Scoping the decline in organisational performance

Sunday Essay - why who signs what is important, a post on my personal blog,  discussed two examples of changing approaches to management that I thought had contributed to declines in organisational effectiveness over recent decades. This drew a comment from an old friend and colleague, Winton Bates.   

Winton was a senior official with the Industry Assistance Commission/Productivity Commission. There was, he suggested, some improvement in public service management in Australia during the 1980s and early 1990s when there was effective delegation of responsibility to a more appropriate level. Unfortunately, this had not been maintained.

For background purposes, I have repeated the post and the comment below in full. In this post I want to make a few general points and then ask for help.

One of the points about management theories and concepts is that their validity or otherwise finally depends on their practical application. Anybody who has worked for an organisation, or started a new business for that matter, knows this. It is the nuts and bolts, the systems and practices, that finally determine effectiveness.

My continuing discussion about what I perceive to be a decline in organisational effectiveness in the private as well as public sectors rests rests on this point.

So far as the public service is concerned, I think that Winton is right in suggesting that there was some improvement in public service management in Australia during the 1980s, although I would put both the start and end dates earlier than  he does. So we had improvement, and then decline.

I am not alone in talking about this perceived decline. Just at present, a considerable number of my older colleagues are are following similar lines, although the reasons given vary. One could argue that we are just getting old, but I think that it's more than that. There is a feeling of general unease, nor is this limited to the public sector, although it seems to be most pronounced there.

This brings me to the help I am seeking.

I would be interested in comments from fellow managers. Do they also perceive a decline? If so, when and why did they first form this view? Here I am especially interested in specifics, actual dated cases or examples, that might allow us to both test the argument and plot the process.

My original post follows:

"As a manager and adviser over a now considerable period, I have worked through a number of different sometimes overlapping management fashions. I think of them in my own mind as authoritarian, delegated, entrepreneurial, corporatised and now command and control.

I mention this because of a conversation last week over lunch during which those present returned to a common theme, a perceived decline in both the efficiency and effectiveness of modern organisations.

Organisation and management always takes place in a social context set by the society or societies within which the organisation works. That context plays an important role in the decline as we see it. However, put that aside. In this short essay, I want to look at just two features internal to organisations themselves.

I asked one of my colleagues, a former senior public servant, at what date he stopped being responsible for pieces of paper going to the Minister. He blinked, and said he always remained responsible. I rephrased the question: at what date when you were a branch head were you first required to get your Division Head's signature on it before you could send a piece of paper to the Minister? He then took the force of the question, and thought that it was around 1992.

A year or so back, I first had cause to do some work inside the NSW Public Service system. I found a multiple signature system on briefing notes, author, manager, branch head, division head, even CEO. 

So what do we have? In the period that I was a Commonwealth Public Service branch head or acting division head (1980-1987), I made the decision as to who signed the piece of paper to the Minister. My ability to sign myself was critical to getting things done. By around 1992, my colleague at the same level had lost that ability. By 2008 in NSW you had multiple signatures.

A small thing? Maybe, but let me ask you two questions.

First, on this type of paper, who has final responsibility? I think that the answer has to be the highest signature level appearing. As organisations have become more centralised, more command and control, final responsibility for many decisions has moved up the line. The practical effect is a reduction in flexibility, in the capacity of the organisation to respond quickly to the myriad of changes taking place in the world around.

Secondly, on this type of paper who now has ownership? Ownership is important because it is directly related to another question: who is going to make things happen? No sense of ownership, no drive. The problem with multiple signature systems is that no one in fact may take ownership. At one end of the chain, the nominal originating staff member may feel no ownership because he/she is just a drafter whose words and ideas may have been changed many times. At the other end of the chain, the final signatory is likely to be just too busy to take real ownership.

The second related feature that I want to look at is formal systems of delegation. Delegation systems are very important because they determine who has authority for what. They also provide part of the basis for financial control.

One of the things that I did in the two years I was CEO of the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists was to introduce new budget systems along with financial delegations that gave the CEO power to approve things within budget, subject to monthly management reporting. This replaced the previous system where individual expenditure items no matter how small required Finance Committee approval. The net result was a considerable improvement in College efficiency.

I make this point because I am in fact a strong supporter of properly structured systems of delegation. They can really aid efficiency as well as accountability. 

One of the things I have noticed over recent years, and this parallels the process I was talking about in regard to who signs what, is an apparent rise in the detail and complexity of formal delegation systems. This gives rise to several problems.

One is simply the time and complexity added to decision and reporting processes. A second is a growing disconnect in some cases between formal statements as to who can approve what and the realities of authority and responsibility in centralised organisations. No matter what the formal delegations say,  managers will not approve something where they feel that decisions might conflict with the realities of decision making power within the organisation. They will try to shift it upstairs.

More difficult still are cases are where managers are expected or directed to approve something in their power when the actual and specific decision has been made above them. Most sensible managers will simply protect their backs by documenting the decision/direction, "I approve this because", but it remains an issue and a risk.

One of the practical realities of management is that concepts and theories are always tempered by what actually happens on the ground. My purpose in this essay is to document two practical examples that show why modern organisations may, as I and my colleagues argue, have become less effective."

Winton's comment was:

An excellent post, Jim.

The only point I would like to make is that I think there was some improvement in public service management in Australia during the 1980s and early 1990s. For a period I think we had effective delegation of responsibility to a more appropriate level.

It is unfortunate if that hasn't been maintained.

Perhaps it is in the nature of public sector activities that responsibility tends to drift upwards. The success of the program manager is judged on the basis of vague criteria, including protecting the Minister from criticism. It is a lot easier to hold a manager responsible for decisions when she is responsible for a profit centre within the firm.

Lessons from the national school build program

The Australian National Audit Office's report into the operations of the National school build program makes for fascinating reading for someone like me interested in the details of management. While the report does not provide the type of smoking gun that the Australian opposition would have liked, it does provide an insight into the problems created by the Rudd Government policy approach and associated administrative structures and styles.

Although no-one so far has looked at the connections, this is in fact the second report into the operations of what are called National Partnership Agreements. The first came with the release by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin at the end of August 2009 of a report reviewing the initial operations of the $672m Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program. This program became part of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing and was intended to deliver 750 new houses by 2013 in Northern Territory remote indigenous communities. My then analysis of the report can be found here.

The ANOA report describes the overarching framework that is meant to guide Commonwealth-State arrangements in these terms:

Delivery of programs that span Commonwealth, state and territory
jurisdictions has been the subject of recent Council of Australian Government
(COAG) reforms. The reforms aimed to enhance public accountability for
service delivery by clarifying roles and responsibilities between levels of
government and improving collaboration. Rather than dictating how things
should be done, the new framework focuses on the achievement of mutually
agreed outputs and outcomes, providing the states and territories with
increased flexibility in the way they deliver services to the Australian people.

National Partnership Agreements are one element in this. These generally involve:

1. Negotiation between Commonwealth and States of a framework agreement setting out objectives and broad approaches.
2. Development of an agreed implementation plan setting what will be done and how, along with reporting arrangements on progress.
3. Both agreements and implementation plans contain provisions for variation.  

On the surface, this all seems very sensible. However, problems can arise where:

1. The Commonwealth as funder actually dictates the detail of what is to be included in the partnership on a like-it or lump-it basis. The problem is compounded where terms dictated ignore regional diversity, with a one size fits all approach. The only thing that the states can do in these cases is to try to negotiate on points of detail.
2. The Commonwealth essentially dictates what must go into implementation plans. These may include, for example, requirements that require Commonwealth approval of particular and detailed expenditure plans before any action can commence. They may also include a plethora of requirements and sub-objectives.
3. The Commonwealth is inflexible in implementation.

Problems are compounded because all states and territories have their own rules and accountabilities regarding expenditure that must be complied with, including formal legal requirements. These National Partnerships often involve very large sums of money.  The central coordinating agencies in the states and territories are concerned not just with efficiency and probity issues, but also with the management of cash flows.

Very real problems can be created for things such as state budget processes when the timing and scale of payments from the Commonwealth is uncertain. Further, coordinating agencies are concerned about ancillary costs that can arise in implementation that are not covered and which can affect other parts of state budgets.

If we now look at the Northern Territory report into indigenous housing, we find that program delivery there suffered from, among other things, from a multiplicity of sometimes conflicting and unranked objectives with over-complicated decision structures including no less than six decision layers.

Turning to the school building program, the ANAO summarised some of its criticisms this way:

The program design and funding variation process, which is focussed at project/school and ties funding to individual projects within schools, has not allowed the states to manage BER at a program level. The complex and constantly amended funding variation process has not enabled states to readily transfer funds between schools in order to achieve the agreed outcomes. The variation process and adherence to a narrow definition of approved project is considered increased input control, which is at odds with the principles of the IGA (Inter Governmental Agreement) to focus on outcomes.

Without going into the full detail in the report, some of the problems that arose can be summarised this way:

1. The use of bands based on student numbers to determine project size created inequities between schools at the margin (a shift of a few pupils could have dramatic funding impacts), as well as an incentive to manipulate student numbers.
2. The way that funding was announced meant that was meant to be a maximum spend per school actually became a target spend.
3. The requirement that the Commonwealth approve spend on a school-by-school, project-by-project basis, together with over-complicated objectives and reporting requirements, increased administrative load and reduced flexibility. This was further complicated by a ruling that spend below maximum on particular school projects could not be transferred to other projects in the same jurisdiction but must be returned to the Commonwealth. School systems had no flexibility in adjusting spend between schools to achieve maximum value.
4. Conflict arose between the Commonwealth's approach and the centralised approaches to public education in the various states. This was complicated by Commonwealth rules that created tensions between principals and their state employers.
5. Budget confusions arose. In preparing costings, the Commonwealth Finance Department worked on the basis that spend would equal 90% of the maximum per school. This was interpreted by the Department as 90% of schools participating. Since the Department's aim was 100% participation, while the maximum spend had actually become target, it quickly became clear that spend would be greater than budget. This led to financial adjustments, including transfer of funds from social housing, to try to keep spend within aggregate budget approvals.
6. Given the size of the program, variations in Commonwealth payments created cash flow problems in the states. While these were resolved, it cannot have helped state budgeting.
7. In addition to difficulties associated with transfers of money between school projects, initial Commonwealth inflexibility created on-ground difficulties because of varying on-ground conditions. The intent was that all schools and areas should benefit from stimulus spend and in broadly the same time horizon. However, the actual impact of the downturn was quite variable across Australia, while there were also considerable variations in the available supply of skilled labour.
8. Not only were reporting requirements overly complicated, but the data provided inevitable contained so many variations and was based on so many assumptions as to be unusable in measuring progress. 

I said at the outset that the report was unlikely to provide the type of smoking gun desired by the opposition. Despite building delays of the type I forecast at the time, the report concludes that the program did broadly meet the stimulus objectives. Further, in criticising both the Department and other Commonwealth bodies involved, the ANOA explicitly recognised the size of the program and the difficulties involved. The analysis makes it clear that the Department did try within its limits to be flexible and responsive.

  To my mind, and putting aside the inevitable problems always associated with the delivery of such a huge program, the problems that arose were due to the combination of failures in the way the way the program was specified in combination with the broader systemic features such as inflexibility, over-complication, over-specification and over-control that mark the general Rudd Government approach to public policy.

You can see why some of us are so cautious about things such as the Health proposals. Regardless of the general in-principle arguments involved, there has to be a question mark over the likely effectiveness of the proposals in the absence of a change in the Commonwealth Government's approach to public policy and administration.

Hawke report into Australia's home insulation program

One of the problems that the Rudd Government has faced in Australia, one that I have commented on before, is simply that of delivery. In this context, the troubled home insulation program has finally been axed. 

The Australian has provided an on-line copy of the Hawke report into the program. The report is worth a browse for those interested in the practical processes involved in program delivery. 

Rudd Government's problems with green policies

Nick Perry had an interesting post on New Matilda, Another Rudd Green Plan Bites The Dust?, that gives some further examples of the type of thing I have been talking about in my reforming Australian public policy series. A post on my personal blog, Education and Australian skilled migration: a policy catastrophe? gives a further example.

Oddly since it is such a big failure, I am a little cautious about arguing that the skilled migration example necessarily supports my case that we have a pattern of systemic failure in Australian public policy and administration. I suppose I say this because as a former senior public service manager, I am not sure that I would have spotted the particular outcome from the 2005 expansion of  MODL, the Migration Occupations in Demand List, while I might well have argued for hard responses in dealing with the problem.

To the degree that I might use this example in future, then I will be looking at three things:

• the nature of and reasons for the lag in recognising that a major problem was emerging.
• the wording of this announcement and the way this affected events.
• the extent to which the Government has plans in place to respond to the problems likely to emerge from this decision.  

Problems with computer lock-in

In a piece on my personal blog, Sunday Essay - why it's hard to break out of the box, I said at the end:

If I was asked what was the biggest single impediment to change today I would say the computer.

The adoption of computers and IT more broadly has been one of the greatest causes of economic growth because it allowed existing things to be done more efficiently, new things to be done that could not be done before. Yet, as any IT professional knows, there is a considerable difference between simply computerising existing systems (this will certainly make them more efficient) and the design of completely new systems likely to yield the greatest benefit from the new technology.

I first came across the problem of computer lock-in a number of years ago when facilitating the development of a strategic plan for the Australian subsidiary of a global IT company.

Everybody at the workshop agreed that the company's IT and knowledge management systems no long properly reflected either company needs or the marketplace. Everybody also agreed that the sheer cost of changing the system meant that senior management would not agree. They just had to work around it.

You see, once entrenched, the computer protects what is at the expense of what might be.

In a comment, my old friend and now blogging colleague Winton Bates sought further clarification of just what I meant by computer lock-in. I started to respond by way of comment, and then decided that I should discuss the matter here because it is an important and interesting issue from both a management and economics perspective.

The discussion that follows does not address the claim that I made above that the computer has become the single greatest impediment to change today. My purpose is purely explanatory. 

Meaning of Computer Lock-in

By computer lock-in, I simple mean the way in which existing IT systems and approaches can actually impede change, reducing efficiency by locking in past approaches.   

This type of lock-in can occur in different ways.

To begin with, lock-in occurs when the cost of making the changes to systems exceeds the costs associated with system dysfunctionality. Lock-in can also occur where computer based standardisation across the organisation impedes organisational flexibility and response. Lock-in may occur or be intensified because of the interaction between systems, decision processes and budget structures. Finally, because systems affect the way we think, the term might also be applied to thought patterns created by or at least maintained by IT systems.

A Simple Amplification

To begin our discussion, cast your mind back into the past and consider computerisation of existing systems.

  The processing power of the computer allowed existing systems to be standardised and automated with consequent savings. This helped drive major gains in productivity, leading (among other things) to faster economic growth.

No system is perfect. Needs also change over time.

The computerisation of existing systems may have allowed substantial savings, but it also locked in systems as they stood at a point in time. Administrative and processing systems moved from people to capital intensive. Future changes to processes whether to remove existing weaknesses or to meet changing needs now faced a new cost, the cost of altering IT systems.

Fundamental process re-design had to take into account the write-off of existing investment, as well as new investment costs. This made incremental changes at the edges easier. Where fundamental change did occur, then those changes were locked in in the same way because of the capital and other costs of future change.

A Big Enterprise Example     

In the case I was referring to above, a large global IT company, we had a very large, integrated enterprise wide information system that had given the company significant advantage at the time it was introduced. As marketing, production and distribution needs changed over time, the system had been altered at the margin, patched.

At the point in time we are talking about, a growing gap had opened between business needs and system performance. This was recognised. However, the sheer costs involved (cash plus business disruption) in what would be an enterprise wide system replacement made action difficult.

The position was further complicated by the fact that the enterprise, then a household name in computing, had recently been acquired by another, much larger, organisation.

The two enterprise information systems were very different. Both organisations were wrestling as well with just how the two systems might be merged or, at least, interfaced.

Impact on Mergers and Acquisitions

This is actually an example of another lock-in effect, the way in which differing computer systems affect mergers and re-structuring. This one is quite important because system differences have become a significant reason for the failure of mergers to achieve the expected benefits.

To amplify, consider a professional services example, two law firms. Each has different IT systems covering accounts, time keeping and precedent management. Effective merger requires common systems to ensure integration. This comes at a cost, since one single system (new or existing) must be selected. Existing investment must be written off, new investment made, the cost of disruption accommodated.

The sheer size of these costs has been sufficient to prevent some mergers.

Interface with Conventional Economics

In one way, the type of effects that I have dealt with to this point that link to the rise in capital intensity fall within the field of conventional economics, although the focus on physical capital may have made economists initially slow to recognise the rise of capital intensity intensity in the services sector.

Take my law firm example. At one level, this is no different from one box manufacturer taking over another. The box manufacturer faces similar choices in deciding when, if and how to rationalise its expanded production capacity.

  I will return later to the issue as to whether IT investment has different effects from other types of investment. For the moment, I simply note that expressed in conventional terms, the new computing and communications technologies shifted the production function to the right. However, now that the IT investment has taken place and in the absence of further technological change, my analysis suggests that returns on future investment will be more akin to moves along the production function rather than shifts in the function. This is part of the reason I have argued that future productivity gains from IT are likely to be lower.

Cost, Benefits and Standardisation    

Another example of lock-in arises where costs and benefits are not evenly distributed or perhaps even properly identified.

Consider, for example, a case where a particular unit has a need that is not being met by the existing information system. They have the need and will benefit from the change. However, the cost for any such change must come from another budget bucket, while the proposed change itself must meet standardised enterprise requirements, including the need for protection of the existing network.

Here we have an example where the lock-in effects lie in the need to maintain a degree of central control over systems once established. We can think of these effects along a number of dimensions. I accept that one can argue as to whether these should truly be classified as lock-in effects in the way I am using the term. However, I would argue that we need to consider the effects in combination.

• communications: emails provided an enormous initial productivity boost, but the sheer volume of email traffic created storage demands, risk management issues and retention and access issues. This meant that after the initial gains, organisations then faced added costs in managing and maintaining its email systems. There are also continuing problems with the inappropriate substitution of emails for other forms of communication including the telephone, personal contact or simply a hand-written note. 
• internet and intranet: the increased use of the internet and internal intranets for communication and to access information yielded substantial productivity gains. Like the email, these gains have peaked with the need for rules on use, greater filtering against inappropriate use and network protection adding to complexity and costs.
• access and retention: the ever increasing volume of often useless data, along with storage on individual hard drives, has created real problems for access and retention. In extreme cases that I have seen, up to forty different versions of the same document can be found. Just knowing which is the latest version is a problem, let alone the pain of key word searches as the computer chugs away trawling through the mass of material.
• protection: the need to protect networks means that all organisations have had to develop rules as to what can be attached to networks and by whom. While necessary, this has its own costs such as delay and support costs, as well as individual frustration.

Cost Shifting vs Cost Reduction

A very particular problem has arisen with IT systems that I call cost shifting.

We all know about things such as call centres that centralise client service. This is actually cost shifting because it reduces the paid time to required to service customers, while increasing the amount of time the customer has to spend accessing the service. Of course there are cases where the customer benefits, but anybody who has spent long times trying to get an answer will know what I mean.

What is less well recognised is that cost shifting is alive and well within organisations from the measurable to the not so easily measurable.

Consider, for example, the replacement of word processor operators by individual authors. This does offer productivity gains. However, for certain types of documents, a word processor operator is far more skilled and can produce a document quicker and at a higher standard than any individual author. The problem here is that the costs of the word processor operator are easily measured in budget terms, the opportunity and quality costs of author production less easy to measure.

Very similar issues arise in other areas such as the substitution of on-line HR kiosks for HR staff. This can be far more efficient. However, it can also result in highly paid managers spending time on tasks that could be done more quickly by a lower paid HR person.

All this is in fact testable. However, and this is the connection to computer lock-in, once the on-line system has been set up, it can be very difficult and expensive to introduce an alternative.

Computer Lock-in and Innovation

All successful organisations depend upon a combination of people who do their ordinary job as well as possible with innovators who bring about change.

There is always a balance issue here. Too many of the first and the organisation will struggle to really improve. Too many of the second, and the organisation may become unstable, unable to deliver efficiently. 

The problem with the computer is that it in facilitating standardisation and control it has switched the balance between the two.   

Conclusion

Returning now to my point as to whether IT investment has different types of effects to other investments, I would argue that it does because it is just so pervasive.

The nearest equivalent that I can think of is the invention of the production line. Its impact on industrial efficiency was huge, yet it also had costs. The production line is still with us, but has now been part replaced by far more varied production systems in themselves based on computers.

I wonder whether the same thing will happen now with computer based systems themselves. Certainly I feel the current computer lock-in is past its use-by date.                    

The case for reform in Australian public policy – measurement and child welfare

In The case for reform in Australian public policy – introducing measurement I referred to the rise of the modern obession with measurement.

All Government policies and programs now come with cascading and generally very simple numeric perfomance measures. It seems so reasonable: if we don't measure, how can we assess perfomance?

As it happened, yesterday's Age carried an example of  the type of problem that can arise. I quote:

A scathing Ombudsman's report has identified gross deficiencies in Victoria's child protection service, with workers manipulating figures to cover up children neglected by the system.

The problem is that the performance measures become an end in themselves. Where, as is often the case, the figures are simplistic or even unachievable, then manipulation of results to meet targets or conceal the failure to meet targets can and does occur.

To my mind, this has now become something of a cancer eating away at the heart of Australia's system of public administration. Sounds extreme? Perhaps, but there is an increasing volume of evidence to support my position.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

Next

The case for reform in Australian public policy – introducing measurement

Think of this post as clearing a little ground.

So far in this series I have focused on unforeseen consequences flowing from policy changes. I now want to broaden the focus a little to bring in the current obsession with measurement.

Back in March 2007 in Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 2 - Notes on Major Trends I briefly discussed the rise of standards, the quality movement and the Importance of measurement. Then in another post, Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on Public Policy 3 - Publish or Perish Case Study, I looked at the rise of the citation index as an example of the rise of measurement.

Don't get me wrong. I am a great believer in the importance of measurement. Without it, you cannot assess progress. It's just that the whole thing has got out of kilter.

Over the next few posts I want to use a mixture of case studies and analysis to sketch out in a preliminary way the problems that we have created for ourselves though our obsession with measurement.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up.

Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

Next

The case for reform in Australian public policy – a methodological note

Now that I have started this series, I have been thinking about the difficulties involved in demonstrating beyond doubt the need for change in approaches to public administration and public policy. We can see this if we look at my preliminary posts.

My focus to this point has been on unforeseen consequences, although other issues are already creeping in.

Consider the NSW child welfare case.

I have no doubt that the near collapse of the system as a consequence of mandatory reporting was unforeseen. No Government in its right mind would deliberately inflict such pain on itself. But could the result have been foreseen? After all, unforeseen results are common in public policy. I actually think that it could have been checked through the normal practical operational analysis that should be done in advance of such changes.

Whether this case was unforeseeable or simply unforeseen does not, of itself, support my case that there is a systemic problem that crosses Australian jurisdictions and requires major change to overcome. A few case studies does not make a case. They may be isolated examples of failure. Rather, I have to show that there is a pattern of behaviour and of results.

In doing so, I have to disentangle, categorise and simplify, a variety of interacting variables.

Staying with the unforeseen case, there is a difference between an unforeseen and an adverse effect. An unforeseen effect could in fact be positive. An adverse effect may not be really unforeseen. A Government may argue that you cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, that the illegal detention of Australian citizens is a price worth paying to protect our borders. In this event, we have a new set of arguments. Did we in fact want an omelet? Did we have to break the eggs? Could we have achieved the same result in a different way?

I also have a problem in explaining how things work to a lay reader who does not understand the system and may indeed be part of the problem!

In demanding that the Tasmanian Government link drivers licenses to school attendance, the Tasmanian opposition obviously felt that it was playing to public opinion. The rise of issues politics, the increasing tendency to play too often short term public reactions, is one of the core reasons why we now have a systemic public policy problem.

I will be discussing this a little later in the series, again using case studies to illustrate my points. For the moment, I simply note that it adds to the difficulties in bringing about real change.

Postscript on drivers licenses

Just a personal postscript on the drivers license issue.

Youngest is working part time at the airport in Sydney, starting at 5.30am. This morning she drove.

Both daughters started to learn to drive under the fifty hour regime. When the NSW Government changed the rules from 50 to 120 hours, those who already had their learner's permits stayed on the old regime, but had to acquire their license within a certain time frame.

Eldest busy with university, sport and an active social life let her permit lapse. With parents, public transport and boyfriends with licenses, she did not need to drive herself. Now she is on the 120 hour regime, regrets not moving forward, but is kind of stuck for the present.

There is still a boy thing about cars in that boys are more likely to make the effort. In a very odd way, this has reinforced an old gender stereotype, boys who drive, girls who are driven.

On the way to the airport I asked youngest how many hours she now had up. She said twenty two. She has to get to fifty and her provisional license by 21 December or go onto the 120 hours. So there is now a fair bit of pressure.

At twenty two hours and expressed in skill terms, youngest is not ready yet to get her license. She can drive without turning my already grey hair greyer, but the skills aren't automatic.

Part of her problem is that her driving practice has been sporadic. As she said, you have to do it in solid blocks. A second problem is that she is learning on a manual.

On the way to the airport, I told her about the attempted car-jacking that failed because those doing it could not drive a manual - see A problem with gears. She laughed, and said that she must tell her friends, all of whom are learning on automatics.

Under the old regime, you got your license and then drove without restriction. There were a lot of crashes in my age group because people could drive, but actually pushed outside the envelope set by their skill sets and judgement. We now have quite restrictive provisional license requirements intended to address this problem.

In theory, the whole system was meant to be output (skills) focused. Once you got to a certain skills point, then you got you license. However, there were then restrictions on what you could do for a period to allow skills to build through practice.

In practice, the whole system has become quite rigidly time and input based. It is now actually easier and a lot quicker to get an unrestricted pilots license than a NSW drivers license.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

Next

The case for reform in Australian public policy – a few straws in the wind

In the last few posts in this series I have looked at the unforeseen consequences of policy decisions, starting with rivers of grog in the Northern Territory, then looking at two NSW cases, mandatory reporting of child abuse and the extended hours required to get a NSW driving license

In this post I simply want to provide a few more straws in the wind.

One problem we face is the tendency to load unrelated things togther.

Back in July, the opposition in Tasmania was suggesting that young people should be prevented from getting a drivers' license if their school attendance was not good. How dumb can you get? School attendance has nothing to do with the question of how well can you drive. Those who most need their license for things like work also tend to be poorer school attendees.

A second tendency in a spin dominated world is to claim success for a single event or action.

Again in July, the headline of a NSW a story read P-Plate crashes down 45 per cent. The first paragraph said:

Following the introduction of no-tolerance law reforms in New South Wales, over 88,000 P-Plate drivers have been taken off the roads.

Fair enough you might say. What a good result, crashes down 45%.

A fact first. There has been a decline in the road toll for young drivers in NSW; 38 17 to 20-year-olds died in 2006, while 20 died in 2007.

So there have been over 88,000 license suspensions over two years for a saving of 18 deaths. I wonder where the extra time for a driving license fits?

Staying in NSW, there have always been fines for the growing volume of traffic offences. Then demerit points were added for each offence, so many points and you lose your license. Then demerit points for offences were increased. Suddenly so many ordinary middle class people were suffering license suspension for minor offences that the Government has been forced to back-off.

NSW locks up in jail four times as many young people relative to population size than Victoria. Seventy per cent of these re-offend within twelve months. In July, the NSW Government commissioned a study to find out why the State jails so many.

Part of the answer simply lies in criminal justice rules introduced to get tough on crime. Another reason lies (I think) in the increased numbers of people spending time for non-payment of fines.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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The case for reform in Australian public policy – NSW driving licenses

Continuing my analysis of the impact of unforeseen side effects on public policy, this post looks at the continuing impact of the NSW decision to increase the hours required to get a driving license from 50 to 120.

Again, this was one of those decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time. It also attracted public support because it was seen as a way of reducing the road toll on young drivers.

I first wrote on this issue back in May 2008 in Saturday Morning Musings - the burden of compliance, using it to illustrate a broader point. Leaving aside social and equity issues, my concerns were cost (at least $350 million annually to NSW parents or trainee drivers on my rough back-of-envelope calculations) compared to benefits. I wondered whether the same objective might not be achieved in better ways.

Twelve months later in The continuing insanity of NSW's approach to driving licenses I complained of the way that the extra hours were creating a growing social inequity (poor people could not afford the costs involved), together with a growing tendency of young people to falsify their hours.

All the anecdotal evidence is that both trends have continued.A further trend has also emerged.

Any trainer knows that concentrated practice is required to obtain a skill. The problem with the new rules on NSW driver licenses is that the sheer length of time involved means that kids are doing it in bits with gaps. Those sometimes lengthy gaps reduce the value of the practice.

Postscript:

The NSW Government has finally bowed to the inevitable and introduced two changes to the NSW driving license system.

Drivers over 25 will no longer need to keep log books. The practical effect is that the 120 hours no longer applies to them.

For drivers under 25, every hour of practice with a licensed driving instructor will now count as three up to a limit of ten hours. This means that middle class kids with access to a bit of money will now need to do only 100 hours, including ten hours of licensed instruction, to get to 120 hours.

Kids who do not have access to the money are still stuck with 120 hours. Mind you, if they wait until they are 25, then they do not need any hours at all.    

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.
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The case for reform in Australian public policy - NSW child welfare

In my last post in this series, The case for reform in Australian public policy - rivers of grog, I used a post by Bob Gosford to introduce the concept of unforeseen side effects. This post provides the next example.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

NSW had a problem with child abuse. To help overcome this, the NSW Government introduced rules making it mandatory for professionals such as doctors to report suspected child abuse.

Such a sensible idea. The only problem is that no one foresaw that the consequent volume of calls would bring the NSW child welfare system to its knees.

You see, there was no effective way of triaging the volume of calls to allow for effective follow up. Just as bad, the resource demands and pressures created actually reduced the capacity of the NSW Department to do its ordinary job.

The end result was scandal and a commission of inquiry.

Those interested can find further information in the following posts.

• 11 November 2007. NSW - Problems in Child Welfare looks at problems and a history of the early evolution of the NSW child welfare system.
• 2 January 2008. Australia - failures in public policy points to some of the reasons why child welfare had become a mess.
• 12 February 2008. Musings - Inflation, Volunteering, Child Welfare and Educational Standards includes a discussion of child welfare issues.
• 4 October 2008. Child abuse in Australia - a case of misused numbers? looks at the abuse of child protection statistics.
• 26 November 2008, Wood Commission Report into the NSW Child Welfare System provides a link through the report itself.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming public administration on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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The case for reform in Australian public policy - rivers of grog

Yesterday in We need to reform Australia's approach to public policy I said that I was going to dedicate writing on this blog for one month to just one topic, the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

My first piece of evidence is Bob Gosford's How Canberra keeps the NT’s “rivers of grog” flowing. Bob lives in the small township of Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs on the southern fringes of the Tanami Desert on land owned by people of the Warlpiri and Anmatyerre language groups.

In considering this piece of evidence, look at the way in which policies designed to be "tough" have in fact had the opposite effect.

This is an example of what are called unforeseen side effects. To some degree these are inevitable in public policy. The challenge is to find ways of minimising them, or of identifying and correcting them once they do occur.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure.

You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

Next post

We need to reform Australia's approach to public policy

Back in September Economic planning for the longer term - introduction was meant to be the start of a new series. Two months later and I have still to get going, although I have written a fair bit of related material in the meantime.

So much has been happening.

In The Rudd Government's longer term success or failure - straws in the wind I tried to set out some of the process challenges that I thought the Australian Rudd Government had to meet. In a very short post, Ken Henry inspires Ross Gittins' four big bugs, I reported on a senior Australian economic commentator's deeply pessimistic view of the future.

In Saturday Morning Musings - a change in writing direction I provided an initial report on the thinking that I had been doing about my own writing. As part of this, I have decided to dedicate writing on this blog for one month to just one topic, the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration. This will give me a chance to pull together past writing, as well as set out new ideas.

This is quite a complicated topic, in part because so many people are locked into current thinking.

I hope that you will find the series at least interesting.

Next Post

Staff performance measurement in Australia's universities

According to a story in the Australian Financial Review (Monday 24 August 2009) by Joanne Mather, and I quote:

Vice-chancellors are deploying corporate style tactics to lift employee output and create leaner, more responsive workforces before a new era of performance-base funding agreements with the Commonwealth.

This example of modern corporate-speak took me by surprise. In the same story, Joanne quoted the VC of the University of Canberra, Stephen Porter. Speaking of the introduction of performance based at his university, he said: This wouldn't raise an eyebrow in the corporate sector.

I am sure that Professor Parker is right. My problem is that I am far from sure that the corporate sector is in fact the right model. I thought this before, but since then we have had to global financial crisis caused in part by by the combination of performance measurement and performance based pay.

To extend this argument consider the words used by Joanne Mather in her first paragraph quoted above.

Note, first, the use of the word employee. Of course university staff are "employees", but they are also more than this. I wonder how the focus on "employees" fits with other (perhaps outdated) concepts - community of scholars and academic freedom are two that come to mind.

Still continuing with Joanne's word, the aim of the new approaches is to increase "output". This got me wondering. Just how the universities are to measure this? How might this be related to individual performance?

I tried to think through just how I might measure output. Universities are complex multi-variate institutions. To really develop a working output model, you first have to specify the outputs, then determine the relationships between these outputs and the various elements (inputs) contributing to the outputs. I can see how I might do this in a general sense, but I find it hard to see how to it with the degree of specificity implied by Ms Mather's comment.

The use of the word "lean" in the way that Ms Mather uses it originally came from lean manufacturing, the slimming down of manufacturing systems to gain maximum value in process terms while minimising inventory. Later it became fashionable in corporate restructuring - getting rid of fat to create the lean organisation.

The results of this approach in the corporate sector have in fact been very mixed. A particular problem has arisen in balancing short term gain with long term risks and costs. In Australian electricity distribution, for example, the newly corporatised or privatised entities cut the number of linesmen. This did provide a short term gain that flowed to the bottom line, but later led to severe shortages with added costs in recruitment and training, as well as reduced operational efficiency.

Of course, a more responsive workforce is (in general) a good thing. Here, however, a question has to be asked: responsive to whom? In the university case, responsiveness to corporate demands can conflict with corporate objectives or indeed academic and professional responsibilities.

I actually do think that Australian universities need to be more responsive in meeting student needs and in the development and modification of courses. One project that I worked on involved the development and introduction of a new vocational course. This should have been relatively simple. The project failed because the university, a major metropolitan institution, simply could not get its act together.

The point about this example, however, is that the delay linked to the interaction between people and systems. This was the core reason for delay and final abandonment.

Apart from my own concerns about what I see as a decline in the real standards of Australia's universities, my experience as a consultant makes me very cautious. Speaking as someone who argued strongly for the adoption of corporate approaches into the public and not-for-profit sectors, I no longer see the gains I used to.       

Musings in the midst of economic downturn

I have just finished up-dating the reference posts at the end of an up-date post, Ken Henry, Malcolm Turnbull and the Australian Government's bank deposit guarantee - issues arising, that I did yesterday on my personal blog on the evolving crisis in Australia's non-bank financial sector. Yesterday afternoon the total of frozen funds had reached $A5 billion. This morning the total appears around $A8.4 billion.

This crisis was triggered by the Government's bank guarantee package leading to a flight to safety. Federal Treasurer Swan may be right when he says other factors are involved, but the package was the proximate cause. The Government's response will probably be announced some time today.

Looking back over past posts, I decided that it might be worthwhile providing a summary of some of the linked themes that I have written on over the last three years. I am not going to provide links at this point. I simply want to capture the main elements.

As a former senior Commonwealth public servant who has also dealt extensively with Government from the other side of the fence, I have written a fair bit on public policy and public administration. One reason for doing so has been a growing feeling of discomfort at what I see as an increasingly mechanistic approach to public administration and policy including the mis-application of approaches that I once supported.

To understand the nature of the changes that had taken place I looked at the evolution of public administration since the second world war, pointing to the 1970s as the tip decade that marked the end of the old, the start of new approaches. I think that this is relevant today since we are at another such point.

In writing I pointed to the way in which new attitudes to the role of the state combined with new market based ideas and new approaches to management to create a new public administration/public policy orthodoxy. In doing so, I also tried to demonstrate that many of the new ideas in public administration were sub-sets of broader trends, including the rise of quantification and standards based approaches. In turn, these linked to the rise of performance measurement, key performance indicators and performance based bay.

I remain a supporter of many of the new approaches, but in their place. The problem now is that they have become deeply entrenched, internalised, and are in fact applied back to the private sector through law, regulation and Government procurement.

Much of my writing as a management professional has been concerned with nuts and bolts stuff, trying to help managers do their job better, to help firms manage and plan better. However, my increasing dissatisfaction with modern management, with what I see as short-sighted behaviour, with the importance of fashion, has led to a growing emphasis on a return to more old-fashioned management techniques. A return to basics.

This led one of my colleagues to comment on what he saw as an increasingly old-fashioned flavour to my management comments. Perhaps that's true, although I have also been trying to develop new thinking in areas such as the resilient organisation and evidence-based management, although these too are in danger of becoming fashions. Certainly the old-fashioned tag is dangerous for some-one who is getting older!

Whatever the case may be, I find it increasingly difficult in advising, in trying to bring in new approaches, to hold my tongue when I know that things won't work. Perhaps it is time to wear the old-fashioned tag with pride?

The professional areas in which I work are themselves sub-sets of broader society. As a strategist and social commentator I am fascinated by the processes of social and cultural change. Here some of my recent writing has focused on two main, linked, themes.

The first is the growing aversion in society to risk, the belief that risk can be controlled, that adverse outcomes must be prevented by regulation or law. This is both dumb and dangerous. Risks can be managed, they cannot be controlled. To think otherwise creates a recipe for failure.

The second theme is the burden of compliance costs. In trying to avoid risk, we not only limit individual freedom to do things, we also create an economic burden that is now (to my mind) more than we can afford.

I have written about these issues in economic, management and public policy contexts. To take a public policy example, child welfare policy in NSW is a mess. In our desire to avoid things such as child molestation, we have created structures including mandatory reporting that are no longer workable. Those struggling to deliver in such systems finally give up.

More broadly, a fair bit of my writing is concerned with longer term issues.

I do not believe that one can forecast the future. There are just too many variables, the interactions are too complex. However, it is possible to identify trends, to develop frameworks, that assist understanding of the present as well as planning for the future.

This is not always easy to get across in a world dominated by activity based short term targets. To illustrate by example.

The impact of demographic change and especially the aging of populations in many western countries has been known for some time. In similar vein, the feminisation of the professions has been a feature for a number of years, as has the changing attitudes of staff to work.

For at least the last eight years I have been arguing that firms need to consider these trends in business and work force planning. Only now as these trends bite at operational level are organisations starting to take them into account. For some, the price will be high as they scrabble for workers in an increasingly competitive environment.

It may sound odd to you to be saying this at a time of economic downturn. In fact, this is just the time to be considering long term issues.

The downturn will pass. As it does, the core underlying trends will emerge with added force. Those firms that survived but who have focused on the short term may not survive the upturn.

Appeals to Authority and the trap of experience

Over on his blog, Thomas and I have been having a conversation about the value to Australia of a national space program. I am a supporter, Thomas is opposed. I mentioned that I had had an involvement in this area in the past. Thomas accepted that experience, but politely maintained his position.

Thomas was of course right to do so. However, as happens in discussions with Thomas, our conversation took my thinking in a different direction, the problems associated with appeals to authority and the associated trap that can be created by our own experiences.

My mention of my past role in the national space program could be interpreted as an appeal to authority. I have done this, therefore you should listen to me.

At a personal level I am in fact very suspicious of appeals to authority. As soon as x says that I am a scientist or a Government minister, therefore you should listen to me, warning flags go up the mast.

Just because x is a Government minister, a scientist or, for that matter, someone previously involved with the re-establishment of a national space program does not, of itself, make their views valid.

If a Government minister makes an announcement about a new policy, explaining what it is and the reasons why, we can classify this as giving information or opinion. If, as happened sometimes with anti-terrorism legislation, a minister says that we should go along with a change because the Government knew best, then that is an appeal to authority.

Of course we have to take into account experience and knowledge. When Thomas writes about American politics, I read with interest because he knows his stuff. When a scientist speaks about his area of expertise, I listen because he or she is an expert. However, I never accept even expert views in an unqualified fashion. Experts are wrong too often.

Our thinking, writing and actions always draw from our own experience and knowledge. Further, that knowledge is transmuted through the mental constructs that we use to interpret the world or our own fields of knowledge. With time, our experience accretes to our thinking in ever thickening layers like the build up of silt on a delta. The silt can provide fertile crops, but the river itself slows and meanders.

In consulting, we talk about the half life of knowledge as around a year. Consultants mine their own experiences and knowledge in dealing with clients. If they are not adding new knowledge, then they run the risk that the world will have moved on without them.

I frequently refer to my own experiences in writing. Like everybody, I use those experiences to interpret the world. However, I have always to be conscious of the danger that my views may no longer be relevant.

I love history because here I can bring to bear my full range of knowledge and experience in asking questions of and interpreting the evidence. Unlike science where some of the greatest discoveries are made by the young because they have a greater capacity to break out, the writing of history often gains from the silt of experience.

Current events and activities are a different matter. Here we have to decide what experience is still relevant, what must be put aside.

Take public policy and administration as an example. Over the last year or so, I have written about this area a lot, tracing through and interpreting some of the changes that have taken place. I think that I can claim to have a reasonable degree of expertise.

This helps me to interpret and explain. However, it can also be a problem. In dealing with Government systems whether as a consultant, contractor or employee, what is is what matters.

At an operational level, this requires a split personality. All the knowledge of what was, what might be, what should be, has to be put aside because it can interfere with the simple requirement to get a job done. In fact, over ten years ago now I decided to withdraw from consulting to the Government sector because I felt that it had all become just too hard! I wasn't enjoying it.

Drawing this meander to a close, I think that in making and interpreting claims to authority based on experience, it pays to be cautious. Like the old position of engineer on an aircraft, the world may simply have moved on.

Systemic Rigidities in Modern Management 1 - Setting the Scene

In Problems of redundancy and systemic failure I pointed to what I saw as a disconnect between the way organisations were organised and the way people worked. In this post I want to extend my argument using a generalised public sector case study.

Consider a modern public sector organisation.

This has a corporate plan that is meant to describe what the organisation will do over a five year planning period. Each year a business plan is prepared, describing activities over the following twelve months. The individual units within the organisation prepare their own twelve month business plans. There are also a series of published policy statements and strategies setting out approaches and aspirations in particular areas.

The organisation is headed by a CEO. There is a departmental executive that meets regularly to consider policy and operational issues. Each major unit within the organisation has its own executive that also meets regularly to consider policy and operational issues within the unit. Because Departmental activities can cross units, there are a variety of coordinating measures in place, including standing and ad hoc committees as well as standardised consultation procedures.

Activities are monitored and controlled through standardised monthly reporting procedures that measure results against plan. The CEO has a performance based contract with the Government. Very senior staff are also on contract. All staff are meant to have performance agreements that cascade down the hierarchy.

The organisation operates in an area that can be politically sensitive. For that reason, there are a series of rules and procedures governing external contact including the media. These include clearance procedures for every public piece of official paper whether in physical or electronic form.

The organisation manages substantial assets and has a significant revenue stream. A range of measures exist to prevent fraud and ensure probity. The organisation has also adopted project management approaches with a defined cross-organisation methodology.

Apart from its own internal policies and procedures, the organisation operates within a complex web of centrally defined policies, procedures and reporting requirements intended to govern broader public sector activities.

I suspect that this description will sound familiar to many. It all sounds so reasonable. Yet the problem is that the system does not work very well. Part of the reasons for this reflect the unique features of the public sector environment, part are common to all organisations.

In my next post I will look at the public sector features.

When Trust Fails 1 - Introduction

Corruption problems with the NSW Government owned RailCorp have been highlighted during a four week public hearing by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Corruption examples included a contracts relationship manager who manipulated the electronic procurement system to steal more than $A500,000; a second contracts scam is alleged to have cost the organisation more than $A4 million; while a third involved secret payments for work of more than $A1 million.

The current inquiry is one a series since 1992 that together suggest major systemic problems within the State owned corporation.

According to the barrister assisting the Commission, Chris Ronalds SC quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, the core problem lies in the organisation's culture:

The prevailing culture is one of indifference or possibly intimidation, with minimal attempt to investigate.

Where serious breaches of conduct have been exposed....the disciplinary tone has been a slap on the wrist. This approach breeds an entrenched culture of condonation of unethical behaviour, with various scams being able to be run by different people in silos, and a failure of internal system robustness, the culture of cover up is entrenched.

I do not pretend to be expert on RailCorp. However, I do find the case interesting as an example of what appears to be systemic failure. I also find it interesting because I had formed the view that that the approach to the control of corruption in NSW is fundamentally flawed and indeed creates its own problems.

Given this, I thought that it might be interesting to explore some of these issues in a series of irregular posts.

Problems with Freedom of Information

One of the side-elements in the current Australian election campaign has been a focus on Freedom of Information. These are sets of laws at Federal and State level that give the citizen, and the media, the right to access Government information.

I have always been a strong supporter of Freedom of Information (FOI), but now am having some doubts as to scope.

As a senior Commonwealth Public Servant, I used to give my Minister the best advice I could. I gave arguments for and against, along with recommendations. Sometimes I wrote thought pieces, trying to tease arguments out without setting positions. Often, the advice was very frank.

At the time I wrote, the thought that my advice might be revealed was not relevant. Had it been, I would not have written that way.

I have recently had cause to look at advice now provided by a Department to a Minister. There is no real equivalent to the type of advice I used to provide.

Part of this is due to changes in style. But part is also due to the fact that advice may be revealed through an FOI request.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on Public Policy 6 - A View from the Past

Photo: Brassey House, Canberra

Note to readers: This is one of a series of posts discussing changes in public administration and their impact on public policy. Each post has a full list of posts at the end. You may care to start at the introductory post and then follow through.

In my last post in this series I spoke of the spread of the New Zealand model of public administration, starting with its adoption in New South Wales. I now want to take some current examples of the application of the model in practice. However, in doing so I face a problem.

The constructs and language built into the model have become so pervasive, so accepted, that it can be hard for people to see the sometimes subtle differences between current orthodoxy and past views. This can make it hard for them to see the ways in which current approaches to public administration affect the development of public policy for both better and worse.

I recently asked some NSW colleagues to define the difference between strategy and policy. They had some difficulty in doing so.

NSW public servants live in a world of strategies, plans and action items, a world of cascading performance agreements that are meant to specify what each person will do in the immediate future.

This is a very different world from that I found when I first joined the Commonwealth Public Service. For that reason, I thought that it might be helpful in this series if I described that past world to provide a counterpoint to discussions of the present. The material that follows is partially autobiographical because I am providing a personal perspective.

Recruitment

The Commonwealth Public Service recruiters arrived on campus at the University of New England (UNE) in the middle of 1966.

In my second post in this series I spoke of the expansion in the role of Government after the Second World War. To meet the people needs created by this expansion, the Commonwealth Public Service Board wanted to build up the number of graduates in the service. In doing so, it faced certain problems.

While universities had begun to expand, the number of graduates was still relatively small by today's standards, so there was a fair degree of competition for applicants. Further, Sydney and Melbourne graduates were very reluctant to accept jobs in Canberra. This meant that public service graduate recruitment had a special focus on universities outside those cities.

At that stage university students considering the Commonwealth Public Service option had five major choices.

The Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs and Trade) had the highest pulling power because Australia's rapidly growing Diplomatic Service offered a variety of overseas positions and considerable prestige. Our diplomats were regarded as a special cadre that carefully selected and then grew its own. Stories about their selection techniques abounded, especially the cocktail parties put on for applicants during which behaviour was carefully tested. I had vaguely thought of applying, but then ruled this out largely because of my views on the Vietnam War.

The Department of Primary Industry and its research arm, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, attracted UNE's agricultural economists and at that stage was almost a UNE club because of the number of UNE people. Alf Maiden, the Department's permanent head, had been one of Dad's first students at the New England University College. I was not interested having ruled economics out at that point.

The same argument applied to Treasury. One of the original departments set up at Federation, Treasury had developed from a core financial control and book keeping function into Canberra's most powerful policy Department, ranking in external prestige only second to the Department of External Affairs. Treasury tried to recruit only good honours economics graduates, so I might not in fact have got in even had I been prepared to consider this option.

Treasury's main Canberra rival, the Department of Trade and Industry, was the fourth possibility. Also a foundation Department on the trade side, DTI had become a very powerful Department under John McEwen as Minister, J G (Jack) Crawford as permanent head.

In retrospect, DTI would have been a logical choice for me if I was going to join the Commonwealth Public Service. I had linkages with the Country Party, the party McEwen headed, while Crawford was a friend of my father. I had aspirations to become a Country Party parliamentarian, so DTI experience might have provided an added base.

The DTI recruiter in fact tried very hard to get me to apply, but none of the potential advantages occurred to me because the Commonwealth Public Service Board recruiter had already interested me on an alternative option, the Administrative Trainee Program.

At that point the Board faced a major graduate recruitment problem. The Departments I have talked about had sufficient power to attract graduates, but the Board wanted to build graduate numbers across the whole Service and was struggling because of negative attitudes, not just about Canberra but about the Service itself. The Administrative Trainee Program had been developed to overcome this.

I saw the Board representative out of curiosity but with no clear intention of applying to join the Public Service. Although I did not know it at the time, I fitted the profile the Board was looking for. I was articulate and reasonably bright, had reasonable academic results, but had also been actively involved in student life including editing the student newspaper and holding office positions in a number of student societies. He therefore set out to sell me on the Program.

He explained that the scheme had been developed to train future Public Service leaders. If accepted, I would go through a year's training combining a mix of formal courses with job rotations. At the end of the year I would be placed with a mutually agreed Department. I was attracted to the concept and ended up applying and being accepted.

Training Program

Upon arrival at Canberra airport I was met by a white commonwealth car, one of those cars used to drive ministers, and driven to Brassey House.

Named after Sir Thomas Brassey, Governor of Victoria from 1885 to 1900 and first Earl of Brassey from 1911 until his death in in 1918, Brassey House was completed in 1927 to coincide with the establishment of the Federal Parliament in Canberra and used as a guest house for the exclusive use of members of parliament and mid-level government officials relocating to Canberra. It had been extended in the early sixties to include conference facilities.

I met most 0f my fellow trainees the following day.

The Board and Department of External Affairs had agreed to combine both the diplomatic and admin training programs for the initial six weeks, so we were quite a big group. Ages ranged from 19 (many people then finished their pass degree at 19) to the early twenties. Both groups were pretty bright and came from all over Australia.

One of the older people in the admin group was George Brouwer, now Victorian Ombudsman. A serious person, George had been born in the Dutch East Indies just prior to the Japanese invasion. We used to tease George simply because he was so serious. Others in the group included Alan Rose and Roger Beale, both of whom were to become department heads.

Life revolved around Brassey House. We worked reasonably hard during the day then socialised at night, drinking rum and coke and playing cards. There were also some social functions where we met previous admin trainees and diplomatic cadets.We also started finding our way round Canberra.

The city was then a period of rapid growth. The total population of the ACT in 1945 was just 13,000. By 1957 this had increased to 39,000, then to 50,000 in 1960 and to 96,000 in 1966. Australia was carefully but rapidly building a national capital that was intended to be a symbol for the nation. With rare exceptions, everyone in Canberra came from somewhere else, so it was very easy to make friends.

I think that there was another advantage in this emigrant mix as well. It made for a diverse public service that knew from first hand experience about attitudes and experiences across Australia. This tempered the natural arrogance that can come from being part of the central government.

I found the training program itself very interesting. I also find it interesting looking back because its structure and content tell us something about the changes that have taken place in Australia.

The public service was then seen as a career service in the Westminster tradition. This meant that it was meant to be a neutral, independent, anonymous, career service: neutral in the sense that we served the elected Government regardless of its party composition; independent in that the Government of the day did not control personnel matters (this was the responsibility of the Public Service Board), while Departmental heads held permanent appointments; anonymous in that while individual public servants might be well known, our advice to and discussions with Government were private to that Government; a career service in that people served for the long term, rising through the ranks.

Something of the flavour can be seen from the comments quoted by Patrick Weller of two senior and very well known public servants to the 1970's Royal Commission into the Commonwealth Public Service. Asked about the objectives of his Department, Sir Lennox Hewitt replied:

I have not previously encountered the suggestion of objectives for a department of state. The Royal Commission will presumably not need anything more from the department than a copy of the administrative arrangements.

Sir Frederick Wheeler's response to the same question was:

The function of the Treasury is to advise and assist the Treasurer in the discharge of his responsibilities. The objectives of the Treasury are, in essence, to carry out this function as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Our training reflected this traditional view of the Public Service. So we learned at a nuts and bolts level about the structure of Government, about the roles of Parliament, Cabinet, the Executive Council and Departments of State. We also learned about personnel management in the Public Service including its history.

We spent a fair bit of time talking about what would now be called ethics and values hearing a variety of speakers including Wilfred Jarvis. A key issue was the role and preservation of individual ethics.

If our role was to help a Government define and carry out its policies, to use Sir Frederick's words, as effectively and efficiently as possible, what were we do if we disagreed? Clearly we should provide advice pointing to issues and problems the Government should consider, but once a decision was made our obligation was to carry it out. But what, then, if the decision was so badly flawed (at least in our view) that we could not (or should not) in all conscience implement it?

We discussed the case of Adolf Eichman as the supreme public servant. He had been given a task by Government, the extermination of the Jews, a task that he certainly carried out as effectively and efficiently as possible. We also talked about the techniques that the North Koreans had used in brainwashing prisoners during the Korean War, at the way in which individual values could be broken down. A key message was the way in which a series of small personal decisions/actions could progressively erode an ethical position or set of beliefs.

I am not sure that we reached a conclusion beyond the need to be aware of ethical issues and the necessity to resign should the conflict be too profound. However, I was to find the discussion very helpful later in handling specific ethical conflicts.

We also discussed Australian society. Professor Jerzy (George) Zubrzycki , for example, spoke to us on the migrant experience, outlining among other things the process of integration that the migrants had gone through over several generations. We also learned a range of technical skills.

Some knowledge of economics was regarded as critical. Professor Burgess Cameron told us that he intended to cover the entire undergraduate economics course in, from memory, fifteen sessions and indeed he tried very hard to do this. In response I had to ring my father, get him to dust off my economics text books and send them down to Canberra by train.

We also did some practical work including a major in-basket exercise running over a number of days in which we each took particular roles - I represented the Department of Shipping and Transport - undertaking research, writing minutes (correspondence within Departments) and memos and letters (correspondence between Departments) and participating in interdepartmental discussions. This was useful, although our trainers had underestimated the quantity of written material likely to be generated, so things started to collapse because there were not enough typing resources.

As part of all this, we also had a number of sessions on writing using, among other things, Gower's Plain Words. There was little of the sensitivity that now exists to the connotations attached to particular words, the term political correctness lay well in the future. Our focus lay in clear, simple, jargon free English.

Looking Forward

I have described the course at some length because I joined the Public Service at the start of a period of massive change and in writing want to give a feel for the old Service.

There are differing views about this change process.

In 2003 Patrick Weller quoted a then minister as saying:

Basically, the last 20 years has been a battle between the elected representatives and the imperial bureaucracy. And the elected representatives won.

That minister saw it as a continuing fight for influence and power between those who were elected and those who serve them.

I have a different view. While change was required, my feeling is that the Public Service today is neither as efficient nor effective as it was. I will look at some elements of this in coming posts.

Copyright and Citation Details

The material is this series is copyright Jim Belshaw. However, it may be copied or quoted with due acknowledgment.

The following should be used for citation purposes if referring to the overall series: Jim Belshaw, Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy, Ndarala Group, 2007 with a link to the introductory post.

If citing this post, Jim Belshaw, "Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 6 - A View from the Past", in Jim Belshaw, Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy, Ndarala Group, 2007 with a link to this post.

Series Posts

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 1 - Introduction, 20 March 2007.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 2 - Notes on Major Trends, 26 March 2007.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 3 - Publish or Perish Case Study, 6 April 2007.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 4 - the New Zealand Model, 9 April 2007.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 5 - Application and Spread of the New Zealand Model, 10 April 2007.

Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 6 - A View from the Past, 1 May 2007