Openness is key to scaling anything. It is how we can influence the system and inspire and enable people to individually engage with and take responsibility for better outcomes and innovate at a grassroots level. It is how we ensure our work is evidence based, better informed and better tested, through public peer review.
When you study ‘policy’ in Australia, you are taught the ‘Public Policy Cycle’, which presents a linear method that doesn’t quite reflect the reality of working in public policy, and throughout public sectors we have lost a common language for what we mean.
Following 'Shergie's farewell tour' last year, Peter Shergold gave his final performance as outgoing IPAA National president at the association's conference in Darwin last week. He reflected on the public service's ability to moderate the damaging impulses of politicians and the importance of non-partisan actors in democratic government.
There has been growing attention to the declining levels of public trust in our politicians, public, and democratic institutions. Our analysis suggests that history will not record any sizeable shift in public trust due to the Turnbull or Morrison governments’ record on social policy.
The relationship between design and the public good is studied through two very different lenses. Learn what they are and how they can help or hinder you in Design for Public Sector Leaders on October 10 at the Melbourne offices of CPA Australia.
Rather than processes, it may be the clashing of values that has reduced our tolerance for engaging alternative perspectives. Social capital, the once-lauded holy grail of community, is crumbling and being replaced by suspicion, hubris and barefaced lies. Cross-sectoral leadership is the art of reaching across this tribalism to engage competing values and ‘learn’ our way to solutions.
The digital future of support functions will be exciting. As traditional, time-intensive tasks like forecasting, reporting, and distributing information get handled through smart digital tools, people can focus on asking the right questions, running and interpreting analyses, drawing conclusions, managing trade-offs, and generating insights that help business units create new value. Capitalising on this potential, however, requires putting the right organisational structure in place.
"Early intervention is a bit of a nirvana," says Amy Auster, deputy secretary economic at the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance. Hard, but the Victorian government is still trying. It has contracted for two social impact bonds — service partnerships delivered by external providers and funded by investors, where government will pay a profit if the provider is able to achieve certain agreed targets.
Governments don’t govern alone. The shared responsibilities of public sector governance fall broadly into two categories – performance and conformance – and a lot of them land on public servants. Discharging these solemn duties can be a challenge when time is of the essence and process becomes a dirty word. Public service leaders should expect […]
Business leaders mainly have themselves to blame if they feel governments don’t understand their perspectives or listen to their concerns, according to a group of high profile Australians and New Zealanders who generally need no introductions in the corridors of power. Are their problems in the relationship between governments and the private sector? […]
The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Chief Methodologist Dr Siu-Ming Tam steps down at the end of the week. He spoke to The Mandarin about dodgy statistics, the history of the ABS and the importance of fishing.
Benjamin Teed is a senior policy analyst in Canada’s Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Here, he delves into the techniques for coming up with an A-grade mission statement that creates a repeatable, scalable process which lets public servants bring out the best, most visionary parts of our leaders, our stakeholders, and oneself. What’s your […]
As Australia and the First peoples contemplate treaty and constitutional recognition, there must an acceptance that there are two major players in this, the First Peoples and the Australian electorate. A facilitated dialogue, like a mini-public may have the best likelihood of people and ideas coming together in the search for the best outcome.
Victoria’s Special Minister of State and the Victorian Branch Secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union jointly announced the Jobs and Skills Exchange (JSE) in July 2019. The origin and future direction of the VPS JSE are not as straightforward as would seem.
Annette Michaux and Nat Kendall-Taylor outline the five major strategies for moving forward on child protection that resulted from a major national research project involving more than 7600 Australians. They say that how safe our children are from abuse and neglect and whether we support them to develop in a healthy way is an important measure of how healthy our communities are.
