Mr Sean Fitzpatrick

Senior Executive Service (SES) Band 1 Leadership Program ‘Stewardship is important for setting the standard regarding culture. When new recruits to the APS see others displaying stewardship, they will be more likely to adopt this value for themselves.’

Joining the Australian Public Service

Why did you decide to join the APS?

After a long career in commercial roles and some experience in state government, I was looking for an opportunity to provide service towards a broader purpose, or mission, rather than just delivering shareholder value.

An opportunity came up at the NDIA in a finance role in 2018. It was a young, growing agency with a mission of improving the lives of people with disability, and it was just what I was looking for.

I have been in the NDIA finance division ever since, seeing the combined NDIA and National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) grow from a $6 billion program in 2017–18 to a $44 billion program in 2023–24.

At what stage of your career journey were you?

I was mid-journey in my career, with 23 years’ experience since starting as an audit graduate at Deloitte Australia in 1996 and having been in executive roles in the commercial sector for some time.

I had significant experience in accounting, procurement, and project and general management at that point, and was looking for an opportunity to put those skills to good use in a role with a broader purpose.

Describe your first APS role.

My first role was Branch Manager Finance Business Partnering, at the NDIA, which also had responsibility for internal budgets. It was a new role, established to help the business within a new agency to make strategic use of its fast-growing budget. It was a great role to start off in as it not only enabled me to make use of my finance skills, but also to develop my stakeholder engagement skills to get to know people across the business.

This role was soon absorbed into a broader role as Branch Manager Finance, where I had responsibility for all aspects of finance. This role was both very challenging due to its breadth of responsibility but it was also very rewarding. In particular, the engagement with other APS agencies outside of the NDIA, enabled me to gain an understanding of, and establish relationships within, the broader public sector.

Stewardship

What does stewardship mean to you?

To me, stewardship is helping to safeguard and enhance the Australian economy and society, while looking after the people doing that work and growing the capability to deliver strategic reform.

Day-to-day, this is about keeping what’s working well and challenging and refining what’s not working as well. It’s also about building and maintaining high-performing teams and establishing and delivering programs, projects and initiatives that improve the way the public service works.

Stewardship is also about embedding, upholding and promoting the APS Values of impartiality, commitment to service, accountability, respect and ethical conduct. In addition, our values at the NDIA also include valuing People, growing together, aiming higher and taking care.

Why do you feel stewardship is important?

Stewardship is important as it provides a guiding principle that helps guide decisions when those decisions are not obvious or clear cut. This can be when a decision involves a trade-off between doing something that might be expedient in the short term versus something that has greater integrity or long-term value. Without this guiding principle, the expedient option may be more likely to take precedence.

It’s also important for setting the standard regarding culture. When new recruits to the APS see other public servants displaying stewardship, they will be more likely to adopt this value themselves, further embedding the culture of stewardship in the APS as a whole.

Was there a defining moment or person who influenced your thinking on this?

Not particularly. It was clear when I first joined the APS that the culture was different from the corporate world. The guiding principle of shareholder value had been replaced by the mission of improving the lives of people with disability and supported by the NDIA and APS Values. I had seen this mission-based approach in stints in state government, but at the NDIA it was particularly strong due to our clear mission, which was a powerful cultural alignment mechanism.

Describe how you act as a steward in your current role.

My stewardship roles include:

• sharing my knowledge from nearly 30 years of experience, with my team and my colleagues
• supporting my team to grow capability to meet new challenges, encouraging professional development and on-the-job training opportunities
• enabling my team to execute projects to uplift systems and deliver a great payment experience for NDIA staff and NDIS providers and participants.

What professional experiences or achievements are you most proud of?

Delivering 3 annual cycles of financial statements and budgets at the NDIA while we grew from an $11 billion program in 2018–19 to a $30 billion program in 2021–22, was a rewarding experience.

It was also a ‘baptism by fire’ with APS finance processes. This set me up to be able to handle any challenge that APS Reform throws at me. Delivering several recent payment system uplift projects has also been very rewarding and this challenge continues.

What is a legacy you hope to leave in your current role, and when you finish your career in the APS?

The legacy I hope to leave in my current role is an NDIS payments ecosystem that:

• is easy and intuitive to use for all who interact with it (participants, providers and staff)
• pays for valid supports quickly and seamlessly
• provides real time visibility and data on all transactions for those who need it, to help better deliver the NDIS.

By the end of my career in the APS I hope to achieve similar transformations of other systems, processes or policy areas that deliver value to the public service, the Australian people and to Australia’s economy.

I’m always looking forward to the next challenge that will enable me to put my skills to use in advancing our national interest.

What professional advice would you give your younger self?

Think about making the jump into the public service earlier. I don’t regret my time in the commercial sector, but I could have potentially delivered more value in the public service for a longer period. Do more self-development earlier. I’m enjoying doing a Master of Economics at present, but I could have looked at doing this earlier to gain more value out of it.

Push personal growth boundaries more. I have often jumped into new roles that I didn’t know much about, but that’s where I have learned the most. I could have done more of this to expand my learning opportunities.

APS Academy program participation

Which program have you participated in, and why did you apply?

I took part in the SES Band 1 Leadership Program over the course of 6 months from November 2023 to February 2024.

I was just over 5 years into my APS career and, as an experienced leader, I jumped at the chance to learn some new leadership material, and test and refine some of my existing approaches and those I’d previously encountered.

I was grateful to take part in the first cohort since the COVID pandemic, to participate in person and meet 14 other SES colleagues and 2 great instructors. Spending 6 intense days together enabled us to form strong bonds that continue to serve us well to this day. I built a new network of SES colleagues who I can now call on for advice beyond my usual networks within the NDIA.

Describe your program experience.

My program experience was a good one. Key challenges included going deep into our ‘discomfort zones’ in examining the types of leaders we are, and how to make the transition to the leaders we want to be, and applying techniques around having challenging leadership conversations through structured conversations with our peers.

We also had the opportunity to work in smaller groups of 5 people on a project that helped us consolidate our learnings. My group chose ‘Closing the Gap’ as our topic and it turned out to be a rich area of learning, where there is much to be done within the APS, and it enabled us to form further bonds with our project team mates.

How has this experience contributed to your current role?

The experience has helped me clarify my role. I’ll be able to have more impact through being a good leader to my team, and providing them with opportunities to grow as leaders themselves.

I’ve come away with a renewed understanding of my purpose in the APS. My responsibility as a leader is not necessarily about delivering specific outcomes myself (for example, payment systems uplifts) but creating opportunities for my team to do work that inspires them, deliver what they’re capable of and create the right conditions for them to thrive in doing so.

This requires a slightly different mindset, and it benefits from applying some of the leadership practices I learned (or re-learned) on the course.

I’m always in need of continuous improvement, but it was great to have this opportunity at a time when both the APS and the NDIA are undergoing significant reform and when good leadership is critical to success.