A little anonymity can be a dangerous thing, especially when public servants get to ask frank, fearless and downright uncomfortable questions of their commissioner and minister about why pay for technology, computing and technical skills remains so notoriously uncompetitive and major tech projects keep failing, stalling or blowing out.
So it was on Tuesday, when the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) chief Gordon de Brouwer and assistant minister for the public service Patrick Gorman fronted a room full of public servants at the Canberra hotel formerly known as the Lakeside — and online — for a grilling by Slido, the app du jour for crowdsourcing candid questions, all while wearing a digital paper bag over your name, rank and agency.
If being genuinely accountable and transparent is sitting on a live-streamed panel and getting fed unfiltered and awkward questions, then APSC’s State of the Service roadshow (the report on a listening tour) visibly fits the bill.
It took only a few minutes for the top two burning issues to surface: poor APS morale and the constant struggle to get agency tech stacks humming thanks to notoriously uncompetitive pay and lack of promotional opportunities in the SES for technologists and technical specialists.
“How do you combat the systemic morale problem that so many departments have?” was quickly the most up-voted question, followed by, “Are there any plans to improve technical roles for the APS? Currently the pay is about 1/3 of the market rate and moving up often means becoming a [contract] manager.”
Moderator and Department of Health first assistant secretary Rachel Balmanno masterfully emceed, passing the incandescent potato to the panel that consisted of de Brouwer, Gorman, Office for Women executive director Padma Raman and recently appointed secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Alison Frame.
“It’s really changing in terms of some of the technical capabilities that the service needs. And we do struggle to compete on a pay basis with the private sector in terms of a lot of these technical capabilities … What’s the … vision for that in terms of how we can value that technical skill? And you don’t have to move into being a generalist manager in order to have career growth in the public service,” Balmanno summarised from Slido.
To put the inherent heat of the “technical roles” question into context: the APSC rejected a key recommendation of the root-and-branch Thodey review into the APS that there needed to be a specialist classification for technologists and digital practitioners when it handed down the subsequent APS Hierarchy and Classification review.
Since then, the Albanese government has been forced to junk at least three major projects at each of Services Australia, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Department of Home Affairs, while several other big builds remain in big trouble.
And now the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit has expanded its terms to include almost every IT stuff up worth more than $10 million.
The official dogma remains that APS ‘specialists’ must first be accepted into the fold of senior ‘generalists’ because of the trope that people who possess technical skills must also somehow necessarily lack managerial aptitude unless specifically imbued with the APS managerialist canon.
“So this is a really live topic in many different dimensions,” de Brouwer offered before assuring the APS his agency was “leaning in” on the issue.
“I think we’re working through actually what that means, and have a lot of discussions as [the] secretaries board on this topic. But part of it is those technical skills and specialist skills are really important, but we should be very clear about what is a specialist and what’s not. And then how do we reward that and how do we enable that career, a person to have that career?”
But the major issue is that for people looking to become permanent public servants, APS IT or digital opportunities even vaguely comparable to outside pay scales are just plain out of reach because there’s around a six-figure disparity in current earnings — and the private sector is competing on conditions and pay these days.
There is a remunerative disconnect, and — given the lack of a sudden recession — not to mention the overall fatwah on contractors, consultants and labour hire, possibly isn’t putting stretch-fabric Chinos on seats.
Gorman was then thrown the unfortunate question about when ministers will be held accountable to APS standards at senate estimates, especially when politicians are often unprofessional and rude.
“I will start by saying I’m not a senator” Gorman jested — which must elate his senior minister senator Katy Gallagher — before noting there is now a “ministerial code of conduct that’s really clear, and the prime minister, when he was elected, strengthened that code of conduct. It’s very clear about treating public servants with courtesy and respect,” Gorman said.
Unfortunately, those opposite the government aren’t ministers.
Then came the next, rather annoying, IT question.
“So here’s one I’m not sure any of you are in a position to give the full answer [to], but we’d love your insights anyway. The audience are interested!” Balmanno observed.
“When will the government invest in proper IT infrastructure across the service, to enable it to be more efficient and to collaborate fully?”. This audience question gave pause for reflection on how the pandemic “completely changed the way we work”.
“You know, you compare that to how we operate with other aspects of our life and the IT that’s there, any insights people want to share? I remember starting in the service with no computer on my desk as well,” Balmanno reminisced.
Gorman obliged this was a “spending question” and that there were “always people trying to sell government products.”
“I mean, those of you who work in procurement will know that there’s always just one more product, one more bit of software or one more device, and then all your problems in your agency will be solved. It doesn’t quite work like that,” Gorman said.
“I hate ICT being the roadblock for me being able to do any work”.
So too, apparently, does Frame, who has picked up one of the bigger APS systemic albatrosses and is trying to teach it to fly like Mr Percival.
“I think there’s also a public exhaustion with big investments in ICT infrastructure. The veteran groups will say, ‘Well, when are you going to stop spending money on ICT systems and you still tell us that they’re rubbish?’” Frame said.
“You know, we’re how many-years-along, and you’re still saying that there’s big challenges with them and they’re not connected?”
“I think we just need to bring our constituent groups along with us as well in departments around why that ICT investment is indeed the best expenditure for scarce government resources, and what it’s going to deliver to them,” Frame said.
Like a user interface that doesn’t make already traumatised clients queue at a counter because they can’t make web forms or key transactional inputs work.
Join us later this week as we re-join the APS State of the Service roadshow for more insights and tips into omelette disassembly techniques, and how to apply them to insufficiently documented but mission critical legacy systems.
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