The pandemic has had a profound impact on public services across the federation.
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Across the Commonwealth, states and territories, public services have in many instances moved quickly, collaboratively and effectively to deliver their governments' responses to COVID-19.
This has been in every type of activity of public service, from service delivery and government operations, to policy advice, implementation and regulation.
And it has been achieved by many thousands of public servants shifting to different tasks, using digital technology to provide services online or to do their work, sharing and using data to understand what is happening, working in genuine collaboration with business and communities to find solutions, and simplifying and accelerating decision making.
Many public servants have worked hard and feel proud of what they have achieved - deservedly so. The public service should be congratulated for what it has achieved.
The COVID-19 experience has shown that public sector work practices do not need to be fixed in stone. A lot of flexibility in the workplace is possible. Hierarchy can be streamlined. Giving staff responsibility can achieve better results.
Indeed, many of the innovations have come from within, not from the top of, the public service.
Having a go, trying something new, taking a risk is an essential part of effective and dynamic public administration.
How do we lock in positive change in public administration?
You won't get the change you want without explicitly planning and implementing it. The checklist you might ask yourself is:
- Are you explicit, pro-active and transparent in what you want to retain and what you don't, in the changes across the domains of what you do (e.g. service delivery, operations, regulation or policy), how you use technology and data, the relationships you need to be effective in doing your job, and how you do it (e.g. who works from home and when, how much hierarchy and level of clearance do you really need to get the job done)?
- Do you have the evidence to support your case, including material from staff surveys, formal feedback or surveys from business and affected communities, measures of output by employee before and after the change and their impact, such that you have a narrative of change and improvement?
- Do you have the (broad) support of key stakeholders, including senior officers in your agency, affected businesses and communities, and ministers or their key advisers as necessary? Informally talking through and discussing what changes have been made and what their impact has been with others is a good starting point to building both a narrative and consensus for change.
- Are you prepared for when things go wrong under the new system? When something goes wrong, there can be a tendency in the public sector to reflexively revert to the way things were done before or to elevate or centralise decision making. Things will go wrong, as they always do, and so it is useful to think ahead about what you will do. The key is to acknowledge and take responsibility for the mistake, to explicitly and tangibly learn from it, and strengthen and improve the way things are done as needed.
You are not observers or bystanders to change.
The downside of talking about system-wide change is that people think that the driver of systemic change is someone else. You can do two things.
One is to be an active participant in workplace conversations about how to improve what you do, who you do it with, and how you do it - be it in pulse surveys, staff meetings, conversations with your boss or staff, planning days and the like.
The other thing is to live change yourself in how you interact with others and do your job.
Maybe have an extra chat each day with someone in a different area in your department, a different department or in the Commonwealth or another state.
Reach out to businesses or communities that you work with to talk about recent developments and how things are going in the sector.
Think of how you could improve the processes that you are engaged in, to better achieve outcomes on the ground.
Is there data that you could share with others, or them with you, that would improve the quality of decisions?
Having a go, trying something new, taking a risk is an essential part of effective and dynamic public administration. But there are risks in public administration that you should be conscious of and explicitly and actively manage.
One of the biggest risks is growing scrutiny about decisions made under extreme uncertainty and emergency, and, more generally, ensuring integrity of decisions and processes.
It is a great strength of our liberal democracy that decisions made by governments can be reviewed in the Parliament, scrutinised by the media, probed by independent integrity bodies, and assessed by independent audit agencies.
You should be prepared for this scrutiny, and able to account for how you, as a public servant and your institution, used processes and consultation to put information and advice together, kept records and provided advice to ministers in writing, acted with integrity and non-politically, and properly used public resources and information.
The Australian National Audit Office note on Rapid Implementation of Australian Government Initiatives is a timely read. Be prepared.
Finally, look after yourself.
The pandemic comes on the back of drought, fires and storms.
Looking after the physical and mental health of yourself and those around you is important in its own right, and necessary to ensure that you are able to sustain change.
- Gordon de Brouwer is the national president of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.