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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

Proposal 5 Dynamic ways of working and structures to empower

individuals and teams – making collaboration the norm): Comments

The APS Review invites people to “visit our website, challenge our assumptions, test our

thinking, and have your say.” This invitation is severely qualified by the structure of the website

which channels comments into five (5) categories (Box 1),

Box 1. Screenshot < https://www.apsreview.gov.au/> as at 19th April 2019.

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

These comments will go to broader, over-arching issues which do not fit neatly into these proposals

but are fundamental to ensuring that “the Australian Public Service is fit-for-purpose in the

decades ahead”1 and answering the three (3) questions:
■ How can we strengthen each proposal?
■ What are we missing?
■ How do we ensure lasting change?2

Somewhat confusingly each webpage opens to a proposal with a title different from that of the

webpage. Further adding to confusion is the incomplete correspondence between the four (4)
Priorities listed in the text:
❖ Strengthen the culture, governance and leadership model (pp. 24-30)
❖ Build a flexible APS operating model (pp. 31-35)
❖ Invest in capability and talent development (pp. 36-42)
❖ Develop stronger internal and external partnerships (pp. 43-49)
and five (5) proposals:
➢ Build a flexible operating model (Networked enabling systems and common
processes across the service)
➢ Secretaries Board driving outcomes across government and APS performance
(Culture, governance and leadership model)
➢ Genuine transparency and accountability for delivering outcomes for
Australians (Culture, governance and leadership model)
➢ Empowered managers accountable for developing people and teams (Invest in
capability and talent development)
➢ Dynamic ways of working and structures to empower individuals and teams –
making collaboration the norm (Build a flexible operating model)

These comments are submitted to each of the proposals but should be accepted as relating to

broader, over-arching issues.

Comments on proposal: Dynamic ways of working and structures to empower individuals

and teams – making collaboration the norm (Build a flexible operating model)
The responses in respect of the fifth Proposal are summarised in Box 2 (below) and discussed in the

following narrative.

1 Message from the chair, Priorities for change p. ii.
2 Priorities for change p. 23

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

Box 2. Summary of responses to questions
Question Response
How can this proposal be • The APS should recognise, acknowledge and accept both the
strengthened? colonial mindset which is inherent in the APS and the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander mindset.
• It should provide for conformity with the commitments made
pursuant to membership of the Open Government Partnership.
• Refer to and reflect the first and second Australian Action Plans
(AP1 & AP2) adopted in accordance with membership of the
Open Government Partnership, in particular relevant to “Support
civic participation.”
What is missing? • Reference to Australia’s membership of the Open Government
Partnership and the associated commitments by which Australia
and the APS are correspondingly bound, in particular those
relevant to “Support civic participation”.
• Recognition of deep knowledge and understanding held in
communities, which complements and supplements information
held in agencies.
• Public engagement in the transition to a low carbon economy
and in addressing other issues is missing as a priority for the
APS.
• Recognition of the colonial mindset inherent in the APS and
understanding of the mindsets and hence perspectives of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.
How can lasting change • Lasting change will require perseverance by APS leaders.
be ensured? • Funds and resources must be strategically allocated as essential
investments to ensure outcomes of enhanced trust and policy
outcomes. It must be noted that public participation is not cost-
free even though it can enable improved social, environmental
and economic outcomes.

This is explained in detail in the following text.

Overview of Dynamic ways of working and structures to empower individuals and

teams – making collaboration the norm

In addressing this proposal, we are considering Governance, which has been described as

the:
complex mechanisms, processes, relationships and institutions through which citizens
and groups articulate their interests, exercise their rights and obligations and mediate

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

their differences.3

Governance can be explained in a simple diagram. This diagram (Figure 1) is a theoretical

explanation of how almost all societies function: the community is organised as a society 4

through
• state or government functions which make policy and enforce rules,
• market functions that produce and trade goods and services, and
• civil society functions including advocacy, spiritualism, mutualism and professional
standards.
The relative size, power and influence of each function varies with time and

circumstance.

GOVERNMENT

Figure 1. Three sectors of society

3 United Nations Development Programme. (1997). Reconceptualizing Governance for Sustainable Human Development,
Discussion Paper 2. Retrieved from http://www.pogar.org/publications/other/undp/governance/reconceptualizing.pdf

4 The distinction made here between communities and societies comes from the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy:

• a community is a population living in a territory (an area of land) and sharing a sentiment, which might be a language,
loyalty to fellow members of the community or to the territory or common spiritual beliefs;
• a society is a community’s social structures, which are established and maintained through rules and norms of
behaviour.
Source: Nancy, J.-L. (1991). The Inoperative Community (translation of La communauté désoeurée). In The Inoperative
Community (translation of La communauté désoeurée). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

The key to the success of governance is the relationships between the people, their

organisations and the environment. For example, in the Murray Darling Basin, the

environment is the physical environment of the Murray – the waters, the land and the

atmosphere that produces the Murray’s climate. The relationships can extend from

damaging or hostile to sustaining or cooperative.
Low levels of trust undermine governance; high levels of trust strengthen governance. This

corresponds with the three aspects identified in Priorities for change:

  1. the APS must be trusted – by government, the Parliament and the people of Australia. Trust
    is founded on integrity, transparency and reliability, and these underpin our proposed
    priorities for change.
  2. APS priorities are driven by the need for the APS to deliver more than the sum of its parts as
    a united institution.
  3. the APS must put the interests of the Australian people at the heart of all it does (p. 15).

Open Government Partnership

However, Priorities for change overlooks the necessity of the APS trusting the people of

Australia, which is a key element of the Australian Government‘s commitments made upon

joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) i.e. recognising and tapping the deep

knowledge and understanding in communities, complementing information held in agencies.

One of the strong themes running through Australia’s first and second OGP National Action

Plans addresses the commitment “Support civic participation”. The corresponding

commitment forms part of the Open Government Declaration to which countries subscribe

as a condition of OGP membership. It provides:

Support civic participation.

We value public participation of all people, equally and without discrimination, in decision
making and policy formulation. Public engagement, including the full participation of women,
increases the effectiveness of governments, which benefit from people’s knowledge, ideas
and ability to provide oversight. We commit to making policy formulation and decision making
more transparent, creating and using channels to solicit public feedback, and deepening
public participation in developing, monitoring and evaluating government activities. We
commit to protecting the ability of not-for-profit and civil society organizations to operate in
ways consistent with our commitment to freedom of expression, association, and opinion. We

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

commit to creating mechanisms to enable greater collaboration between governments and
civil society organizations and businesses.5

This commitment aims to greatly strengthen the APS’s capacity to engage with communities

and civil society more generally, applying and adapting a spectrum of forms and tools for

public participation (International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), 2007, 2014) –
see Figure 2 below. These have been shown in states, territories, local government and

internationally to tap into deep knowledge and understanding in communities,
complementing information held in agencies. Forms of public participation appropriate to

particular public policy issues and problems have been applied successfully and have

enabled governments to enhance their decision-making.
Australia has adopted reforms associated with its membership of the Open Government

Partnership, in particular relevant to “Support civic participation.” The process itself involves

civic participation: commitments are developed by the Open Government Forum, the current

membership of which is 9 senior APS personnel (e.g. Deputy Secretaries) and 9 members

drawn from civil society.
These reforms and associated actions include
➢ Enhance public participation in government decision making (first national Action Plan - AP1,
commitment 5.2)
➢ Hidden in Plain Sight: Building an understanding of how the Australian Public Service
can unlock community expertise to improve policy, programmes and service delivery.
➢ Enhance public engagement skills in the public service (second national Action Plan – AP2).
➢ The Australian Public Service framework for engagement and participation (forthcoming)
These actions are led by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

5 See Open Government Partnership 2011 Open Government Declaration

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

Figure 2 summarises levels of public participation identified by the international Association

for Public Participation (IAP2).

Figure 2

Reforming our Democracy

Reforming our Democracy recently published by The University of Melbourne and the

newDemocracy Foundation – is a succinct but comprehensive list of proposed reforms, reflecting

increasing use of participatory mechanisms by parliaments and governments, in Australia (mostly

local, state and territory jurisdictions) and in many other democracies to enhance decision-making

and trust.
The APS must be orientated, trained and resourced to support the application of such reforms.

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

Public participation and Climate Empowerment

The UNFCCC highlights the valuable role that public participation can play in addressing climate

change. It says:
At its core, public participation is one of the key resources in implementing the vision of
Article 6 of the Convention.6 It can transform society by giving people a voice and showing
how their individual action can make a difference.7

Trusting the public through engagement in the transition to a low carbon economy should be a

priority for the APS.
Reconceptualising work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Priorities for change states: “Now is the time for the APS to reconceptualise how it works with

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” (p. 17). This is discussed in Box 4 (p. 59), in which It

is claimed that:
despite the efforts of those involved, this has not delivered substantively better outcomes
across the board, nor genuine empowerment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples. In the first 50 years of Commonwealth administration (1967 to 2017) there were at
least 11 different public administration structures (with ten of these in the past 30 years).

“Despite the efforts of those involved” begs the questions of who have been “those involved” and

what were their “efforts”. What is clear is that underlying the predominant efforts is a colonial

mindset in which those exercising Commonwealth powers have failed to recognize the mindset of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations and accordingly reflect that mindset in the manner of

relations with them.8, 9

Note that in spear-heading stronger relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, it is

important to keep in mind avoiding a cultural binary imbedded into services of Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islanders and everyone else, as this is proving to be problematic in service delivery to

other collectivist (i.e. East Asian, African nations, Mediterranean, etc) cultures as the service

delivery default is through an individualistic lens (i.e. Western cultures).
Tools for Fit for Purpose
“Fit for purpose” is used imprecisely in Priorities for Change. The above concerns and

recommended tools add substance and give effect to the rather general suggestions in Priorities for

Change (p. 50):
■ More broadly, there should be an expectation that great agencies and public servants engage
meaningfully and regularly outside the service as part of core business. People at all levels
must be empowered to live this approach.

6 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

7 UNFCC 2019 Public Participation under Action for Climate Empowerment < https://unfccc.int/topics/education-and-
outreach/workstreams/public-participation>
8 For an explanation of these issues see tebrakunna country & Emma Lee (2019) ‘Reset the relationship’: decolonising
government to increase Indigenous benefit, cultural geographies 1-20 https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019842891

9 See also the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) in which “We (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes) invite
you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

■ Embracing this approach will boost the APS’s ability to design and deliver innovative, fit-for-
purpose solutions, its position as a trusted adviser to successive governments, and its
reputation as an organisation with the highest standards of integrity and ethics.
Our suggestions would facilitate the APS clarifying what’s meant by “fit for purpose” and enabling it

to perform accordingly.

… /10

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Comment on Proposal 5, APS Review Priorities for change by Ken Coghill & Romina Carfi

Implications for Proposal: Dynamic ways of working and structures to empower
individuals and teams – making collaboration the norm (Build a flexible operating model)
Question Response
How can this proposal • The APS should recognise, acknowledge and accept both
be strengthened? the colonial mindset which is inherent in the APS and the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mindset.
• It should provide for conformity with the commitments
made pursuant to membership of the Open Government
Partnership.
• Refer to and reflect the first and second Australian Action Plans
(AP1 & AP2) adopted in accordance with membership of the
Open Government Partnership, in particular relevant to “Support
civic participation.”
What is missing? • Reference to Australia’s membership of the Open
Government Partnership and the associated commitments
by which Australia and the APS are correspondingly
bound, in particular those relevant to “Support civic
participation”.
• Recognition of deep knowledge and understanding held in
communities, which complements and supplements
information held in agencies.
• Public engagement in the transition to a low carbon
economy and in addressing other issues is missing as a
priority for the APS.
• Recognition of the colonial mindset inherent in the APS and
understanding of the mindsets and hence perspectives of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.
How can lasting change • Lasting change will require perseverance by APS leaders.
be ensured? • Funds and resources must be strategically allocated as essential
investments to ensure outcomes of enhanced trust and policy
outcomes. It must be noted that public participation is not cost-
free even though it can enable improved social, environmental
and economic outcomes. Accordingly, APS officials must include
the necessary funds in their budget estimates.

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