One interesting, and welcome, outcome of the coronavirus crisis has been the emergence of the Australian Public Service commissioner, Peter Woolcott, as an influential leader of the APS. Most notably, on March 26, as the government was suddenly ramping up its response to the pandemic, Mr Woolcott announced that he was establishing and leading a new workforce management taskforce to coordinate workforce mobility across the entire APS. The taskforce would identify immediate and emerging critical areas and facilitate the movement of staff into those roles.

Transferring experienced public servants to areas of critical need, such as Centrelink and the Department of Health, is an obvious imperative in such an emergency. But less predictable was that on a matter of resource allocation the initiative should be formally taken by the Public Service Commissioner. Equally possible sponsors were the Prime Minister himself or his assistant minister for the public service. Alternatively, the announcement could have come through the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, in his accepted role as head of the APS.

At the same time, Mr Woolcott has also been prominent in commenting on issues that are closer to his core role of APS personnel management. He issued a statement that agencies had been reminded to provide a safe working environment for staff in their usual working places. He also stepped in to settle damaging confusion over the obligations of agencies to let public servants work from home. The public sector union had been accusing some agencies of using the claim that public services were essential services to exempt them from government policy that employees should be encouraged to work from home wherever possible. A spokesperson from the public service commission had appeared to support this line. Mr Woolcott, however, made it clear that "wherever practicable, public servants should work from home, subject to the decisions of agency heads". On the vexed issue of the pay freeze for public servants, however, he made no public comment, leaving assistant minister Ben Morton to take full responsibility for issuing and justifying the instruction.

Mr Woolcott is well-credentialed to take on this leadership role. A career diplomat, having loyally served a succession of governments, he can readily represent the values of an apolitical professional public service. He also has direct experience of political management at the highest level, having served as chief of staff for former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, an example of Mr Turnbull's preference for career public servants as close advisers.

Since his appointment as public service commissioner in 2018, Mr Woolcott has been engaged in reviewing and restructuring the APSC. He commissioned an independent capability review chaired by former Finance secretary David Tune which recognised the commission's many strengths but identified weaknesses in organisation and in its capacity to meet new demands. The review also found that commission priorities were distorted by its current funding model, which requires it to raise half its revenue from fees for services.

Mr Tune was in close contact with the Thodey review which also sought to strengthen both the commission and the commissioner. Many of Mr Thodey's recommendations that aimed at increasing the capability and effectiveness of the APS involved the commissioner in steering implementation under the overall direction of the Secretaries Board. To assist in this expanded role, the review endorsed Mr Tune's main recommendations about the need to restructure the commission's organisation and strategic priorities as well as its funding model.

More ambitiously, Mr Thodey recommended that the respective roles of secretary of PM&C and public service commissioner be revised, making the secretary of PM&C "head of service" and the commissioner "head of people", with the latter taking over more direct responsibility for managing the appointment and performance of secretaries. The commissioner was also to act as deputy chair and acting chair of the Secretaries Board. Giving a larger role in appointments to the commissioner, as a statutory office holder, would help to increase the political independence of secretaries, one of Mr Thodey's major priorities. The proposal would move Australia closer to the New Zealand model where the state services commissioner (equivalent to the public service commissioner) has full responsibility for the public service and the appointment of department heads, leaving the head of the prime minister's department to manage the government's business.

Mr Thodey clearly admired the clarity of New Zealand's structure but recognised that removing the de facto headship of the APS from the secretary of PM&C would be too radical a departure from Australian practice, as would depriving the secretary of PM&C from any role in the appointment of secretaries. Instead, it opted for a halfway house of empowering the commissioner to advise the prime minister on the appointment and termination of secretaries but only after securing the agreement of the secretary of PM&C (for appointments) and consulting with the secretary of PM&C (for terminations).

Not surprisingly, the government, in its response to the Thodey review, Delivering for Australians, was not convinced of the need for major change. It gave its blessing to the recommendations for strengthening the commission, noting that discussions were already under way. Any funding changes were left to sink or swim (probably sink) as part of the normal budgetary process (which itself has been overtaken by the coronavirus crisis).

The proposed rewriting of the respective roles of secretary of PM&C and public service commissioner was rejected outright. The government emphatically reasserted the authority of the secretary of PM&C. It established an ongoing process of public sector reform to be implemented by the Secretaries Board under the leadership of the secretary of PM&C. The public service commissioner was to play a part, but a subsidiary one, supporting the chair of the secretaries board while the APSC was to carry out much of the associated administration and reporting.

The first reform initiative was the establishment of a Chief Operating Officers committee, under Finance Department deputy secretary Katherine Jones, which was to meet monthly to advance the Thodey agenda, particularly the emphasis on "one APS". Since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, however, the committee's function has been transformed into a central engine of government coordination, meeting daily rather than monthly. "One APS" has become a matter of immediate practical survival rather than distant aspiration.

At the same time, Mr Woolcott, building on his close involvement with the post-Thodey reform agenda, has been quick to articulate the possibilities for long-term reform offered by the pandemic. For example, he and Ms Jones prepared a joint podcast on "Accelerating reform of the Australian Public Service" under the auspices of the ACT division of the Institute of Public Administration. In it, Mr Woolcott stresses the incremental nature of reform as the public service feels its way through the crisis. Changes brought about under great pressure through trial and error have the best chance of becoming embedded in the long run. Success in meeting the demands of the crisis should also increase the public's trust in government as well as the APS's confidence in itself, characteristics that have been lacking over recent years.

Mr Woolcott's crucial role in the APS was underlined in an open letter to all public servants that he and Mr Gaetjens jointly wrote in the early days of the pandemic. The sentiments were unexceptionable - the usual bland mixture of exhortation and concern for individual welfare that managers feel obliged to issue on such occasions. More significant, however, was the fact of joint authorship. Mr Gaetjens, though recently confirmed as head of the APS, clearly saw value in placing the commissioner on an equal footing when dealing with public servants. In effect, the letter gives expression to Mr Thodey's vision of conjoint, complementary authority for the two positions, with the commissioner standing alongside, rather than under, the secretary of PM&C.

Too much should not be read into a single document. But, considered alongside other initiatives recently taken by the commissioner, it may suggest an emerging partnership between the two officials, in which Mr Gaetjens is happy to delegate a leadership role to Mr Woolcott on many matters relating to the APS. Such a move makes good sense. After all, Mr Gaetjens must be heavily preoccupied with managing the government's policy agenda, especially with the additional need to coordinate constantly with counterparts in the states and territories. Mr Gaetjens may also sense that Mr Woolcott, with his apolitical credentials, is better placed to inspire confidence within the public service. Being seen as the prime minister's man, like Mr Gaetjens, can be a handicap when dealing with public servants.

At any rate, such a division of labour is sensible in the current context and can provide a model of how secretaries of PM&C and commissioners can work together in the future. Whether it will survive the present crisis and the eventual replacement of the current incumbents remains to be seen.