The results of a recent survey of community satisfaction and trust in Commonwealth public services are not to be sneezed at.

The satisfaction rating over the last year has risen from 68% to 69% while trust has gone from 58% to 62%. But lest euphoria get out of hand, it’s worth noting that in 2020-21, satisfaction was at 72% and trust at 62%.

Trends differ between organisations. For example, in 2020-21, the Department of Home Affairs had trust/satisfaction readings of 82% and 78% – they’ve since both slipped by 4% although staff in the department are said to be much happier. Home Affairs remains a funny old world despite the “Transformation on a Page” program of its Secretary, Stephanie Foster.

It’s hard to be precise about what might be behind these mixed results, yet in part they are likely to reflect the government’s stuttering efforts to improve the public service. Well-intentioned moves have been half-baked, others trivial and a few have been silly.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission is not what it should have been. Its enabling legislation is too narrow, its ambitions have been too low and it’s had an unnerving capacity for self-harm. One former judge says it’s a “bad fail” while another reckons “it’s hard to think of anything useful” it’s done.

The government was right to abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal whose integrity had been undermined by politicised appointments. Unfortunately, the replacement Administrative Review Tribunal is burdened with provisions for the appointment of its members open to the same kind of abuse that undermined its predecessor.

The government has for two years been sitting on a report on how to avoid the politicisation of appointments to statutory positions. In keeping with present abysmal traditions of secrecy, the government refuses to release it presumably because it says that ministerial discretion with statutory appointments should be constrained beyond the point where they can reward their mates.

While a more collaborative approach seems to have been taken on preparing advice for the prime minister on departmental secretary appointments, that practice has not been solidified in law. Further, nothing has been done to put secretaries, whose job insecurity is close to 100%, in a better position to provide full and comprehensive advice to ministers and the government. Their insecurity risks compromising their advice, for who wants to be out on the street for telling ministers something they might not like to hear?

Much good work has been done to cut out nepotism and corruption in public service staffing that was inherent in the misuse of labour contractors and consultants. But no legislation has been enacted to make it clear that, where people are engaged in the public service on a contracts of service basis, they should be employed under the merit recruitment provisions of the Public Service Act as envisaged by the Commonwealth’s Constitution.

Meanwhile amendments made to the Public Service Act have been less consequential or wrong-headed. Mandating capability reviews, allowing for “long-term insight briefings” and publishing employee census results may be fine, but their returns will be slight. Making “stewardship” a “value” in the Public Service Act was ridiculous. It was defined as requiring public servants to take into account “the long-term “impacts” of what they do. The short- and medium-term was put aside while all staff were exposed to disciplinary action if they abused the new “value” by not watching out on the long-term front.

If “stewardship” means anything, it is about making sure the public service is properly resourced and organised. This is the responsibility of ministers and senior staff who’ve now been pleased to delegate and share that with their underlings, most of whom are powerless to do anything about it but who can be disciplined if they don’t.

On remuneration, the unjustifiably high pay for departmental secretaries, that’s in Senator Lambie’s sights, is but the ugly tip of an iceberg. Remuneration for the senior executive service is a frightful mish-mash where many on lower classifications are paid much more than those at higher levels. Beneath them, there is no rational justification for the significant disparities in pay between departments. The government’s good intentions to fix this have not advanced far because it doesn’t have a rational remuneration policy. The last round of pay increases were based on eyeing various irrelevancies like movements in wage and price indexes and pulling a figure out of a hat. In the meantime, this mess provides an unsatisfactory basis for the recruitment, retention, promotion and transfer of staff. That will be so until remuneration is based on matching levels paid for comparable work by other relevant employers.

Public Service Minister, Senator Gallagher, seems to have had her heart in the right place but it could be she has not been well advised. It is also could be that the prime minister and other ministers have been either uninterested or opposed to her ambitions for making the public service better.

Public administration is too tedious to interest many. That’s a pity, because to the extent that the public service is weaker than it could be, all policy and government services are at risk of being discounted accordingly. That, combined with the government’s seeming wish to give the least offence to the maximum number of citizens, might help explain the plainness of the Albanese Government, thus far.

A crew known as the Centre for Public Impact, aided and abetted by the former head of the public service, Professor Glyn Davis, has recently been spruiking the cause of what they call “humble government”. With public service reform under the Albanese Government, there’s no lack of things to be humble about.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.