The outgoing boss of the Department of Environment and Energy has called for a fundamental reorganisation of the public service hierarchy, with fewer management levels to enable more effective decision making.
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Ahead of his retirement after more than three decades in Canberra, secretary Gordon de Brouwer used a valedictory speech on Thursday to propose cutting the number of tiers in the senior executive service from four to three.
The former economics professor and Reserve Bank staffer said the SES band 1 and 2 levels should be combined, strengthening the executive level 2 rank and creating five management layers across the bureaucracy.
Implementing the change would take years, but Dr de Brouwer argued it could remedy "over-management" in Canberra's departments and agencies.
"As problems have occurred or mistakes been made, management of issues and briefing responsibilities have been progressively elevated and sometimes centralised," he told the Institute of Public Administration Australia.
"I suspect that too often senior executive officers have ended up doing the jobs of executive level, or EL, officers.
"They do that as a way to manage risk, and they've often - usually unintentionally - crowded out the opportunity for more junior officers, and that those EL officers to learn on the job and hone their analytical, conceptual and communication skills and exercise their own judgment.
"The result is that we are not developing the next cohort of leaders and senior leaders to think and to have the ability and courage to provide good and persuasive strategic and operational advice to ministers."
Praising the depth and competence of the public service, he said employees who could deal with serious challenges and emerging global risks were needed, and government was not recruiting and retaining enough good young people.
Public servants should be able to learn from mistakes and be penalised for wrongdoing and deliberate negligence, but not failure.
He said effective SES officers were not micro-managers or "super analysts", and executive level staff should lead preparation of written briefs through engagement with SES leaders.
Verbal briefings, including to ministers, should be led by a combination of EL2s and band 1 officers, with more senior officers to provide high level strategic advice.
"The literature on the desirable number of management levels settles on five to seven layers of management.
"We have six, which sounds reasonable on the face of it, but, given the tendency in the public service to elevate risk management and decision making, we've got to lean against that.
"If well designed, regime change in this case is really an opportunity for cultural change in leadership, to one with greater emphasis on empowerment, on risk taking and effective systems of support."
Dr de Brouwer called for governments to "finally turn the dial" on 50:50 gender balance at senior levels, achieved through better use of flexible working arrangements and updating selection criteria for jobs.
Senior officer recruitment panels could be expanded to require gender balance, and Indigenous recruitment should be improved including at the cadet and graduate levels.
"We are clearly underdone on ethnic diversity and disability in the Canberra-based service, and can be more forward leaning in talking to people with these backgrounds about public sector careers," he said.
Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Martin Parkinson congratulated Dr de Brouwer, highlighting his role in steering Australia through periods of financial upheaval and uncertainty.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Thursday Social Services Social Services secretary Finn Pratt would lead Environment from September 18.
