Governments and public servants have to stop thinking in terms of a single “regional policy”, understand the multiplicity of regional communities and the importance of localising policies and programs, and may not have the right analytical tools to properly drive regional policy, according to one of Canberra’s most senior public servants.
National Water Commission CEO Ken Matthew — a former secretary of the Transport and Regional Services and Agriculture departments in the Howard government before being appointed to the National Water Commission — yesterday gave a valedictory lecture marking his retirement from the APS. Matthews handled regional issues for successive national party ministers as the Howard government confronted the challenge of One Nation in the late 1990s and used the speech to spell out the challenge for the bureaucracy adjusting again to a renewed focus on regional policy.
As Prime Minister and Cabinet Department head Terry Moran pointedly noted in his response: “We are all regionalists now.”
Matthews, who grew up in rural NSW, suggested regional communities would share some of the same sort of expectations of governments as urban communities — greater accessibility, especially online, greater timeliness and responsiveness from government agencies, and less of the traditional divisions within and even between governments in relation to service delivery.
But he also believes regional communities will want services specifically tuned to individual communities and regions and decision-making as close to communities as possible. The public service, warned Matthews, needed its own links to regional Australia, where he senses similar frustrations to those that build up prior to the emergence of One Nation: “It would be weak to rely only on parliamentarians and ministers to tell us what we should know.”
But Matthews’s strongest comments were reserved for the public service itself in what amounted to one of the most forthright calls for a more assertive bureaucracy heard in recent years. He took aim at four issues: the high rate of structural and staffing change that infuriated customers and stakeholders, overly complex and time-consuming recruitment processes, an over-reliance by government on the budget cycle to drive policy and frustrating and costly internal probity and fraud processes.
Then he dwelt at length on a fifth, the threat of the APS becoming a “docile and unassertive service”, in terms that served as a serious challenge to the “responsive” and reactive public service that emerged in the Howard years. Matthews — who prospered under Howard and was tapped to succeed Allan Hawke as head of Transport and Regional Services as John Anderson struggled to deal with the One Nation revolt in the bush — suggested public servants had a duty beyond serving as an instrument of the government of the day.
Public servants, in Matthews’ view, have a responsibility “to keep pointing out uncomfortable truths even after the government has made its call”: “We have a responsibility to argue forthrightly when politics is compromising good outcomes… If we are serious as professional servants of the public it is a cop-out just to shrug and snigger knowingly and say the elected government decides what is in the national interest.”
In a controversial to-do list, Matthews proposed:
- Departments put less weight on political parties’ election policies in their incoming ministers’ briefing in favour of “big picture national strategic” views
- Bureaucrats keep finding new ways to propose good ideas to ministers, even when they are repeatedly rejected
- Public servants be more assertive in dealing with ministerial staffers, and stop “bending unthinkingly” to what Matthews called the “meretricious cameo-players” who work for ministers
- Be more assertive at Senate Estimates, which is simply “one group of public officials questioning another” — “you are not on trial”
- Engage in public debate more, particularly at CEO level — and Matthews singled out Treasury Secretary Ken Henry for praise in his high-profile role in economic debate.
While Matthews’s vision of a public service more effective at pursuing good policy in the national interest complements much of Moran’s reform agenda for the bureaucracy, Matthews — surprisingly, some would say, given his success during the Howard years — has gone further than any recent senior public service figure in calling for a more independent-minded and assertive public service.
Ha! Try telling that to Greg Jericho.
I wouldn’t be confident that all department heads shared Mathew’s view. Even if they did, I’d doubt that his view would be shared by managers 1 and 2 levels below departmental heads, some of whom seem very secretive and protective of their position. Even if all the public service agreed that public servants should contribute more to public debate, I’d worry about a government being elected which punished public servants who expressed views different from theirs.
Nonetheless, freedom is earned only by being exercised and people should continually test the limits of the apparently possible.
posted on behalf of one of those anoymous public servnts.
Many public servants would have welcomed Ken Matthews’ forthright comments on the failings of the Australian Public Service, which he delivered during a recent valedictory speech at the end of a long and successful career in public policy. But just as many will be reflecting on why so many departmental secretaries refrain from advancing such views until the eve of their departure from the service. Can these people be practicing what they are preaching whilst they are still on the payroll? The answer must surely be a resounding “No”.
As any management consultant will tell you, the leadership of any organisation is determined at the top. If the APS is “docile and unassertive” it’s because most incumbent Secretaries and the Australian Public Service Commission prefer it that way.
Junior officers looking for role models of the frank and fearless senior public servant would be better off studying history rather than looking for any contemporary leaders. The most senior levels of the public service, the Secretary and Deputy Secretary levels, are populated by timid bureaucrats, fearful of new ideas and lacking the courage to tell Ministers about the real risks and costs of their political commitments. If Terry Moran wants a more forthright and assertive Public Service the only place to start is with the Secretaries and their deputies. Now that might herald real reform.
The problems with the public service began with John Howard. The centralised decision making began under him and because nothing changed when the government changed it has only kept going. The high staff turnover in multiple positions in Canberra where no-one appears to ever grasp their subject except in managerial terms has significant consequences. One of the most debilitating to the service is that there is no one able to give good advice because the public servants really don’t have a clue either as by the time information reaches the top it has been so altered that those who wrote it in the first place cannot recognise it.
Combine this with people living in glass cacoons in Canberra and it is a wonder that anything goes right. Anyone who dares put a point of view different to the upper echelons will be quickly dealt with under the Code of Conduct which is the bully’s weapon of choice – and there is plenty of bullying that goes on.
The Moran Report was too long in the making to manage the problems in the first Labor Govt. For example Julia Gillard was badly advised by DEEWR in that government had a lot of problems created unnecessarily by the poor quality of leadership in that department. Think the continuation of the ABCC, the poor anti Workchoices legislation, the childcare centres which have been abandoned, MySchool website and the national curriculum which will be lucky to ever be accepted – not to mention the flawed rollout of the BER and computers in schools. There were staff so inculcated with the Howard era that they couldn’t change because DEEWR offered no training in different ways of working despite their central role in education.
Only a massive overhaul will do any good and the political will to take on those at the top to utilise staff talents instead of managing the problems created by their leaders is unlikely to happen as in DEEWR alone there are now four Ministers and a parliamentary secretary. Headless chooks is the best metaphor for the public service these days.
Oh Ken Matthews you funny old wag you. I mean this is rich coming from a senior official in a government which made an art form out of making the APS bowdlerise any advice they didn’t like and demonising, harrasing and getting rid of (where are you today Paul Barratt) those that wouldn’t comply.
As a Senior exectutive how many junior staff did you bollock, stich up and terrify when they tried to tell you the truth?
When you were at DPI did you ever try getting ABARE to reject the influence of the coal lobby and report in a more ‘assertive’ way.
And tell me Ken what support did you ever give to public sector unions when that came to you to say that one of their members was being harrased because they wanted to tell the truth rather than stick to the corporate line. Did you ever make them walk away shocked at the bald-faced mendacity that they experienced?
High words and good intentions Ken. Shame you did so little to assert this view and protect public servants when you had the chance.