We're overdue for a root and branch review of the ACT Public Service

An organisation that has been allowed to operate without regular reviews and restructures becomes inefficient, top-heavy and focused on itself rather than the customer or the community.

The last full review of the ACT Public Service (ACTPS) was in 2007. A new review is well overdue.

The last review created savings equivalent to 5 per cent of expenditure mainly through restructuring of the Senior Executive Service (an analogy for a cleanout). Funds saved were used to resource community services.

It is 17 years since that review. It’s time for another one.

With a full review, we could, perhaps, have a public service that empowers the community.

There could be more funding, accountably managed by the public service, for those who provide support for the needy, the disabled, the homeless, or carers and volunteers.

Perhaps our community councils and the residents’ networks could also be reviewed and given funds for them to resource a review with their own expert. Maybe not – but with unstifled imagination, anything could happen.

The review and restructuring of organisations is important, particularly for large organisations and institutions such as banks, manufacturers, international investment firms, international airlines and so forth.

These major reviews are common because poor change management and/or a lack of ongoing and continuous change management (nice interview buzzwords there) result in inefficiencies and sometimes failure.

In big businesses and the public service, we will see worthy people get rewarded and promoted. Eventually, the highest levels of management become crowded, then become larger and larger and then too large.

Usually, a federal, state or territory public service will be changed somewhat by an election with a change of government. It would be restructured, have complexity removed, and be refocused. Then we see departments change names, sometimes new departments and agencies emerge and old ones disappear.

Heads of departments are removed or rotated, and things generally change. Our public service organisations are mostly good at dealing with these changes.

Here in the ACT, we haven’t had a change of government for, well, seemingly, forever. Therefore, we need a government that understands good management practices and best practice administration.

Jon Stanhope, when Chief Minister, recognised this need in 2007. Apparently, he saw an emerging problem with a growing public service that needed to be refocussed back on the basics.

The review he commissioned ended up creating a 5 per cent saving on expenditure. Good work, good leadership and proper responsible government. And it created more than just savings in dollar terms.

It created freshness, challenges and the chance to innovate.

There are plenty of books written about organisational behaviours and restructuring. The University of Canberra offers excellent courses on exactly that.

For example, the ACT Human Rights Commission once called the legal community to a breakfast meeting to discuss all things human rights.

One thing that was discussed was how pleased the ACT-HRC was that it had grown from 5 staff to over 100 staff.

An important success for the ACT-HRC was being an empire, being big, and having people to boss around and to boss others around.

That breakfast meeting should have been about anything but that.

The ACT-HRC became focused on itself.

That is not to say that public service does not deliver services; it does, and hopefully, it does well. However, it can do it much better and save money by continuously improving administration and management.

The other result of lopsided organisations that have not been reviewed and restructured is that the organisation has pockets where employees are stressed and over worked; and other pockets where employees are doing it easy.

Certain recent controversies probably find their beginnings in this lack of a review. The fiasco of the HR system that cost $77 million before the government canned the project or the expensive coaching scandal at the CIT, where $8.5 million was paid for buzzwords are just two.

Either way, we need an expert to come in and give the place a good shake-up. Get rid of dead wood. Some directorates need to be merged, some dissolved and others divided. It’s time for a fixer to move in.

Reviews should happen every five years. It hasn’t happened in the ACTPS for 17 years. Do it!

Peter Strong is standing for the ACT Government elections in the central electorate of Kurrajong as a member of the Strong Independents.