Mr Woolcott describes the values of public service that shaped his path as coming to him by osmosis, something passed to him in those evening chats with his father Richard, who rose to head the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The younger Mr Woolcott went onto head a federal agency too, as the public service commission's new chief. But his entry into the bureaucracy wasn't immediate. At first, he went another way and tried a four-year career as a barrister before deciding he didn't want to spend his life in law. He entered the foreign service, in those times a department that was more an outlier of the Australian Public Service, and spent the majority of his career as a diplomat.

The Foreign Affairs department steadily moved to the core of government during his postings - Italy, Indonesia and New Zealand among others - as international events demanded agencies break down their silos and pay attention to the world beyond Australia.

The evolution has put the challenges posed by foreign affairs towards the top of the public service's mission, as Mr Woolcott sees it. In his first speech this month as the commissioner overseeing the bureaucracy's 150,000-strong workforce, Mr Woolcott put the public service at the centre of Australia's response to a phase of international relations set to challenge the supremacy of the Western world view.

At no time was he closer to the centre of government than when he was chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull for a year in 2017, a third stint working in a Coalition political office that he says equipped him for the next challenge his boss set him. Upon the resignation of former public service commissioner John Lloyd, the then-prime minister asked Mr Woolcott if he'd be interested in taking over. His journey from the fringes of the bureaucracy continued.

"I said yes, it's a fascinating opportunity to get into the centre of government and the issues the public service faces," he said.

"He was keen for me to do the job but we never got a chance to actually sit around and talk about how I was going."

Mr Turnbull's political demise followed shortly after Mr Woolcott arrived in the public service commission's Treasury building offices. After working overseas through the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, and through the Abbott-Turnbull transition, it was the first leadership change he'd seen up close. Mr Woolcott was impressed by the way public servants calmly got on with the job.

The new public service commissioner became one of Mr Turnbull's legacies to federal bureaucrats. The prime minister left another in personally pushing the major review of the bureaucracy headed by businessman David Thodey.

"He genuinely was concerned to make sure the public service was fit for the future," Mr Woolcott said of his former boss.

"He was worried about a whole lot of these factors whether it be how we're dealing with the public, how we're dealing with technology, how we're maintaining our capabilities. All these things were key in his mind in why he set up the review, and you can see that in the terms of reference, which he took a personal interest in."

A new prime minister and public service minister has changed some of the personnel, but the review - which also bears the fingerprints of Prime Minister's department head Martin Parkinson - has already had the attention of Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann. Mr Thodey, expected to finish the review next year, will report through Mr Woolcott and Dr Parkinson.

The public service commissioner, speaking outside his new office last week, repeated Mr Thodey's statement that the bureaucracy was not broken. He admitted it was challenged on several fronts: technology, geopolitics and the changing expectations of the public. Australia was blessed with a strong public service, he said, but all institutions were under question as citizens lost trust in governments, and other parts of the civic world. Technology had provided more platforms to criticise, and the rise of single interest groups had changed the nature of power. Meanwhile, the government had lost some of its levers.

"Suddenly things are happening in the world which we have to react to, rather than set the pace on or control," he said.

Mr Woolcott said the bureaucracy could change on several fronts. The connection between agencies and ministers' office needed fine-tuning and the public service had to react to the speed of decision-making required in parliament. The federal bureaucracy should be more permeable to those coming from and going to state governments, the private sector or non-government organisations, and should make it easier for former staff returning to the Australian Public Service.

The average staffing level cap imposed by the Coalition government - a target of criticism from unions, Dr Parkinson and departments alike - had helped bring budget repair, Mr Woolcott said. However he said he hadn't had a chance to look at the policy and acknowledged the issue had been raised in the APS review. He said it would be an important part of Mr Thodey's report.

Even before the review findings, the public service had embarked on reforms, he said.

"One is around ensuring that we work much better in terms of the connectivity with people. You can see that happening already in terms of some of the programs being done by the Department of Human Services and Veterans' Affairs and others where they are designing things with the public, they're trying to make sure the interface with the public is working very smoothly.

"It's about also making sure we've got the capability in terms of dealing with the public and meeting those expectations.

"The Commonwealth government is much more involved in service delivery implementation than it used to be, and again that raises the stakes, but of course it means we have to have the wherewithal to be able to deliver on that."

Federal agencies also needed to work better with the states, take a less siloed approach to problems, and accept the public service no longer had a monopoly on policy ideas.

Mr Woolcott takes over the commissioner's role from a predecessor whose tenure was marked by a prolonged round of enterprise bargaining. If public servants anticipate any further battles between the public service commission and the main public sector union, Mr Woolcott may take a different approach from Mr Lloyd, who recently described his role as to challenge union policies and tactics. Mr Woolcott believes some of the heat has left the bargaining issue.

"We're now in the second round, I think people understand better the parameters. So I get a sense that, certainly up until the next election, people know where they sit. My sense is that some of the heat has gone out of this for the moment.

"People may be waiting, but for the moment, people fully understand where the government sits, where the public service commission sits and where they sit."

The new bargaining policy is similar to the previous one, blamed partly by the CPSU for the last round of negotiations that delayed pay rises for bureaucrats by several years. Mr Woolcott pointed to parts of the latest policy, released earlier this year, that created room for compromise. He will meet with the CPSU to hear its concerns and has already spoken to its national secretary, Nadine Flood.

"One of the things that came out of the new guidelines was the ability essentially to negotiate conditions apart from some certain key ones like hours worked or salary aspects. So you could trade off one set of conditions for another set," he said.

"We're happy to look at those flexibly and we're happy to try and make it more attractive where we can so that people vote 'yes'.

"An important part of my work is to talk to all the relevant stakeholders."

Mr Woolcott backed the bargaining policy, and said that both he and the Coalition believed it was working. Pay rises for bureaucrats were in line with the private sector and "in the range" of state governments, he said. He also said he was interested to hear the union's views on the policy, but that changes were not coming.

"I think the government's happy with the way the policy's working."

On another controversy that marked Mr Lloyd's tenure, the release of social media guidelines that could have public servants punished for liking social media posts, Mr Woolcott said he would wait for the decision of the High Court on the case of former Immigration department worker Michaela Banerji, sacked for pseudonymous tweets that were critical of Australia's asylum seeker policy.

The former diplomat said his career in the Foreign Affairs department had given him an approach that managed problems across government, and his stint in Mr Turnbull's office had showed him what the prime minister and ministers wanted from the public service, and how issues were interconnected.

Mr Woolcott has spoken to Mr Thodey and met with the panel the former Telstra chief executive leads as they embark on what is expected to be the bureaucracy's largest review since the Coombs royal commission between 1974-1976. It also had to look at past recommendations of the many inquiries into the bureaucracy since, and find out why they weren't pursued, and whether they should be reconsidered, Mr Woolcott said.

Mr Turnbull's sleeper legacy for the public service may also be one of his most enduring, if the recommendations of the Thodey review are adopted by the government receiving them. They are expected to find their way to the public through the office of his hand-chosen top bureaucrat, Dr Parkinson. Mr Turnbull's former chief of staff could be tasked to help see them through.