Iceni Group deeply believes in the purpose of the public sector and the role it plays in advancing our country, communities and the customers it serves.
Iceni Group was founded to support public good outcomes and its Directors and associates have significant experience working in and with the public sector, both at the Commonwealth and State Government level. We are providing this submission to continue our support of the Australian Public Service (APS) and to engage with the review process.
We believe the review is a positive step in ‘investing in the APS’. We encourage the Australian government to continue this investment, in a broad range of ways, now and into the future.
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1 Introduction
Iceni Group deeply believes in the purpose of the public sector and the role it plays in advancing our
country, communities and the customers it serves.
Iceni Group was founded to support public good outcomes and its Directors and associates have significant
experience working in and with the public sector, both at the Commonwealth and State Government level.
We are providing this submission to continue our support of the Australian Public Service (APS) and to
engage with the review process.
We believe the review is a positive step in ‘investing in the APS’. We encourage the Australian government
to continue this investment, in a broad range of ways, now and into the future.
2 Working with external partners
Iceni Group believes that appropriate and effective support for the emerging APS will involve external
partnerships. How the APS manages and works with external partners, agencies and consultants will be
critical in its growth.
Currently, the role of external consultants is to provide intellectual outputs representing the independent
view of the service provider. This can create monopolies of knowledge, loss of intellectual capital and an
over reliance on consultancies.
Iceni Group believes in a new way of working with the public sector, as a partner jointly delivering
outcomes. This new approach involves a genuine partnership of blended teams that co-design outputs.
The partnership generates bespoke results and transparency of intellectual practices, tools and
techniques.
This approach allows sharing of risk and a broader spectrum of ideas and skills to be transferred to the APS.
In this way, the APS is seen as a client of choice and the market actively invests in the APS skills base.
The new model sees APS actively managing commercials in engagements with stronger client and
contract management skills.
An overview of how our industry could serve the APS better is provided in the diagram on the following
page.
Further details of our approach in serving organisations dedicated to the public good are available at
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3 Questions for consideration by the Panel
To support this review and the implementation of the recommendations resulting form it we would suggest the following analytical questions are utilised.
They cover key areas that will positively impact benefits realisation and help set the parameters for success.
Questions for consideration by the Panel throughout the review
How well will the proposed reforms indicate the likely result of the elimination, merging, or restructuring of activities with other levels of government or
sectors?
To what extent will clear outcome-oriented goals and performance measures be established for the proposed reforms?
To what extent will the areas of fragmentation, overlap, and duplication be addressed in developing the proposals?
How will employee engagement be sustained and strengthened, and employees prepared for change before and during the reforms?
Will strategic workforce planning be conducted to determine whether the APS will have the needed resources and capacity, including the skills and
competencies, in place for the proposed reforms?
Is it the data needed to inform the decisions for this review available, accessible and able to be analysed? If there is not enough data, then experiment and
innovate internally (in a small way) first. Gather data about what works then roll out.
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