of such agreements on agency performance, accountability and transparency."13 In the new devolved environment, the issue is also an important one for Agency Heads. Pay disparity without a clear supporting system and rationale can undermine the very increase in performance that such rewards were introduced to achieve.
The new framework has also governed reforms in the area of financial management. Legislation has been sharpened to improve clarity and understanding, to give Agency Heads greater flexibility and autonomy, to tighten accountability, and to emphasise performance and propriety. The 1999-00 Commonwealth Budget moved to a fully accrual-based outcomes and outputs format, highlighting performance-focused measurement and accountability. Despite significant transitional problems, an independent review of the process concluded that, once it had been fully implemented:
.... the accrual-based, outcomes and outputs framework constitutes international best practice [that] will position Australia at the forefront of public sector budget and financial management.14
The need for a stronger client focus was an underlying theme for much of the reform period and can be seen as one of the triggers for both the growth of administrative review in the 1970s and the increased devolution of decision-making within agencies in the 1980s. While the situation had improved by 1992, feedback still showed that:
People have low prior expectations of the quality of service they would receive from government and it appeared that these low expectations affected their assessment of their actual experiences with the APS. 15
Ongoing government concerns in this area prompted the announcement in 1997 that agencies dealing directly with the public would develop a Customer Service Charter in consultation with clients and staff. The Charters set out the key standards of service that customers can expect, their rights and responsibilities, and mechanisms for complaint. Agencies are required to report annually to government on their performance against Charter service standards.
These concerns also prompted a move to the provision of coordinated services wherever feasible. In particular, Centrelink was established in 1997 as a one-stop shop for the delivery of a range of Commonwealth allowance and benefit payments and services to customers. A similar one-stop shop approach has been developed to assist the business community. The business entry point, consisting of a business licence information service accessed through State-based one-stop shops, a hotline, and a directory of business assistance programs (Bizlink), facilitates industry access to government agencies regardless of where businesses are located or which government agency they need to contact.
Finally, the desire for a stronger client focus is behind the ongoing search for more innovative service delivery. As one example, the Government has committed itself to having all appropriate services delivered online by 2001.
Meeting the Challenge - A new Public Service Act
Despite these changes to public sector management, however, the bureaucracy was still governed by the Public Service Act 1922 which remained highly regulatory and process driven. It governed a regime that included 35 types of leave and 29 required steps when processing leave and entitlement applications, where selection processes cost three times as much as best practice in the private sector and where enormous time was spent in maintaining standard terms and conditions across the Service. It was a regime that over the years had led a number of non-core government agencies to seek exemption from the inflexibility of its provisions and so move outside of the core public service.
Moves for a fundamental revision of the Act had begun as early as 1984 and there was recognition on both sides of politics that new legislation was required. Differing views on the degree of change that was appropriate, however, constantly delayed the process and the new Act did not finally come into legislative effect until late last year after detailed negotiation of its provisions by the current Government with the Opposition had achieved bipartisan support.
Less than a quarter the size of the old Act, the Public Service Act 1999 gives clear expression to the three main principles governing the Government's public sector management reforms. Its provisions are in line with those of the general workforce except where there are public interest aspects, such as the articulation of the APS Values, the Code of Conduct and the definition of merit, specific to the Service. It has generally replaced the detailed prescription of the old Act with principles and broad heads of power, giving far greater flexibility to tailor provisions to individual agency circumstances. And it devolves significant employer powers to Agency Heads, balanced by stronger accountability for the use of those powers.
Most importantly, it articulates APS Values, giving them firm legislative effect, and requiring Agency Heads to uphold them and promote them in their agencies. The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Dr David Kemp, has been prominent in stressing the crucial place of the Values in the new public management framework:
[The Values] are an essential underpinning to high performance in organisations and are central to the public interest aspect of public sector employment. They are a manifestation of the democratic society that we serve and they reflect the expectations of society.16
The Values are fundamental both to the way the Service approaches its work and to its pride in its role as a core part of government. The Values can also be seen as endorsing the Westminster-type framework of a merit-based, apolitical and professional Public Service impartially serving the government of the day that has traditionally been central to the identity of the APS. That framework must be responsive and oriented to results. But the underpinning statement of an apolitical Public Service is more clearly stated than at any time in the past.
No less importantly, the new Act sets out clear accountability provisions. It includes a requirement for the Public Service Commissioner to make an annual report to Parliament on the State of the Service, gives the Commissioner significant new inquiry and reporting powers, sets out review provisions and reporting powers for the Merit Protection Commissioner and, for the first time, provides protection for whistleblowers.
Looking back on these two decades of reform, one of the things that stands out is that, despite disagreements over the degree of devolution, the extent of public interest regulation or the speed of change required, there has been a considerable degree of common ground across the political spectrum and the leadership of the Service on the general direction of the reforms. A second is that the process of reform has been lengthy and iterative but, on balance, advantageously so. While the periods of insecurity and low morale engendered by ongoing change and reform fatigue could be used to argue for a much speedier process, the significant changes have been able to be accompanied by a fair degree of cultural change and evolution of thinking, without which they could have been considerably more disruptive and had a lower chance of long term success.
Meeting the Challenge - the Political Interface
The relationship between Ministers and their Departments is central to the effective operation of Government and thus plays a crucial role in a Department's assessment of its performance and its enthusiasm for its work. The tendency of newly elected Governments or newly appointed Ministers to be suspicious of the aims of the bureaucracy is well known. RCAGA felt it necessary to comment that politicians "have seemed seriously to exaggerate the problems they are likely to encounter"17 and Prime Ministers have sometimes counselled their Ministers to foster their relationship with the Service in the interests of good government. To some extent, this is an unavoidable tension that must be managed by both the political and the bureaucratic players. But the interface has a greater potential impact on public service morale, particularly at the senior levels, than almost any other relationship.
The nature of that relationship has changed over the last 25 years. First, the public perceptions have changed; those reported to RCAGA of the senior bureaucrat standing aloof from the Minister's agenda have gradually altered, partly because of the far greater turnover of Agency Heads complemented by some high profile sackings. Secondly, the increasing complexity of public management has meant that the clear accountabilities of the Westminster model have become muddied. It is no longer practical for even the most experienced Ministers to be across the full detail of portfolio decision-making and to be fully accountable for it. It is correspondingly more necessary for departmental officials to play a greater part in accounting to Parliament outside the area of decisions on policy.
Early moves to define the relationship between Ministers and their Departments focused on emphasising the primacy of Ministers. The 1984 amendments to the Public Service legislation clarified "that a Secretary's responsibilities for the general working of a department is subject to a Minister's powers under the Constitution,"18 a provision that was carried over into the new Act with the added clarification, reflecting the more complex accountabilities, that a Secretary must assist with the Minister's accountability obligations to Parliament (Section 57). Understanding and observance of the guidelines on this relationship, by both politicians and bureaucrats, have become progressively more important with the growing focus on accountability in modern public sector management. If the expectations are not compatible, the relationship breaks down and performance suffers.
A clear and common understanding of the public interest provisions is particularly important. The merit basis of an apolitical service, which has been supported in principle by both sides of politics, was articulated in Labor's 1984 reforms:
The Government has been very much concerned to build upon and strengthen the impartial Public Service with appointment and promotion and other career decisions based on merit. For the first time at the federal level, the merit principle has specifically been embodied in legislation.19
And the present Government's Public Service Act 1999 has taken this further, defining merit (Section 10(2)), adding a specific prohibition on patronage and favouritism (Section 17), and ruling out directions by Ministers on the employment of particular individuals (Section 19).
Definition of the Values of an apolitical Public Service was more elusive, but was the subject of increasing discussion over the reform period as the traditional values of integrity, professionalism and frank and fearless advice were complemented by a greater emphasis on responsiveness and managing for results. The Management Advisory Board developed a set of key values in 199320, further refining them in 199621, in an attempt to clarify the special features of work and employment in the APS. But the formal removal of centralised regulation and prescription, placing a greater reliance on Values as a basis for work and decision-making in the Service, focused political attention on the need for their articulation. The integration of the traditional and modern values in the Public Service Act 1999 provides an important benchmark for the APS in defining its working relationship with Ministers. Responsiveness has to be achieved without crossing the fine line to political pragmatism and the focus on results must be married with the need for professional performance.
One of the irritations increasingly expressed by governments is that bureaucrats show insufficient creativity and innovation. As the Dr Kemp has pointed out, however:
Creativity is not risk free. One of the very real challenges isÉa tension between creativity and accountability because creativity involves risk taking and, inescapably, mistakes and failures.22
The tendency of public servants to be risk adverse flows understandably from the multiple accountability mechanisms that they face and the tendency for the political environment to be unforgiving when things go wrong. The way forward for the Public Service is to inform and manage risk within the context of the APS Values. But that also requires Ministers, Governments and Parliaments to distinguish between properly managed risk and risky process, and to stand up in favour of the former.
Finally, the relationship between Ministers and the Service has been influenced by the growth in size and influence of Ministers' offices. This growth began to be felt during the Whitlam Labor Government which came to power in 1972:
He created his own private bureau, separate from the public service, to an extent never known before in Australian government. The existence of this private and personal bureau....tended to widen the gap between him and senior members of the public service."23
RCAGA warned of the danger posed by Ministerial staff seeking to interpose their personal influence between their Minister and other sources of advice24 and the potential problem loomed larger with the 1984 move to allow Ministers and Members of Parliament to employ their own staff directly. The move preserved the apolitical nature of the APS and the then Government argued that the provision would be managed to avoid the establishment of a duplicate, political bureaucracy that would interfere with effective relationships between Minister and department25. Others were less sanguine and warned of significant problems for the future. While, in retrospect, those warnings can be argued to have been overstated, Ministerial Offices figure prominently with lobby groups and public policy think tanks in the list of alternative sources of advice for Ministers in today's environment and form a potential source of tension that must be managed to avoid compromising the quality of the outcome.
Recognising that its core role of policy advice is increasingly contestable, Dr Kemp has stressed that the Public Service remains the Government's key advisory voice in the public interest. Good decisions are informed decisions and high quality public interest policy advice is a significant competitive advantage for governments. His challenge to the Service is to build on the intellectual capital gained through its experience of government and to be the policy adviser of choice, maintaining and developing public interest policy analysis skills that are exceptionally strong. 26
Performance Feedback
Over the twenty years of reform, the competitive pressures on governments have meant that priority has tended to be given to ongoing change rather than to measuring the success of that change. The increasing stress on accountability for outcomes, however, has led agencies progressively to be more conscious of the need for information to assess performance.
Evidence from both clients and industry shows that the changes that impact on them directly have been favourably received. The new client service agency, Centrelink, with a customer base making up a third of Australia's population, has given high priority to the assessment of its performance, conducting five customer and community satisfaction surveys every six months to measure progress against the standards set out in its Service Charter.
Centrelink has introduced more flexible business hours and a more personalised environment, abandoning the counters and barriers and substituting appointments for queuing. It has also instituted an ongoing review of forms and brochures to increase simplicity and effectiveness. Centrelink is already achieving growing recognition in the general community, with 41% saying that they know Centrelink well or very well compared to only 29% twelve months ago. It is also receiving positive feedback from its specific customer base. In November 1999, just over 80% of customers said that they saw Centrelink in a mainly or very favourable light, compared to less than 70% one year earlier, and 76% of customers believe Centrelink helps them find solutions for their problems. Almost all customers (97%) said that it was important to have a Centrelink office physically present in the local community, prompting Centrelink's expansion of its customer network, particularly in regional and remote Australia.
The Government's one-stop shop for industry can also claim a favourable response from its clients. The Business Entry Point, an Internet access directed to making it easier for business to reach relevant government services, is the second most popular government website in Australia and feedback from customer surveys is overwhelmingly supportive. The Business Hotline, a telephone hotline which complements it for businesses unable to access the Internet, takes around 40,000 calls annually and, on average, 95% of customers are satisfied that their needs have been met.
Feedback from Ministers is more elusive. A number of agencies are setting up procedures to encourage more systematic assessment of the quality, relevance and timeliness of their advice from Ministers' Offices, but results so far are patchy and there is no coordinated cross-Service information on performance. Some of the Ministers have paid tribute to the assistance of the APS in particular areas and Dr Kemp has highlighted on several occasions the positive response of the APS to the new reform framework, pointing, for example, to the "very real and significant achievement of the Australian Public Service in pursuing change and responding to the challenge offered by the new environment."27 The relationship with the Government and its Ministers is so central to the morale of the Service, however, that this area stands out as one meriting further attention.
Although there is little cross-agency material on how the APS itself assesses its work and environment, a sample group of APS agencies has participated, since 1993, in an annual public and private sector benchmarking project tracking trends in attitudes to work and the workplace.28
The findings show a steady increase in the positive attitude towards work within the APS, favourable assessments of job satisfaction rising from 61% in 1993 to 68% in 1999, and of the performance of the immediate manager rising from 61% to 70% over the same period. Importantly, the belief that their organisation was committed to achieving a quality product rose from 55% to 74% over these six years. The insecurities caused by change and downsizing, however, were also reflected in the figures. APS respondents' ratings of the security of their employment fell from 69% in 1993 to 49% in 1999, and satisfaction with the information received from management on the Agency's position fell from 44% to 42%. The fall from 51% to 39% in perceptions that the organisation is increasing its future competitiveness are also likely to have been influenced by feelings of insecurity in an increasingly contestable environment.
Changing Perceptions
There is no doubt that the degree of change over a long period has affected morale in the APS despite broad recognition of the basic rationale for change. It is also clear that those areas that have been cut, or that perceive that they have less relevance for (or favour with) the government of the day, have been particularly affected. Some degree of change is likely to be a constant in the future, and shifting priorities are an unavoidable adjunct of working with government. But together with negative perceptions from the community in general, the combined impact on morale and thus on performance means that restoring the pride and self worth of the APS is of considerable importance.
To this point, Australian governments and APS leaders have worked to meet the criticisms of government administration by adjusting the administrative settings to improve performance and by working more responsively within those settings. To some extent, the higher performance that this produces carries its own, intrinsic, reward:
The provision of higher quality service to the taxpayer....is an over-riding motivation for most, if not all, people who choose a career in the public service.29
While this intrinsic reward is important, it needs supporting justification to provide long-term motivation for performance. Positive feedback from individual clients and industry representatives to particular services that have been provided is directly relevant to maintaining enthusiasm and morale.
Ministers, of course, are a highly important reference point for the Service as a whole and direct, ongoing feedback is highly valuable. Efforts by Agency Heads to encourage feedback from the Minister and Minister's Office should be given increased priority, both as a further aid to improve performance where necessary and as recognition of quality work where appropriate. Equally valuable is the practical demonstration by Ministers that they truly respect the traditional Values of impartiality, merit and frank and honest advice as well as the more modern Values of responsiveness and a focus on results. Ministers who are seen to value frank and honest (if sometimes unwelcome) advice and to insist on the highest standards of professionalism will do much to encourage the enthusiasm and responsiveness that the 1999 Act was introduced to achieve.
Public perceptions present a more difficult problem, particularly in a federal system such as Australia where very different bureaucracies tend to be seen under the same banner. The possibility of joint Commonwealth and State support for a media campaign on the value of the Public Service has been raised at the level of officials but the balance of reaction so far has been that it would be ineffective. A generalised campaign could well founder on the preconceived notions of a cynical public.
Persuasion
High profile speeches from Government Ministers, industry and community leaders about the Public Service reforms and their purpose, combined with public praise on the achievements of the APS in the reformed environment, would be likely to have a constructive influence on opinion leaders as well as a positive effect on Service members themselves. But for full effect, statements from industry and community leaders would require sufficient understanding of the reforms themselves and sufficient recognition of the advantages of a well run Public Service to actively take up the message. It was for this reason that Dr Kemp launched a number of public service administrative reforms to an audience of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, explaining their rationale and aims.30
Such statements are also more persuasive when backed by information on performance enhancement, and the ongoing work to upgrade measures of performance achievements is critical. More robust measures not only assist in pinpointing success, targeting areas where further work may be required, or allowing benchmarking against similar activities, they provide concrete data that can be used in publicising the positive achievements of the APS.
A related approach, but with the potential also to be effective in the longer term, would be a coordinated series of articles by Ministers on examples of good practice in their Portfolios. Such an approach would require careful drafting and tuning to the particular media outlet and returns would be slow, but they could prove well worthwhile over time. Drawing attention to good practice through innovation expos has also been used with success.
Supporting Morale
Practically, however, much of the work to build staff enthusiasm and morale must continue to lie with the leadership group of the Service. Staff performance is highest where staff understand the work of an agency and its direction, see where their own outputs relate to the whole, have quality feedback on their performance, have opportunities for self-development, and feel at one with the values of the organisation. These factors can make a difference between a positive and well-directed contribution to the work of an agency, and a more passive participation with less commitment to an agency's success.
In times of rapid change, strategic leadership is critical to managing that change and to making maximum use of the opportunities that flow from it. Leaders must work to provide a management environment that gives both the scope and encouragement for people to develop to their full potential, and that engenders pride in achievement.
The importance of leadership in the Australian context has led the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission, in concert with agencies, to develop an APS-specific Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework to help to identify and develop the leaders of the future. The Framework seeks high performance in five areas.
Leaders must be able to shape strategic thinking and identify the best solutions for government. They must be able to build organisational skills and capacity to enable the delivery of intended results. They must model the APS Values and demonstrate public service professionalism and professional integrity. They must be able to build and sustain effective relationships, both within their own organisations and in the wider community. And they must be able to communicate influentially and persuasively.
The development of leaders for the Service has risen in importance in parallel with continuing change and the increasing complexity of the environment. Public servants must deal with multiple accountability points and work to outcomes that comprehend multiple players. Most of their functions are contestable, or could become so, and there is ongoing pressure for performance improvement.
While work to change client and community attitudes is crucial to fostering public servants' self esteem, perhaps of greater importance is the part played by Ministers and the leadership of the Service in encouraging ongoing achievements and in fostering professional identity and a pride in performance.
Although, as we have seen, better performance does not necessarily translate into better public perceptions, particularly in the short term, bad performance seems quickly to encourage a negative view. The capacity of the Service and the quality of its performance is therefore a lynch pin. As Dr Kemp has said, "The greatest security we have comes from excellence and adaptability."31
1 Review of Commonwealth Administration, Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1983, p.x.
2 Howard, The Hon. John, Launch of Paper: Ethical Standards and Values in the Australian Public Service, 9 May 1996.
3 Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration - Report, Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1976, p.18.
4 Ibid, p.19.
5 Ibid, p.22.
6 Keating, Michael, Quo Vadis? Challenges of Public Administration, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol.48, No.2, June 1989.
7 State of the Service Report 1998-99, Public Service and Merit Protection Commission, Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, p.8.
8 See Paper, p.3.
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