Yesterday’s release of the Hawke Review threatens vast and sweeping changes to the ACT Public Service, the structure of Government in the ACT and huge disruption to service delivery if things go wrong.
To that end here are the 76 recommendations of the review. How many of them do you take to be mere motherhood statements?
- Governance
1. Establish an ACTPS Strategic Board to provide leadership and direction to the ACTPS.
2. Enhance and enforce compliance with Cabinet and Budget Process Rules to ensure comprehensive, robust and timely advice to Cabinet to better support sound decision making.
3. Continue to arrange Directorates and Ministerial Portfolios along functional lines.
4. Discuss with the Legislative Assembly opportunities to improve efficiency – particularly mechanisms that allow municipal type matters to be dealt with in an expedient manner.
5. Amend the Public Sector Management Act 1994 (the PSM Act) and associated subordinate legislation as a matter of priority.
6. Review ACT Government boards and committees against the Public Interest Map with a view to ensuring the role and function of these bodies is clearly understood and that bodies recommended to continue have clearly defined roles and responsibilities that align with the Government’s overall strategic direction and objectives. As part of this review consider:
• abolishing the Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) Board;
• transferring the Veterinarians Board to Territory and Municipal Services (TAMS);
• the resourcing and portfolio location of the Indigenous Elected Body prior to commencement of that Body’s new term; and
• establishing a Tertiary Council to oversee negotiation of a strategic plan for tertiary education in the ACT, conduct relevant research and advise the ACT Government through the Chief Minister and Minister for Education on tertiary education policy, including training and workforce priorities.
7. Replace the Land Development Agency Board immediately with an Advisory Board better suited to the mandate of the Economic Development Directorate.
8. Maintain the Shared Services Governing Committee but:
• amend the Board’s terms of reference to ensure appropriate reflection of the role and function of Shared Services; and
• develop new service standard agreements that properly reflect the division of policy and operational responsibilities.
9. Maintain the Cultural Facilities Corporation’s current governance and operational arrangements.
10. Establish an equivalent body to the Commonwealth Government’s Joint Economic Forecasting Group to enhance ACTPS capacity for developing consolidated economic advice.
11. Settle the roles of the Conservator of Flora and Fauna, the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment and the need for an ACT Arborist in light of the Review of the Nature Conservation Act 1980, consultations on expanding the role of that Commissioner and the soon to be delivered report into the Government’s tree management practices and renewal of Canberra’s urban forest.
12. Appoint ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal members with experience in the planning and development sphere.
One ACTPS
13. Enhance Canberra Connect as the gateway to all interaction (shop fronts or counter services) between the ACT Government and the Canberra citizenry.
14. Develop the ACT Government office building.
15. Establish a single ACT Government web portal, whole of government intranet and adopt a single ACT Government brand.
16. Remove legislative and technical barriers to appropriate information sharing between Directorates.
Open Government
17. Develop mechanisms to bring non-government Members of the Legislative Assembly into the earlier stages of policy and program design.
18. Further embed public value management and genuine community participation in decision making processes.
19. Consider establishment of an Executive Committee of Cabinet to oversee refinement and implementation of the Canberra Plan and appoint external members based on their skills and experience rather than representative interests.
20. Enhance data collection across the ACTPS to ensure robust evidence can be provided to the Commonwealth Grants Commission in relation to cross border service delivery.
21. Develop approaches to proactively publishing more of the information held by the ACTPS, including Cabinet material.
22. Establish a Chief Information Officer within the proposed Chief Minister’s Department, and:
• define its responsibilities for oversight and whole of government policy for strategic information, information communications technology, freedom of information, information storage and retrieval and ACTPS record keeping; and
• build a pool of business analysts and project management resources for ready deployment across the service for information and communications technology and business improvement projects.
23. Publish all decisions made by the ACTPS under the Freedom of Information Act 1989 on a central website immediately after they are provided to applicants (with personal
information deleted).
24. Strategic Board outcomes be promulgated within Directorates to assist in ensuring alignment of effort and direction with the ACTPS, especially when they relate to:
• identification of emerging issues and proposed management strategies;
• strategic priority setting, including government and agency priorities; and
• whole of government service or resource issues.
Statutory Offices
25. Apply the Public Interest Map to the need for, and role of, statutory office holders.
26. The proposed Chief Minister’s Department adopt a standard model for the appointment and terms and conditions for fulltime and part-time statutory office holders.
27. Unless there is a clear reason not to, vest statutory decision making powers in public servants.
28. Review the arrangements of ACTPS part-time statutory office holders.
29. Subject to the Review proposed at Chapter 3, statutory office holders should receive appropriation funding in their own right.
Structure
The Review recommends changes to Administrative Arrangements 2010 (No.1). (See page 9 of the Executive Summary]
Priority Setting
30. Maintain the Canberra Plan framework, but continue efforts to further refine and recalibrate the articulation of purpose and vision, objectives and initiatives.
31. Establish a smaller number of succinct meaningful, measurable outcomes and associated indicators of progress, geared towards ongoing public reporting through the Measuring
Our Progress website.
32. Publish annual Government Priorities in the Budget Papers or in a separate formal Statement of Intent.
33. Immediately implement the Government’s revised Performance and Accountability and Evaluation Frameworks.
34. Focus Directorate level strategic planning on the individual contribution of each Directorate to the Government’s priorities and long term goals.
35. Enhance and further embed Triple Bottom Line reporting in annual reports.
36. Establish a Budget Coordination Sub-committee of the Expenditure Review and Evaluation Committee to oversee planning for, and management of, the Budget Process.
37. Implement the Budget Process outlined in Chapter 5 from the 2012-13 Budget.
38. The Expenditure Review and Evaluation Committee should conclude as a matter of priority a marginal cost formula for providing additional funding to the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate reflecting the impact of new residential developments on service demand.
39. Establish new infrastructure development legislation to enhance effective and timely delivery of critical infrastructure for the ACT.
40. Further examine the proposal to streamline leases through the removal of duplication of purpose clauses in the Territory Plan and individual leases.
41. Consider the appropriateness of continuing Government ownership of Capital Linen Service and Yarralumla Nursery.
Capability
The review recommends investment in the capability and capacity of the ACTPS workforce.
Leadership and Workforce Capability
42. Articulate the role of the Strategic Board to drive ACTPS performance.
43. Undertake regular and systematic Strategic Board appraisals within the Board’s terms of reference.
44. Confirm ongoing leadership and development programs offered under the Attraction and Retention Framework.
45. Refine the leadership training program to incorporate assessment of participants against the ACTPS executive leadership capabilities.
46. Instigate an executive rotation program to provide rising executives with full exposure to the role and functions of the ACTPS.
47. Complement the formal leadership and development programs with a series of initiatives designed to support enduring change across the ACTPS including:
• circuit breaker teams;
• communities of practice; and
• an innovation hub using web 2.0 technologies.
48. Strengthen the ACTPS policy capability.
49. Develop a robust economic modelling tool for the ACT economy.
50. Undertake regular systematic external reviews of the functions of the ORS and test opportunities for enhanced ways of working, sharing information and regulation of ACT law.
Workplace Culture
51. Mandate implementation of the Respect, Equity and Diversity Framework.
52. Undertake a six-monthly ACTPS-wide pulse survey and commit to responding to the results in a planned and systematic way.
53. Continue development of an ACTPS positive work culture that enables employees to be involved, contribute and perform to their full potential.
Workforce Planning
54. Establish a whole of service capacity and capability framework.
55. Improve workforce data quality and capability and review the operations and business requirements of the current operational systems and upgrade as necessary to ensure Directorates have access to reliable data and efficient systems.
56. Provide learning and development of employees in identified diversity groups.
57. Embed workforce planning as an integrated business function in routine business planning activities.
Employment Framework
58. Undertake a systematic and comprehensive review of the PSM Act, its subordinate instruments and the Enterprise Agreements. The outcomes should be:
• a new modernised Act;
• a simplified employment framework;
• a single classification enterprise agreement; and
• a simplified classification structure.
59. By late 2011, release an exposure draft of a new PSM Act for community and ACTPS consultation.
60. Invest in the development whole of government operational systems that support the needs of the Government and the ACTPS
61. Develop and implement non-technical workforce capabilities for the general clerical classification.
62. Identify recruitment needs, limitations of current practices, costs and opportunities for improvement. Identify and implement measures to streamline recruitment processes while maintaining the principles of merit and transparency.
Innovation
63. Establish an innovation framework that articulates innovation enablers.
64. Highlight the enterprise challenge of innovation – what can I do today that will improve how services are delivered and policy is designed?
65. Mandate the role of innovation in delivering Government priorities.
66. Mandate the proposed Chief Minister’s Department with responsibility to co-design and actively promote and encourage a sustainable innovation culture.
Shared Services
67. Undertake a review of the Shared Services funding model.
68. Undertake a service improvement program for non-transaction service delivery within Shared Services.
69. Under direction of the relevant policy function, build Shared Services’ core technical and non-technical capabilities.
70. Replicate and entrench the strategies that have led to the positive Canberra Connect customer service culture as a model for other front line service delivery areas.
Implementation
71. Invest in co-development and co-design of detailed proposals that underpin the Review recommendations.
72. Commit to the necessary financial resources to ensure successful implementation.
73. Ensure an energising pace of change.
74. Limit concurrent new major policy or operational reform during the implementation period.
75. Allow the ACTPS a period of consolidation and stabilisation to enable the embedding of major cultural and structural reform.
76. Assign ACTPS executives to be accountable for each implementation deliverable.
Loading ...
