Emergency management, Health and Infrastructure agencies first up for rebooted APS capability reviews

Public service commissioner Peter Woolcott said one of the pilots for the new round of capability reviews would cut across several agencies involved in emergency responses - including the National Emergency Management Agency - while the Health and Infrastructure departments were separately also up for some of the first report cards.

In an interview with The Canberra Times, Mr Woolcott and Public Sector Reform secretary Gordon de Brouwer also said public servants would soon see tangible changes to their workplaces as the federal bureaucracy pursued the broad reform agenda outlined by Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher last month.

Dr de Brouwer, a long-time senior public servant who was part of the recent major review of the public service, also said one of the changes would be a more "authorising environment" that permitted staff to do their jobs and have influence through their roles.

He said the government's new push for reform put recommendations from the Thodey review of the Australian Public Service back on the table, without being "fundamentalist" about them.

Among the initial reforms was the return of capability reviews after a six-year hiatus - one of the recommendations of the Thodey review.

Mr Woolcott said the rebooted program of reviews would be "future-focused" and would provide shorter, sharper reports on the capability of federal agencies compared to the previous round.

The Prime Minister's Department will conduct a pilot review on the Australian Public Service Commission, which will then review several others including the Infrastructure and Health departments, and emergency management agencies.

Federal agencies have been tested as they are tasked increasingly with emergency responses in the face of more regular natural disasters. Flooding throughout Australia has prompted another effort from the public service as communities seek government support.

The last capability reviews between 2012 and 2016 gained attention for their unflinching criticisms of major departments - including that Treasury was perceived as being too insular, and that the Foreign Affairs Department struggled to tell outsiders what it actually did.

Mr Woolcott said the new round of reviews would look at how agencies were able to deliver the government's agenda over the next five years, how well they worked across portfolios and jurisdictions, and the behaviours of agency leaders.

"It's not an audit. It's not a sort of gotcha type process," he said.

"Of course, you do need a baseline which you can work from, but it's about being helpful."

Capability reviews will return as the public service embarks on an expanded APS reform agenda, which Senator Gallagher announced would focus on increasing integrity and building respectful workplaces in the federal bureaucracy.

The government appointed Dr de Brouwer, a former Environment Department secretary, to help catalyse reforms and articulate them within the APS.

The centrepiece of the government's public service integrity agenda, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, will have practical implications for the work of public servants - particularly in record-keeping, relationships with contractors, and post-public service employment, Dr de Brouwer said.

"It's got quite a few deep implications," he said.

Dr de Brouwer said while the creation of the NACC would be a major step, the reform agenda would bring other practical changes to workplaces for public servants.

There would be a focus on the behaviours of senior executives and other public servants as the government looked to make the public service a model employer and build respectful workplaces.

Dr de Brouwer, who has previously conducted a review finding high levels of bullying within the APS, said there was much room for improvement in workplace culture.

"My personal view would be we don't have enough respectful behaviour within the public service," he said.

Dr de Brouwer also said there was scope to give public servants more "agency" - to exercise influence through their jobs.

Senator Gallagher has flagged she supported work within the public service to be done at the lowest capable level possible.

"That means actually people have agency and should be doing the job that they're meant to be doing," Dr de Brouwer said.

"So that also means that they're in an authorising environment, where the government has been very clear that it respects them. It wants advice from them, it wants them to do their job, and it will back them in, in doing their job."

Mr Woolcott said the public service was also focusing on harmonising pay and conditions after years of fragmentation across the bureaucracy.

"Some agencies have over those decades dropped off the back, some have gone ahead. So how do we start bringing it all together?," he said.

"This is not a short term exercise. There will be a number of tranches but we've begun that process. And that will increase mobility, it will increase equity, and public servants will see that."

Public servants could also see changes in their agencies' flexibility about where in Australia staff work, after COVID accelerated the rise of remote working and working from home.

The public service is looking at remote working - including letting staff work around the country rather requiring them to move to Canberra - as a way to attract talent, Mr Woolcott said.

Dr de Brouwer said structural change to the public service's recruitment would also promote more diversity in the ranks of the bureaucracy, including greater gender equality, and from First Nations and culturally- and linguistically-diverse backgrounds.

The government had clearly articulated its reform agenda through Senator Gallagher's speech last month, budget papers, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's early signals of support for the public service, Dr de Brouwer said.

"But the really crucial thing is that it resonates and makes sense to public servants," he said.

"And at the end of the day, the thing is dead if it doesn't resonate in the working lives, the experience of public servants across the board, in all the diversity of the service - if you're policy, service delivery, program management or other areas.

"So it really is incumbent on how this program is rolled out, that it puts the public service right at the centre of that reform program."

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Dr de Brouwer said the government's plan to involve public servants in creating a statement of purpose for the APS - announced by Senator Gallagher last month - would engage staff directly in the reform agenda.

It would require public servants to consider how the government's push for greater "stewardship" within the bureaucracy applied to their own work.

"What does it mean for an APS 3, when we're talking about their stewardship responsibilities?," he said.

"What's different about how you do your job? Is it something about how you keep your records? Is it making sure that the records when you move out of that job to another job, or the person who takes over your job can just move in really easily? That the people you engage with can get access to that information?

"That you're open with information within the law, properly in the spirit of the law?

"These are all practical elements of stewardship. They give public servants control - an agency - to do their job."

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