The government has tapped former APS commissioner Lynelle Briggs to kick off its public sector integrity reformation project with a review of the process for commonwealth board appointments. But that’s not all 2023 has in store for the government’s major APS renovation plans.
Minister for the public service senator Katy Gallagher unveiled the latest review at a Labor think tank conference in Canberra over the weekend.
“Being on a government board should be about what you know, not who you know,” Gallagher said.
“I look forward to Ms Briggs’ robust recommendations on how the government can put merit and integrity back at the centre of the public sector appointment process. She brings a whole stack of expertise, obviously, to this job,” she said.
Briggs was previously the CEO of Medicare and more recently served as a commissioner on the aged care royal commission. She has been tasked with delivering a report about how to make government board appointments more transparent and improving the diversity of board membership (including gender, CALD, First Nations, and geographic representation).
The review will also consider how ministers are advised on the selection of commonwealth board members, as well as clarify the role of public sector boards and the skills and standards that are required.
“This review is all about putting an end to the jobs for mates culture that defined the previous Morrison government’s public sector appointments” the minister told Chifley Research Centre conference attendees.
The report coming out of Briggs’ review will be published sometime after mid-year.
Seven months into her role as APS minister, Gallagher said, she had come to appreciate the “huge task” that was needed to rebuild and reposition the bureaucracy after what she described as nearly a decade of “sustained assault” under the previous government.
The dynamic between the government and the APS had been damaged by former prime minister Scott Morrison’s so-called ‘command and control’ style of leadership, Gallagher added, which had created fertile ground for a culture of fear to take hold.
Consequently, she said, public servants were not prepared to offer frank and fearless advice, and ministers rarely sought the expertise of the APS when it was most needed.
“[Under the Coalition], thousands of permanent jobs and capability [were lost]. But it wasn’t only the jobs and skills that we lost: the independence and integrity of the public service as an enduring institution was attacked and weakened,” Gallagher said.
“Perhaps the most obvious and harmful example of this approach is robodebt, a massive failure of public administration with catastrophic consequences — a scheme that we’re learning shocking new details about every day through the royal commission hearings.”
Finance Minister @SenKatyG @ChifleyResearch Conference 2023 in a cracking speech on the dire damage to the APS under successive coalition governments, epitomised by, but far from restricted to, #Robodebt – and the reform agenda for APS renewal.🔥🔥🔥#auspol 1/ pic.twitter.com/AYpIEmEBkx
— Chris Wallace (@c_s_wallace) February 5, 2023
With each new day of robodebt royal commission hearings, the minister said, she watched APS officials give evidence about how they did not want to deliver bad news to their political masters. It painted a clear picture of an APS that was focused on delivering for the government rather than being the architects of legal and careful policy responses, she said.
“With three ministers and one prime minister required to take the stand to explain their role about what they knew and what they did […], robodebt might stand out in a league of its own as the combination of everything that was wrong with the previous government and its dealings with the APS.”
Beyond the professional and moral repugnance of allowing the APS to fall into such dwindling capability, Gallagher said she also observed in her capacity as finance minister what the cost of the Coalition’s successive policy failures was. Ultimately, that meant more citizens would suffer because they could not depend on government services.
“The cost of the failures of successive Coalition governments to deal with serious policy challenges of our time — something that the APS should lead on — and to not allow the public service to do their job as the apolitical strategic policy arm, with deep knowledge and expertise, will be felt for years to come,” Gallagher said.
“As I wade through the work needed in health, in Medicare, in aged care, in energy and climate, in First Nations services, in housing, in Arts, in the environment, in overseas assistance, in the area of data and digital — and these are just a few which sprang to mind — which either exist in either a state of crisis like aged care and energy, or systems heaving under pressure in desperate need of new policy responses and reform,” she said.
.@SenKatyG: Under-resourcing of APS under Coalition govt will be felt for years to come. Slashing public service featured permanently over last decade, as did culture of blame of APS while outsourcing to consultant firms. #auspol #canberra pic.twitter.com/SORiltBtle
— Melissa Coade (@Coadem) February 5, 2023
It was a credit to the APS that despite this lack of confidence and resourcing it still rose to deliver during challenging circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the minister said. But she also warned the road to rebuilding capability, independence and integrity would be long.
“Ten years of neglect isn’t going to be undone overnight,” she said, re-capping the four priorities of the APS reform agenda: an APS that embodies integrity in everything it does, that puts people and business at the centre of policy and services, that is a model employer, and that has the capability to do its job well.
The minister went on to describe the Liberals’ claim that they were superior Budget managers as “total and utter rubbish” because big policy challenges had simply been ignored with no regard for what added costs the nation would face due to extra delay.
A speech Morrison delivered to the APS in 2019 informing the bureaucracy that they did not set policy turned out to be an ironic claim, Gallagher said, also taking aim at what she said was the political appointment of Phil Gaetjens to the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet.
“Whilst it wasn’t only budget decisions that eroded the capability of the APS to do the jobs Australia needed them to do — although slashing the public service did feature prominently over the past 10 years — it was also the lack of commitment or belief in the important ongoing role that the APS plays, that goes beyond the individual governments and parliamentary terms,” Gallagher said.
“Under the coalition’s watch, the private sector took hold of jobs that should have been done in-house, and they did so by billing by the hour.
“Critical functions [were] outsourced to the private sector, with some areas of government losing all policy capability during this time. And yet despite this, the public service continued on, trying to provide essential services to the Australian people through natural disasters, pandemics and the rest.”
Legislative changes to bake in the APS reform agenda would prevent any future attempt by a government in power to “whittle away” or erode civil service capability, Gallagher said. She also flagged an organisational review of the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) and the commissioner’s role, the inclusion of a new APS value — stewardship — to apply to all PGPA Act agencies, and an audit of employment to review overreliance on external workforces as part of the wider reform work the government was pressing ahead with in 2023.
“We will deliver long-term insight briefings and publish a survey of trust in Australian public services, and also publish APS census data and the action plans to run alongside them. We’re going to boost First Nations employment, implement SES behaviour and outcomes-based performance management and support the APS net-zero by 2030 commitment,” Gallagher said.
“We’ll also pilot an in-house consulting model, and importantly, with my colleague Dr Andrew Leigh and the treasurer, embed a culture of evaluation across the APS,” she said.
:
Katy Gallagher: An APS that is future-fit and ready to support Australians for generations to come
Any feedback or news tips? Here’s where to contact the relevant team.