Book Review: REPORT OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE ACT REVIEW GROUP. Chairman: R.N. McLeod. Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1995. 174 pp. AND: TOWARDS A BEST PRACTICEAUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SERVICE: DISCUSSION PAPER. Peter Reith. Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1996. 24 pp.
✍ Scribed by JOHN HALLIGAN
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 70 KB
- Volume
- 17
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0271-2075
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
These two reports on the Australian Public Service (APS) have a central concern with revising the Public Service Act, but each has a different associated agenda. The more recent Discussion Paper is a product of a new government, and is in the name of the minister responsible for the public service; the earlier report was produced by a group of senior of®cials (although in consultation with the then-minister) and makes recommendations on matters that were not subsequently incorporated in legislation, thereby providing much of the rationale for the later Discussion Paper.
The 1995 Report recognizes the pressures and expectations that have produced reform and that Australia's approach has been pragmatic and problem-solving. It distinguishes between the managerialist agenda that has dominated in an era of reform and is concerned with techniques and the implementation of government policy, and systemic issues about roles and values such as the nature of government and the public service and relations between public servants and politicians. The latter is the concern of the Report. An essential purpose is to reaf®rm the integrity and character of the public service, which has suffered under relentless change, while streamlining and modernizing the legislation that has not kept pace with those reforms. The Report identi®es a number of tensions created by diverging goals (for example, responsiveness and non-partisanship; formal accounting and focusing on results), and concludes that such dilemmas have no straightforward answers: `They require defensible judgement, based on a set of values and a philosophy that explains where APS stands in the Australian system of government' (p. 4).
The Report supports an Act based on principles and values and a commitment to `a meritbased, non-partisan, career service' while seeking to produce greater ¯exibility in the management of the APS. The main speci®c recommendations are: to reinforce separating the powers of minister and public servant in staff selection, abolition of the traditional concept of of®ce (with its associated perceptions of tenure); and replacement of permanent with continuing employment. Other areas covered are a new code of conduct and alterations to review and appeal mechanisms for grievances and dismissals. Altogether the Report offers a satisfactory, if cautious, balance between managerialist imperatives and support for the APS.
The Discussion Paper is a more ambitious exercise, that seeks to raise issues for debate about aspects of the public service employment framework and its performance, although it is equally concerned with setting agendas. It builds on the earlier Report in picking up the need to revise the Act, which will be simpli®ed and also based on principles and values, but the language is now more stridently one of deregulation, cutting red-tape and streamlining processes (e.g. for dismissal and selection). It also goes much further, with proposals for performance charters, service charters and performance agreements for senior of®cials that are designed to improve performance accountability, competitiveness and leadership.
The changing attitudes towards the APS are indicated by the following contrasts between the two documents: the public sector is now being pushed harder towards the private (whereas the earlier Report recognized their distinctive qualities); ®xed term employment is ¯oated