Public servants should not face stigma for working in political offices: Industry Department secretary David Fredericks

Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources secretary David Fredericks on Thursday said bureaucrats should not have to fear career risks for accepting jobs in political offices, and that former ministerial advisers also offered important experience to the public service.

Mr Fredericks, speaking at an Institute of Public Administration event in Canberra, said advisers in political offices would remain involved in policy making and the Australian Public Service had a duty to cultivate their skills by offering them a longer term career path that included roles within the bureaucracy.

"I work on the basis that advisers are and will continue to be an important part of Australia's system of government, and so given the APS has an obligation to ensure that system is operating in the best interests of the Australian people, then we also have an obligation to maximise our constructive relationships with advisers, both at the institutional and personal level," he said.

"As leaders within the APS, we have a responsibility not only to cultivate and empower those relationships throughout our departments but also to go further and to actively steward the capacity and capability of ministers' and shadow ministerial offices."

His comments follow a prolonged public debate about the relationship between ministerial offices and the public service. Major inquiries into the public service including the 2019 Thodey review have urged reforms allowing bureaucrats to work more closely with ministerial advisers, and to grow understanding between the two groups.

A report by the Grattan Institute last month also said bureaucrats were being left out of policy making in favour of ministerial advisers, who it said did not understand the capability of the public service.

Mr Fredericks, a former staffer to Kevin Rudd, Kim Beazley, Penny Wong and former Victorian Labor premier Steve Bracks, called for greater and easier movement of staff between political offices and agencies.

"It needs to be understood and fully accepted by all that when a public servant moves into a ministerial office, including as an adviser, or when they move into a shadow ministerial office, this is a legitimate, indeed welcome career path for the public servant," he said.

"It should not come with the implication that he or she has become party political, and should be judged as such thereafter.

"We as the leaders of the public service need to steward this outcome and we need to drive a positive culture which will embed it as a positive entrenched feature of our system of government."

Working in ministerial offices offered public servants a better understanding of the broader policy environment and the work of ministers, Mr Fredericks said.

The public service should also foster the movement of ministers' and shadow ministers' advisers into federal agencies, and the bureaucracy should be a legitimate career option for staffers leaving political offices.

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Competitive, merit-based recruitment would stop this from politicising the public service, he said.

"It is not said strongly enough that intelligent policy focused professionals in ministerial and shadow ministerial offices can bring a unique perspective to the APS and have the potential to make a significant policy contribution," Mr Fredericks said.

"They can come with an innate awareness of the broader policy making environment, they can be astute in understanding complexities of dealing with stakeholders, and they can be very good at understanding the art of the do-able. These are all qualities we look for in our most successful and influential public servants."

Mr Fredericks called for "well-known, well-respected professional career paths" for advisers that included roles in the public service, particularly for "those who have an innate interest in and have devoted their careers to public policy".

The public service could also help provide training to ministerial and shadow ministerial advisers in governance, leadership and workplace health and safety, including through the new APS Academy.

Mr Fredericks said his department had offered training to advisers from its portfolio ministerial offices in security and freedom of information rules.

"If this helps in some small way to provide an opportunity for greater professional development in the adviser ranks, then along with the prospect of a public service career path, I would expect that the strongest possible calibre of people will be attracted to the ranks of advisers to the benefit of the public sector."

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