Attempts to support more effective coordination across government departments is not a new concept, and stories of failed attempts or at least only partial success tend to dominate. One of the key reasons for this appears to be the fact that government bureaucracies lack the “supporting architecture” needed to support joined-up-working. Thea Snow examines the success stories and sincere attempts of cross-government collaboration around the world.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, not to hate them, but to understand them — Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, 1676 The burden of unbounded knowledge weighs heavily on those with open minds. Those trapped within a specific moral code express righteous indignation that their beliefs should be […]

Miriam Vogel developed and led implicit bias training for federal law enforcement while at the United States Department of Justice. Tackling defensiveness is an important part of successful implicit bias training, she says. It’s really helpful to start by defusing that defensiveness and making it clear that this is a human condition, it doesn’t make you an evil person, it makes us human.

Data from the Australian Public Sector Database shows a steady long-term decline in the number and proportion of people with disability in the Commonwealth public sector. One APS narrative is that the problem is not as big as it seems — non-disclosure of disability is more of a problem than a lack of representation. It becomes too easy to use such statements as a means of shifting responsibility for failures in public sector disability employment policy, writes Paul Williamson.

Terry Moran AC, chair of the Centre for Policy Development and former secretary of the PM&C presents a review of how Commonwealth, state and local governments could work together more effectively, at the 2019 John Cain Lecture.

The business model on which Australia’s rural landscapes have been settled is unravelling before our eyes. Australian agricultural industries will not be restored by a couple of rainy seasons or construction of new dams, and support is building for promulgation of a national drought strategy.

Obama's ambassador to the UN on how she avoided bureaucratic isolation while tackling ISIS, why presidents prefer golf, and finding 'one's slice of change that one can make'.

When designing a new service, there can be a lot of pressure to nail down a project plan and get on with it. But spending more time consulting, throwing around ideas and testing them before charging ahead can really pay off.

Even if you've completed your course in agile and lined up the authorising environment in favour of change, workplace habits and the relentless daily pressure of government can easily stifle innovation. 

Treating the public service like a business has become the norm, with the structures, language, practices and incentives inherited from private sector managerialism. We know that citizens don’t expect public sectors to act the same way — which is evident in the feedback, discussions, user research and myriad public engagements — yet when we adopt the mindset of a business we create pressure to act more like a business in everything we do.

The Data (R)Evolution, goes to the heart of a question that we must confront if we are to take a modern Australia into the digital age: Can we simply continue to evolve and tinker with our existing policy frameworks? Or do we require a more radical rethink of markets, welfare, and fundamental protections?

In this year’s Williams Oration, Australian Space Agency chief executive Dr Megan Clark offered to explain the thinking behind foundational decisions taken in the agency’s establishment, for the benefit of her fellow public sector leaders. She hopes the agency can maintain an early groundswell of community support though lots of open, honest dialogue with stakeholders and a commitment to stick its word.

The fires devastating our communities on the eastern seaboard are covering more than a million hectares even before we reach summer. They are, as predicted, joining and growing into mega-fires. Mega-fires create their own unpredictable internal weather systems; they can be as hot as a Bunsen burner at 100 metres, and they’ll overwhelm and engulf […]

With calls for more investment in infrastructure to help stimulate the Australian economy, it's also time for policymakers to think beyond traditional views of what this infrastructure might be. This means considering infrastructure that helps the process of reform in the economy. If we are strategic, it should also prepare Australia for some of the disruptions that are coming toward us — particularly in healthcare.

Ben Hubbard twice worked as chief of staff to Julia Gillard — in separate stints as deputy prime minister and PM. He was CEO of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, coordinating recovery efforts after the Black Saturday fires. He also worked for Victorian premiers John Brumby and Steve Bracks. He discusses public servants working with the minister's office, how to be a CoS, and fixing the staffer system.