Stephen Jones says consultants should be last port of call for APS

article-body

On Friday morning, assistant treasurer and minister for financial services Stephen Jones told a public sector audience the government wanted a public service that was independent and fearless.

Jones spoke at a session at the Governance Institute of Australia’s 2022 National Public Sector Governance Forum, with the topic to address the impacts of the budget on the public sector.

Jones added a lot had been asked of the public service in recent years.

“We want public service to be able to deliver good public policy solutions to enable us to face the challenges of this century at home.”

Jones said that achieving that requires good governance and workplace conditions, and that it was on the government to make sure the public service knew what values it should embody.

“We value your frank and independent advice. We want to hear your opinions, even if there are opinions that we may not agree with.

“Because that is the way we make better decisions. Competent, confident public service is in the interest of the government of the day but more importantly, it is in the interest of the nation.”

When asked about the in-house consulting model, the minister said it would be a “fundamental problem” if independent advice could only be found in the public service by bringing in consultants.

Jones added he did not think that problem existed in the public service at the moment.

“We go to consultants, for a couple of reasons, because we want a new idea or a different idea or we have a short-term capacity constraint because the government is asking too much of us.”

“Too often over the last decade, whether for want of capacity or whether for want of confidence, we’ve gone to consultants as a first port of call instead of a last port of call,” he continued.

“I don’t think that’s right.”

With 7,500 new public service jobs in the October budget, a 4.4% increase, Jones spoke of how his government was beginning to rebuild the APS staffing levels after the previous government’s caps.

“We received some criticism for this but it was absolutely essential,” the minister said.

“Because we need to build policy capacity. We need to do it in a way that provides for a professional, confident, competent public service.

“We believe we can do it in a way that’s actually going to save money, not cost more.”