Martin Parkinson has defended the public service review's broad terms of references and denied it is nothing more than a rehash of the Coombs royal commission into the public service.
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In a speech to the Institute of Public Administration Australia, the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet said the review was "an ambitious undertaking," and that he recommended it to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to prepare the public service for the decades ahead.
"You know when you see the ads for a financial services provider and it says 'past performance is no guarantee of future performance'? That's what the review is about," Dr Parkinson said.
"We've had decades of fantastic performance but we face a fundamentally different situation going forward and what serves us today may not serve us well for tomorrow."
Dr Parkinson responded to criticism that the review is retreading old ground and its terms of reference are too broad.
"It's not a revisit of Coombs, so all of those former public servants who get to write long and tedious articles in certain local papers, get over yourselves. It's actually about the future, not the past."
He repeated chair of review David Thodey's view that the terms of reference were deliberately broad to allow the panel to decide what areas needed focus.
"It's got broad terms of reference - apparently the terms of reference are too broad - well no, the terms of reference are so broad because we don't want to constrain the review and what it thinks about," he said.
"We want it to go where the evidence takes it."
More than 40 meetings have already been held by Mr Thodey and his team "to learn from existing research and experience," Dr Parkinson said.
The address, which was to mark the launch of Innovation Month for the institute, also revealed Prime Minister and Cabinet will soon begin regular national surveys of Australians to measure their experiences of dealing with the public service.
"Over time, survey results will provide a better picture of how well the APS is serving the people of Australia, and help us identify where we can do better," Dr Parkinson said.
"Transparency will be important and I’m committed to reporting on major results of the citizen survey."
Results won't be published straight away though, in order for agencies to react to the findings and for patterns to emerge.
