Our Public Service, Our Future – ART commentary on Government response

There is much in this report that is useful in summarising the state of the Australian Public Service, both its strengths and weaknesses. It also reflects recent disquiet about secrecy, abuse of process, and public mistrust.

Most recommendations are rather bland, at least in the identified areas relevant to accountability. Harder-edged proposals have mostly been set aside by the Government.

Stuart Hamilton, ART Director

The Independent Review of the APS ‘Our Public Service, Our Future’ (the Thodey Review) and the Government Response ‘Delivering for Australians’

This commentary focusses just on the recommendations of the Thodey Review relating to accountability/ transparency/integrity rather than attempting to consider the Review as a whole.

The Review was commissioned by Prime Minister Turnbull in May 2018 and delivered to Prime Minister Morrison in September 2019. The Prime Minister released the Report and gave a government response in the context of a wider statement on the public service in December 2019.

The Review panel comprised 6 members of whom 4 have business backgrounds including the chair David Thodey (former CEO of Telstra). The remaining two, Glyn Davis and Gordon de Brouwer, have a public sector backgrounds. The reference group comprised 4 former politicians (3 Australian and one NZ) and 5 current or former public servants of whom 1 (David Morgan, former Westpac CEO) is Australian.

The Review positions itself as the most far-reaching in 40 years, since the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (the Coombs Report) in 1975, and in a sense that is probably right, in that its terms of reference are broader than most in the intervening years (full disclosure – I was on the staff of the Royal Commission, and helped ‘Nugget’ Coombs finalise the report as a junior research officer).

Of the Review’s 40 recommendations, many of which are cast in very broad terms, 8 could be said to be related to improving accountability, and some of those only indirectly. The remainder concern leadership, culture, partnership with stakeholders, use of technology, improving efficiency, mobility, ‘seamless’ government, staff recruitment and development, tenure, and capacity for ‘transformation’ (probably the favourite word of the review).

The accountability-related recommendations, with the government response and a brief comment, are as follows:

The Government agreed ‘in principle’.
Comment: worthy but merely kicked along the road.

The Government did not agree to amend the Public Service Act, as it ‘has made it clear that it endorses the Westminster principles that underpin the APS…and it is not necessary to refine and legislate these principles…’

Comment: the point of the recommendation was to place the principles beyond executive government control.

The Government did not agree to give the PSC additional powers. It did not comment on the post-employment proposal but re-committed to ‘consider…establishing a Commonwealth Integrity Commissioner [CIC] to reinforce integrity in the federal public sector’.

Comment: the CIC proposal, which is commended by the Review but is not the subject of a recommendation, remains to be implemented. The proposals for the PSC could be picked up by the CIC.

The Government ‘notes the proposal for a new far-ranging review of privacy, FOI and record-keeping arrangements…Any further reforms would be considered separately ..’

Comment: a case of be careful what you wish for? The Review’s approach, attempting perhaps to woo the government by a proposed tightening of FOI, was too clever by half.

The Government does not agree to change arrangements for advisors.

Comment: No change likely to result in relation to the most glaring accountability gap in the federal government.

The Government accepts this recommendation.

Comment The subject of many reviews and reports but nevertheless a fully effective system of accountability needs to start at the level of the individual public servant.

The Government does not support amending Cabinet rules to make evaluations compulsory, but ‘supports the appropriate publication of completed evaluations’.

Comment: Program and policy evaluation should be a cornerstone of accountability. The Government gives itself wriggle room.

The Government accepts in part.

Comment: the proposals all relate to efficiency, value for money, and ‘agility’ and despite a passing reference to ‘embedd[ing] integrity’, contain nothing about ensuring accountability to Parliament and the public of activities outsourced to third parties.