It would be drawing a long bow to describe Michael Pezzullo as outspoken. Few serving public service mandarins are. The Immigration Department secretary is, however, upfront – and never more so than when discussing the contributions he believes his department has made to Australia's prosperity and social coherence since its merger with Customs. And he believes the department's policy direction since that merger offers important lesson for the rest of the federal bureaucracy.
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Mr Pezzullo shared aspects of this thinking in an address to the Institute of Public Administration this week as part of its Australia's Secretary Series. In it, he outlined how policy makers and those setting the strategic direction of the public service needed to distance themselves from the "empire of rules" (with its focus on abstract process, groupthink and policy biases) and embrace a "commonwealth of ideas" wherein new concepts could be formulated about "how the state might best play its role in the improvement of the nation that it governs".
Drawing on a paper by Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Mr Pezzullo said that "closed systems and structures which are centrally organised with rigid modes of operation and limited openness to exterior forces" [empires of rules] were unlikely to be able to adapt to an environment undergoing rapid changes caused by technology explosions, resource sustainability, demography changes and shifts in geo-political forces.
His solutions to the problem of senior bureaucrats thinking only of certainty and closure when they should be focused on the future and trying to anticipate impending change? Invest in policy research and planning, invest in cultivating institutional memory and historical perspective, equip your workforce to enable it meet those new challenges, and insist on clear and effective communication within your organisation.
Mr Pezzullo invoked Winston Churchill's war-time edict that bureaucrats and war officials use clear, concise and jargon-free English when talking to decision-makers. Though hardly unique in the annals of recent British history (David Cameron issued a similar plea only last year) the Churchill yarn guaranteed that the "clear English" aspects of Mr Pezzullo's speech was given greatest media prominence.
That's regrettable for other elements of the speech were more thought-provoking – like the notion that departments need to engage afresh in policy research and planning. The proliferation of research think tanks, management consultants, advocacy groups and other sundry experts has caused many public service policy development areas to atrophy. Mr Pezzullo believes that while bureaucrats should accept that advice and ideas are contestabile (and that this is a good thing) that they should, like the immigration department continue to invest in generating their own new policy ideas. And in an age when specialists are feted across the service, Mr Pezzullo's belief that the generalist officer should continue to be respected – and invested in – is refreshing.
Mr Pezzullo's speech may be be read on some quarters as self-congratulatory; nonetheless, the meat and potatoes within it are substantial enough for it to warrant wider discussion.
