The Public Service Act doesn’t just allow secretaries and their departments to push back on politicians’ abuses of power; it demands it. But targeting ministers or SES, or tightening the standards and laws under which they operate, will not be the most effective way to repair what is a broader issue.
It is hard to keep up with the continuing revelations of the failures of the Australian Public Service (APS) to serve Australia’s best interests. While government ministers are the stars of the sorry show, they have been supported strongly with stellar performances by Australian Public Service (APS) Senior Executive Service (SES) staff.
Many Australians, and in particular public servants, look forward to seeing these self-serving and shameless individuals facing appropriate legal and career consequences, including once the Robodebt inquiry report is released.
But targeting ministers or SES, or tightening the standards and laws under which they operate, will not be the most effective way to repair what is a broader issue of a sub-par public service. Anyone who thinks that the SES can lead the public service to a better place should watch a couple of Robodebt inquiry hearings, and be appalled again by the incompetence, spinelessness or lack of integrity displayed by so many senior public servants.
The best sentinels of APS standards are the non-SES public service ranks, in particular, those at the middle Executive Level 1 and 2. They combine specialist and detailed policy and program knowledge with a good degree of visibility of SES and minister’s office behaviour. Unlike the SES, their careers are less likely to depend on quiet patronage from further up the food chain and suffer less from challenging weak, manipulated or second-guessed policy advice.
In my experience, they are also more likely to take seriously the importance of public service and the Values the Public Service Act demands of public servants—and it is the Values that effective APS repair needs to foreground. The Values are: impartiality, commitment to service, accountability, respect of all people, ethics.
Together with the Code of Conduct, also prescribed by the Public Service Act, these Values must be exemplified by all public servants in everything they do. This includes helping to develop and implement government policy, evaluating and improving programs and, importantly, helping to ensure transparency and public accountability. The Public Service Act doesn’t just allow secretaries and their departments to push back on politicians’ abuses of power; it demands it.
It is clear that the Values have been transgressed by many public servants over the last few years, hardly constraining government abuses of power very much at all. It is impossible to imagine that many politicians or senior public servants take them seriously these days, if ever they did. You could even be excused for thinking today’s public service values, in practice, could better be described by their very ‘Newspeak’ opposites: partiality in barracking for the party in power; commitment to servile and fearful service of the minister; secrecy and lack of accountability; disrespect for anyone or anything that gets in the way; and a morality-free workplace.
‘Responsiveness’ seems to have become the watchword that has displaced the Values—a euphemism for perfervid prioritisation of ‘whatever it takes’ in political service of the minister. The Robodebt Scheme, ubiquitous grants rorting and ex-prime minister Morrison’s surreptitious ministry collecting could not have happened without the keen participation of public servants.
Many a jaw-dropped when former minister Stuart Robert claimed that Cabinet solidarity and our democratic system required him to be less-than-honest with the Australian public. But I doubt that many public servants, most of whom would have seen everything around them marinated in politics for years, were at all surprised.
I look forward to hearing what the imminent Robodebt report has to say about the public servants who broke the law by flouting the Values. More important in terms of the rehabilitation APS and to the long-term health of Australian public governance will be what it suggests for resuscitating the Values.
A lot has been written about improving the APS since the squandered opportunity of the 2018 Thodey Review of the Public Service, by many well-qualified commentators. I would suggest that all public servants should be held more clearly accountable, individually and legally, for their own adherence to the Values and Code of Conduct, just as they are now under Workplace Health and Safety laws. They must face more objectively prescribed penalties for breaches, and they must also be provided with external independent advice and safe avenues for reporting their slightest concern. Their values leadership must be rewarded—not punished.
Rather than leaving Values issues locked away inside departments, as at present, dependent ultimately on the secretary, whose tenure depends on their minister, the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) would seem to be well-placed for the central role here. The Public Service Act does give the APSC Commissioner the ability to issue directions (Section 11), however, the main responsibility is clearly that of agency heads (for example, Section 15). To date, on Values, the APSC has largely been ‘missing in action’.
Its leadership on Values and culture change across the APS could include developing and implementing better Values education programs—including with respect to policy development and advice, on which there is virtually no APS guidance at present. The APSC could also provide anonymity, when needed, for those reporting breaches and help determine appropriate responses. And it could report on Values and Code of Conduct compliance/misbehaviour annually in its State of the Service reports.
It could also strengthen the professionalism of public service at all levels through taking on other systemic issues that need to be addressed, including through rejuvenated professional development programs, stronger oversight of promotion appeals processes, and facilitating interdepartmental mobility.
At the core of such efforts to improve the APS should be the principle that public servants themselves are best-placed to ensure accountability and transparency so that the public governance horror show of the last few years does not simply come back in new forms in the future. Without empowering them—in particular, non-SES staff—my fear is that any APS response to the Robodebt saga will be superficial, temporary and too narrow.
The Robodebt episode has usefully revealed many of the symptoms of the APS’s systemic problems. The weight on the shoulders of Commissioner Holmes is enormous given the importance of her report and its tight timeframe. She should be afforded more time and resources if she needs it. Because it will, we should all hope, be a watershed in Australian public governance.
Richard Manderson
Richard Manderson has recently retired after a public service career of 23 years, largely in the Departments of Immigration and Home Affairs. His roles included Director of Multicultural Policy, Director of Strategic Research, and a Director of Strategic Policy. He lives in Canberra, although hopefully not in any ‘bubble’.
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