A limiting factor for the review is that it's now playing time on in the last quarter. Its terms of reference require it to hand in a report before the end of June. Thus, correcting for its methodological shortcomings is now largely beyond it, and it may be wise to concentrate on a small number of major improvements, without which other, merely worthy, changes would be put at serious risk. Importantly, the review must articulate a convincing, cliche-free case for what it wants - it has so far struggled to do so.

In the first place, the review should stress the essentiality of a disciplined and thorough system whereby, to the greatest extent possible, all major matters of policy and administration are dealt with by the cabinet and its committees.

This is a necessary condition for sound, properly coordinated government administration. It is the foundation on which the viability of the public service's policy-advising role rests.

Without it, things will fall apart. The overall interests of government and the community as a whole will cannibalised by unworthy interests. Policy formulation will become haphazard, more subject to passing whims and less based on the public service's disciplined analysis of evidence. Administrative cooperation will be imperiled and those who rely on government services, and the broader public, will pay the price.

The review should abandon its misplaced hope that the secretaries board can backstop for the cabinet. It can't. Indeed, there's no readily available evidence that this secretive body has been able to do anything of notable value. When asked about its record, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said last year: "The secretaries board sets the overall direction for the APS, drives collaboration, prioritises collective resource use to achieve cross-boundary solutions and gives priority to the maintenance of a one-APS shared culture."

Nothing from Charles Dickens' Office of Circumlocution betters such high-grade obfuscation, which serves only to signify that the board has not been a success.

Second, the review should recommend ways to strengthen the policy-advising role of secretaries and departments. The Public Service Act's section 57 says, among other things, that a secretary should be the "principal official policy adviser to the agency minister". That's as close to a tautology as it gets and, if the great tautology hunter, Alex Buzo, were still with us, he'd scratch out the word "official". Thus clarified, this section of the act could be bolstered by including a role for secretaries in providing assessments to ministers on all policy advice they receive from other sources.

The policy-advising roles of secretaries should also be fortified by changing the method of their appointment and their tenure. Therefore:

Similar arrangements should apply for the appointment of statutory officers who employ staff under the Public Service Act.

Third, the review must rise above mere urging of greater stability in the overall machinery of government and suggest ways to make that more likely. It should recommend principles and criteria on which to base decisions about:

Elements of these principles and criteria are at hand. They've been discussed extensively in some quarters, especially in the wake of the 1976 Coombs royal commission. If more discipline is to be brought to machinery-of-government decisions, distasteful as that may be to some politicians, the government should consolidate, codify and endorse that material.

This is not difficult. It would not be beyond the ability of a person with a year or so of tutoring in public administration. Indeed, any of the review's team members who are unable to produce a tolerable draft in a day should hand in their commissions.

The Public Service Commission should be responsible for maintaining these codified principles and advising on their application.

Fourth, the review should make recommendations to eliminate the grave threats of corruption and nepotism in staffing posed by the use of consultants, contractors and labour hire to perform work ordinarily undertaken by public servants.

It's not easy to gauge the size of this problem, although the Australian National Audit Office estimates that, between 2012-13 and 2016-17, Commonwealth agencies spent about $39 billion on externally sourced "management and business professionals and administrative services".

How many consultants, contractors and labour-hire workers are employed in the public service? No one seems to know but it's likely the number is in the tens of thousands. These are people not recruited by the legally prescribed merit-staffing laws. They owe their primary allegiances to their employing company, not the government agency in which they work. Nor are they not covered by the APS code of conduct or its associated disciplinary laws.

Strangely, no one in authority seems to care. When the guardian of merit staffing, the Public Service Commission, was asked recently by Parliament's joint committee of public accounts what assessments it had undertaken on the "impact of the growth in the use of on-hire labour contractors" and the "use of consultants to deliver core public service functions", it made the remarkable confession that it "has not undertaken such assessments".

Don't be fooled: this is the most serious current threat to the integrity of staffing in the public service.

There will always be a place for consultants and others to help government agencies. However, when the employment provisions of the constitution and the Public Service Act are bypassed by getting in consultants, contractors and labour-hire staff, via procurement guidelines, to perform the duties of line positions in departments, where they supervise staff, exercise financial and staffing delegations, and so on, the critical cornerstone of personnel management is removed.

And so the gates are opened for employment on the basis of associations with sisters, brothers, cousins and aunts, and merit staffing and the very thing the act is there to avoid is permitted. Meanwhile, the commission sits on the sidelines like Mad Magazine's cover boy, Alfred E. Neumann, saying: "What? Me worry?"

Fifth, the review should recommend, with the ifs and buts in Priorities for Change, that pay and conditions be fixed for the public service as a whole on an occupational-category basis, using comparisons with outside labour markets for comparable work.

This prospect horrifies former public service commissioner John Lloyd, who reckons it would "be a disaster". But sire: you are armpit-deep in the disastrous consequences of the current policy you administered for many years - the stench is directly under your nostrils. Meanwhile you did not make any case to continue the present devolved arrangements, and you've been unable to come to grips with numerous relevant points, for example, that:

"Nothing to see here?" Come on. It's imperative the review recommend this mess be cleaned up. It will not be easy and it will take a long time, but it must be done.

So, here are five things the review should muscle in on. Sure, they have a "central office" character. However, individually and collectively, they have the potential to significantly benefit governments, the community and all public servants.

More importantly, they are necessary changes if other aims - such as developing staff capacity, using technology more effectively, better serving those who depend on government services, and so on - are to have reasonable prospects.

There is much more the review should deal with. In that, it has been aided by an excellent submission by two former public service commissioners who were also secretaries of numerous departments: Helen Williams and Andrew Podger. Their submission, provided to the review late last month, provides an extensive commentary on the entire Priorities for Change report, with numerous suggestions. Comfortingly, their views are broadly consistent with the notions in this column. It's to be hoped the review will give this thoughtful submission the closest consideration.

Finally, there's the question of implementing the review's final recommendations. After Priorities for Change was published, the review convened a one-day "intensive workshop" for 60 public servants on that question. Whatever was gained from the workshop, the review should look carefully at the highly successful implementation of the recommendations of the 1976 Coombs royal commission and the 1983 Reid report. It might even consider a "workshop" of a few of the people involved who are still around - though perhaps not too intensive, given their vintages.

When the final report hits the decks, whoever is in government might be profitably helped by a few people with appropriate backgrounds - say, a former minister and a former senior official or two. They could assess the recommendations free from the influence of internal interests, where power relations may need altering and more generally, and help fill in any gaps in what the review says while cabinet considers what to do.

The Public Sector Informant