Developments in 2004–05
The 2004–05 financial year has been mixed. The Palmer Inquiry into the circumstances of the immigration detention of Cornelia Rau,5 which was conducted during the period covered by this report and which reported in July 2005, raised a number of serious concerns about the integrity of systems and processes in use in one APS agency. The Comrie Inquiry into the circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez matter,6 which reported in October 2005, opened further issues related to decision-making processes in the application of regulations and after the discovery of errors.
It would be a mistake to quarantine the lessons coming out of these reports to a single agency. There are lessons for all of us.
We know from the findings of the Palmer report that to establish a culture of integrity and accountability organisations need sound systems and effective processes. This includes administrative systems around information and communications technology (ICT) and finances, but also extends to governance arrangements and human resources (HR) management systems and processes. It is important that these are designed to avoid a silo mentality, that agencies establish meaningful consultation mechanisms, draw on comprehensive and reliable employee surveys, and emphasise performance management arrangements that link back to the business goals in their corporate plans. Where agencies or parts of agencies are turned in on themselves, it is easy to miss a change in the external environment or an opportunity to collaborate for an improved outcome.
The findings of the Comrie report take us directly to the dilemma inherent in all regulation. The exercise of regulatory authority has to balance the burdens regulation imposes (taxation, censorship, the denial of liberty, opportunity costs) and the policy outcome sought, and it has to do this within the broader framework of our national institutions. It is one thing to give officials the authority to make decisions that affect peoples’ lives—in Centrelink, ATO and DIMIA, to name a few—but those officials also have to understand the nature of their authority: the broad legislative and constitutional framework from which it derives, its limits, the scope of any discretion and how to exercise it. We are far more likely to get the balance right, especially in hard cases, if individual decision-makers are working within a coherent system of regulatory oversight.
Decision-makers in the APS also need to think seriously about the personal responsibility that goes with the authority to make decisions; what the community regards as a public servant’s ‘duty’. What is duty? It is more than just exercising regulatory authority systematically. Duty is about the judgments and actions of individual public servants as they apply their decision-making to individual people. This means that it is a public servant’s duty to alert people in authority, including politicians, if something goes wrong. It is also a public servant’s duty to seek to correct errors and to undo wrong decisions as soon as possible.
Senior managers have a vital role to play in establishing a supportive and professional culture and showing decision-makers how to balance Values like fairness and effectiveness, impartiality and courtesy, responsiveness and apolitical professionalism. We know from our data that public servants who believe that senior managers act in accordance with the Values and lead by example in ethical behaviour, report higher overall levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of pride in working for their agency and for the APS.
It is imperative that all of us in the APS, and especially its senior leadership, pay attention to what the data in this report and from other sources is telling us, that we recognise that there are complex relationships between seemingly unconnected aspects of our business, and that we work together to achieve the best outcomes that we can for the Government and for the Australian community.
I am keen to ensure that our leadership, and in particular the SES, understand their role in promoting a strong common identity across the APS and a confident approach to the duties of public service. To this end, the MAC has recently released a statement for the SES called One APS—One SES.7
I am giving priority to redeveloping our leadership, learning and development programmes. I will be unveiling a new suite of leadership programmes for the SES over the next few months. In 2005–06 the Commission will reinvigorate its EL programmes, focusing on the public service’s core business areas of programme management, regulatory activity, service delivery and policy development.
While there have been disappointments this year, with inevitable room for improvement, this report demonstrates that on many fronts the APS is continuing to strengthen its performance. I believe that, as a sector, we need to be reminded of our strengths. In 2004, the APS received a United Nations award for Improvement of the Quality of Public Service Process in the Asia-Pacific region, in recognition of the reforms and achievements of the public service in recent years.
We have an enviable record of policy development and service delivery and in minimising corruption. We are innovative and reforming—and we need to keep vigilantly to that. We remain a significant national asset, in both economic and social terms.
As we go forward, we need to build on these strengths—to keep challenging ourselves to make further improvements to our organisations, our relationships and our collaborative skills—if we are to remain a world leader in public sector reform.
5 M.J. Palmer, Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Immigration Detention of Cornelia Rau: Report, July 2005, <http://www.minister.immi.gov.au>
6 Commonwealth Ombudsman, Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez Matter, (Report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman of an inquiry undertaken by Mr Neil Comrie), September 2005, <http://www.ombudsman.gov.au>
7 Management Advisory Committee 2005, Senior Executive Service of the Australian Public Service: One APS—One SES, Australian Government, Canberra.
