Submission to the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service from the Public Service Research Group, School of Business, UNSW Canberra. Authors: Professor Deborah Blackman, Associate Professor Helen Dickinson, Dr Karen Gardner, Dr Fiona Buick, Dr Samantha Johnson and Dr Sue Olney.
Download (233.32 KB)Submission to the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service
July 2018
Professor Deborah Blackman, Associate Professor Helen Dickinson, Dr Karen Gardner,
Dr Fiona Buick, Dr Samantha Johnson and Dr Sue Olney
Public Service Research Group, School of Business, UNSW Canberra 1
About us
The Public Service Research Group at UNSW Canberra has a strong track record of research into
public services in Australia and overseas, covering various aspects of public sector management,
delivery of public services and the implementation of public policy.
Professor Deborah Blackman’s2 research interests include public sector policy implementation,
systems level change, employee performance management, organisational learning, soft knowledge
management, organisational effectiveness, psychological contract, and governance, and she was the
lead researcher on a joint collaborative project with the Australian Public Service Commission on
Strengthening the Performance Framework.3 Associate Professor Helen Dickinson4 has published
widely on governance, leadership, commissioning and priority setting and decision-making in public
services, is co-editor of the Journal of Health, Organization and Management and the Australian Journal
of Public Administration and a Victorian Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, and
has worked with all levels of government, community organisations and private organisations in
Australia, UK, New Zealand and Europe on research and consultancy programmes. Dr Karen
Gardner’s5 research focuses on the implementation of continuous quality improvement programs,
primary care performance measurement and commissioning processes, and the evaluation of complex
health interventions. Dr Fiona Buick’s6 research focus is the role of organisational culture, strategic
human resource management and human resource management in enabling group and organisational
effectiveness within the public sector, as well as the dynamics involved in structural change and intra-
and inter-organisational joining-up, highlighting tensions between informal and formal institutional
practices. Dr Samantha Johnson7 has extensive experience consulting to government on public sector
management, performance and leadership and in management and leadership capability development,
and her research interests include public sector performance, management and leadership capability
development, and strategic organisational behaviour. Dr Sue Olney’s8 research examines the impact
of marketisation of public services on public sector managers, service providers and citizens, and
practical challenges in implementing public policy.
1 https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/public-service-research-group/
2
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-deborah-blackman
3
http://www.apsc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/56507/Performance_accessible.pdf
4
https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/school-of-business/associate-professor-helen-dickinson
5
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-karen-gardner
6
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-fiona-buick
7
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-samantha-j-johnson
8
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-sue-olney
1
Summary
We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this review examining the capability, culture and operating
model of the APS. Under five headings – Middle Manager Capability, Navigating the 4th Industrial
Revolution, Performance Measurement, Delivering Fair Outcomes for Citizens and Rethinking
Machinery of Government Changes - our submission addresses the following aspects of the review:
• driving innovation and productivity in the economy
• delivering high quality policy advice, regulatory oversight, programs and services
• tackling complex, multi-sectoral challenges in collaboration with the community, business and
citizens
• improving citizens’ experience of government and delivering fair outcomes for them
• acquiring and maintaining the necessary skills and expertise to fulfil its responsibilities
Our recommendations in brief:
- There is a need to rethink not only the types of skills required for middle managers from ‘hard’ to
‘soft’ skills, but also the way that such skills should be identified, developed, embedded and
modelled in the APS so that they become habitual. - The APS should develop more effective skills and approaches to considering what the implications
of new technologies might be and guard against these disadvantaging particular groups. - A critical appraisal of the data, motivations, rewards systems and techniques that underpin different
performance measurement approaches and the system architecture and processes needed to
advance implementation is needed. The APS should adopt a pragmatic approach that facilitates
accountability and improvement at multiple levels. - The APS must find a way to ensure citizens enjoy the benefits of market approaches to delivering
public services while protecting those vulnerable to market-produced inequities. Institutional
architecture created to produce public value can be both a barrier to defining policy problems, and
to collaborating across government departments, tiers of government and sectors and with citizens
to address those problems. - Machinery of government changes should be implemented sparingly. However, when they are
considered necessary to achieving desired outcomes, APS departments should: establish an
integration team that focuses exclusively on developing and implementing integration strategies;
communicate information about changes more clearly and effectively to the workforce; provide
opportunities for cross-departmental interaction; focus on enhancing cultural learning across the
relevant departments; and ensure that individuals and groups within combined functions /
departments are formally developed, mentored and resourced to undertake intra-departmental
boundary spanning roles.
2
Middle Manager Capability
When considering the scope of the review it is clear that, although there will be some technical issues
affecting long term choices and outcomes, the factor that will make the biggest contribution is achieving
high performance through the capacity, capability and skills of employees. This will be important at all
levels, but we suggest that an area that needs particular consideration is the middle management
cohort.
Much has been written about the need for effective senior leadership, and we would endorse this
requirement. However, we suggest that a major issue for the current APS is developing a highly
effective middle manager cohort and one which is able to effectively support change. Recent research
by Buick, Blackman and Johnson9 suggests that change management could be improved through
middle managers actively undertaking a change intermediary role where they make sense of the change
intent, operationalise it, and provide role clarity for employees. Doing so enables employees to make
sense of, reframe and implement the change. Adopting a change intermediary role would not only
reduce resistance to change, but support the introduction and adoption of innovation. However, the
research showed that, although the importance of middle managers is recognised, many have
undertaken inadequate development, particularly prior to becoming a middle manager, to adequately
prepare them for this role.
A common approach by many APS organisations is to look for superstar employees through talent
management policies; these employees are then given many development opportunities. Those
identified as underperforming are also targeted for development. However, in many cases, the majority
of employees who are performing at level – so are neither superstars nor underperforming - are left to
“muddle through”. They might be offered “acting” opportunities, but the efficacy of these is very
dependent on others taking an active interest in ensuring that learning actually takes place during the
acting period. For this to happen, the incumbent of the management role (who is often the person away)
and the person to whom they are now reporting, albeit temporarily, must work together to ensure this is
a learning activity. This relates to another issue identified in our research – that for the 70:20:10 learning
and development framework, which is widely used across the APS, to be effective and enable capability
development - social learning needs to act as an integrative mechanism of formal and experiential
learning (see Blackman et al. 201610). It is well established that formal training has a number of inherent
limitations; while some core skills can be transferred and integrated into work relatively easily, more
complex tacit knowledge – such as people management - is harder to develop and to transfer,
particularly in the government sector (see Awoniyi et al., 2002; Kirwan & Birchall, 2006; McCracken,
Brown, & O’Kane, 201211). Therefore, organisations need to actively support their employees in
applying and implementing their new knowledge. This requires adequate development of senior
managers and middle managers to act as mentors and coaches. We suggest that, as a part of the
review, there needs to be a rethinking of not only the types of skills required from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ 12 but
also the way that such skills should be identified, developed, embedded and role modelled so that they
become habitual.
A key issue in this will be allocating and enforcing accountability for identifying (a) what skills are
needed; (b) who makes sure the skills are acquired; and (c) who ensures acquired skills are embedded
into everyday work practices. To date, it appears that many managers and leaders do not see employee
9
Buick, F., Blackman, D. and Johnson, S. (2018) Enabling Middle Managers as Change Agents: Why
Organisational Support Needs to Change. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 77(2): 222-235, DOI:
10.1111/1467-8500.12293.
10
Blackman, D., Johnson, S., Buick, F., Faifua, D., O'Donnell, M. and Forsythe, M. (2016) The 70:20:10 model
for learning and development: an effective model for capability development? Academy of Management Annual
Meeting Proceedings. 2016 (1): https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/ambpp.2016.10745abstract.
11
Awoniyi, E.A., Griego, O.V., & Morgan, G.A. (2002) Person-environment fit and transfer of training.
International Journal of Training and Development, 6(1), 25-35. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2419.00147; Kirwan, C., &
Birchall, D. (2006) Transfer of learning from management development programmes: Testing the Holton model.
International Journal of Training and Development, 10(4), 252-268. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2419.2006.00259.x;
McCracken, M., Brown, T.C., & O’Kane, P. (2012) Swimming against the current: Understanding how a positive
organizational training climate can enhance training participation and transfer in the public sector. International
Journal of Public Sector Management, 25(4), 301-316. DOI: 10.1108/09513551211244124
12
Dickinson, H., Sullivan, H. and Head, G. (2015) The future of the public service workforce: A dialogue.
Australian Journal of Public Administration, 74, 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12143.
3
capability development as a core part of their role. An over-focus on technical skills during recruitment
processes serves to embed this problem, with people management seen as an add-on, rather than as
a core job responsibility.
It seems to us that anything the APS is trying to achieve – i.e. driving innovation; increasing productivity;
delivering high quality policy advice, regulatory oversight, programs and services; tackling complex,
multi-sectoral challenges in collaboration with the community, business and citizens; and/or improving
citizens’ experiences of government and delivering fair outcomes for them - will require organisations
to support their managers at all levels to acquire and embed suitable skills so that they feel empowered,
able to make decisions and undertake their roles effectively.
Navigating the 4th Industrial Revolution
The theme of technology and how this will change the way in which the APS operates and the skills
and capabilities required is a key theme of the review. There are significant developments underway
in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing (3D printing), virtual reality and
blockchain that hold the potential to make a significant impact on public services and public service
delivery. However, this impact will be contingent on the ability of the APS to be ready to adapt to these
technologies and to have the capability to work with others in readying the public service sector to adopt
these in a fair and ethical manner. For all of the positive factors that these technologies bring, they also
have the potential to bring with them negative impacts.
One of the challenges in facing these new technologies is the readiness for change within the APS.
The Public Service Research Group is currently undertaking research into robotics in care services
(funded by the Australia and New Zealand School of Government) and the study will report later this
year with data from interviews being currently analysed. The early indications of this study suggest that
many parts of the APS (and public services more broadly) are ill-prepared for the changes that growing
use of these technologies will bring. Many interviewees who we spoke to in the APS suggest that as
yet thinking has been limited in terms of the types of changes that will required and a lack of foresight
given to the potential implications of these technologies. Interviews revealed perspectives suggesting
that many areas of the APS are waiting for technologies to develop further and become more embedded
before being widely used. This situation is problematic for at least two reasons.
Firstly, it is well established in the literature that the Australian public service faces a challenge in respect
to policy implementation.13 Some of the reason for this relates to the types of assumptions that are
made about implementation processes. Work needs to be done to ensure that public service
organisations have the skills and capabilities to implement and adjust for technological developments.
That this is a challenge already with respect to 4th industrial revolution technologies is indicated in the
fact that despite being world leading in many areas of cyber-physical systems research, Australia ranks
18th in the world in application of industrial robots, with 50% fewer firms engaged in automation
compared to leading countries.14
Secondly and more importantly, failing to carefully consider these technologies may mean that
important factors are not considered until there is a public outcry over an issue. Many of these
technologies have potential implications in terms of the ways in which services are currently regulated.
For example, in relation to 3D printing, Dickinson15 argues that these technologies raise a series of
dilemmas for policy makers in terms of the role of government, how regulation is operated and
intellectual property is managed. If these issues are not resolved before the widespread use of these
technologies, then it is likely that we will see a number of incidents emerge that focus attention on these
issues. Developing the capacity and capabilities to deal with new technologies will require significant
engagement with a wide range of different stakeholders.
13
Moon, Dickinson & Blackman (2017) Not another review about implementation? Reframing the research
agenda. Issues paper no 1. Public Service Research Group: Canberra.
14
Australian Centre for Robotic Vision (2018) A robotics roadmap for Australia. QUT.
15
Dickinson (forthcoming) The next industrial revolution? The role of public administration in supporting
government to oversee 3D printing technologies. Public Administration Review.
4
As outlined above, as well as bringing many positives, there is the potential for these technologies to
have some negative and potentially damaging implications and it is important that these are considered
in detail and before they are rolled out in a more substantive way. Many of these technologies have
the potential to create new forms of data about individuals and much of this may be highly sensitive in
nature. This new class of data has the potential to be used by corporations in ways that disadvantage
individuals.16 Moreover, many of these technologies have the potential to exacerbate current
disadvantage and inequalities.17 The APS therefore needs to develop more effective skills and
approaches to considering what the implications of technologies might be and guard against these
disadvantaging particular groups.
Performance Measurement
Performance measurement is a central feature of modern public administration used by governments
across the world to enhance accountability for outcomes and drive improvements in service delivery18.
The deployment and use of performance data together with other incentives in performance
management systems enables governments to adopt arms-length regulatory approaches to managing
public services as they move to more market based delivery19 20. Performance management is
increasingly used by governments to achieve external accountability for outcomes and internally by
services to generate formative data for quality improvement21.
Research suggests that implementation of these systems is highly context dependent and the extent to
which different approaches can be implemented by governments varies according to the pre-existing
relationships and policy levers within individual systems. There is evidence that assurance approaches
which use performance data together with financial incentives such as pay-for-performance are
associated with unintended consequences including gaming, measurement fixation and tunnel vision
in healthcare22 and may undermine professional motivations and trust23 which inhibits collaboration
needed to ensure integrated high-quality services. For these reasons, governments are moving to adopt
more hybrid approaches, aligning different accountability mechanisms, both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ to drive
improvement across public services24. These include continuous quality improvement networks and
professional approaches that leverage provider legitimacy and authority for using data to achieve
desired outcomes; and assurance approaches using public reporting, financial incentives and
contractual mechanisms as the stimulus for change.
Our research in health and social care25 suggests that Australia’s approach has focused on the
development of performance indicators without due consideration of the ways in which these can be
used to achieve desired outcomes, nor to the alignment of different approaches to develop and embed
a comprehensive and flexible approach to performance management. A critical appraisal of the
16
Nguyen & Solomon (2018) Consumer data and the digital economy. Consumer Policy Research Centre:
Melbourne
17
Australian Human Rights Commission (2018) Human Rights and technology issues paper. Australian Human
Rights Commission: Sydney.
18
Pollitt, C. Performance management in practice: A comparative study of executive agencies. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory, 2006;16(1), 25–44.
19
Bouckaert G, Peters G. Performance Measurement and Management: The Achilles’ Heel in Administrative
Modernization. Public Performance and Management Review 2002:25(4).
20
Henman P. Performing the state: the socio-political dimensions of performance measurement in policy and
public services, Policy Studies, 2016: 37;6, 499-507, DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2016.1144739
21
. Freeman T: Using performance indicators to improve health care quality in the public sector: a review of the
literature. Health Services Management Research. 2002, 15: 126-137.
22
Mannion R, Braithwaite J. Unintended consequences of performance measurement in healthcare: 20 salutary
lessons from the English National Health Service. 2012
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1445-5994.2012.02766.x
23
. Harrison S, Smith C. Trust and moral motivation: redundant resources in health and social care? Policy Polit.
2004;32:371–386.
24
Tenbensel, T. G., & Burau, V. Contrasting approaches to primary care performance governance in Denmark
and New Zealand. Health Policy, 2017:121 (8), 853-861. DOI 10.1016/j.healthpol.2017.05.013 URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36738
25
Gardner K, Olney S, Dickinson H. Understanding tensions in the use of data in assurance and improvement
oriented performance management systems to improve their implementation. Forthcoming
5
motivations, rewards systems and techniques that underpin different approaches, and the kind of data,
system architecture and processes needed to advance implementation and increase adaptive capacity
for change is needed. We recommend the APS adopt a pragmatic approach that facilitates
accountability and improvement at multiple levels if government is to realise the potential of
performance measurement systems, particularly as the availability and use of different types of data
expands rapidly into the future.
Delivering Fair Outcomes for Citizens
The Australian government is tackling increasingly complex, multi-sectoral challenges in a constantly
shifting environment. This calls for sophisticated understanding within the APS of the local, national,
regional, and global factors that can impact on delivery of public policy outcomes, the strategic
environment in which public sector employees and agents operate, and the relationships needed to
achieve complex policy goals. In recent years, the government’s default position to achieve fair
outcomes for citizens in this environment has been to embrace private sector style approaches to
designing and delivering public services, with the aim of being more responsive, accountable and
efficient. This includes expanding public service markets, through commissioning, competitive tendering
or personalised budgets, intended to promote efficacy and efficiency through competition, and to cater
to citizens’ diverse needs and circumstances.26 Yet research shows that while some citizens benefit
from these approaches, others are marginalised27. Factors that drive inequalities, such as age, gender,
level of education, disability, health, access to technology, socioeconomic status, residential location
and household structure, emerge as clear fault lines in systems underpinned by these principles and
as previously noted, digital government can exacerbate this.28 The flow-on costs of this inequity ripple
across government and the community.
Institutional architecture created to produce public value 29 can be both a barrier to defining policy
problems30, and to collaborating across government departments, tiers of government and sectors and
with citizens to address those problems. The skill sets needed for the public service workforce to
negotiate and build shared priorities and values in this environment of competing interests include
technical skills, professional skills, and relational skills.31 They entail a shift from authority to diplomacy
and pragmatism, balancing accountability with experimentation, recognising that context matters,
understanding that diversity is crucial to design and implement fair policy, and clear-eyed appraisal of
citizens’ experience of government across a broad spectrum of needs and circumstances. To fulfil the
social contract between government and citizens, the APS must find a way to ensure citizens enjoy the
benefits of market models while protecting those vulnerable to market-produced inequities.32
Rethinking machinery of government changes
The APS review aims to ensure the APS is fit-for-purpose to meet challenges of the future. Key to this
is, amongst other things, the capacity and capability of the APS to meet core responsibilities and deliver
functions, with a focus on efficiency, effectiveness, improving citizens’ experience of government and
being an ‘employer of choice’. We argue, however, that a major impediment to achieving these
26
Carey G, Dickinson H, Malbon E & Reeders D (2018) 'The Vexed Question of Market Stewardship in the Public
Sector: Examining Equity and the Social Contract through the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme',
Social Policy and Administration, vol. 52, pp. 387 - 407, 10.1111/spol.12321
27
Smyth P, Malbon E and Carey G (eds) (2016) Social Service Futures and the Productivity Commission UNSW
Canberra http://www.powertopersuade.org.au/social-services-futures/
28 Australian Human Rights Commission (2018) Human Rights and technology issues paper. Australian Human
Rights Commission: Sydney.
29 Moore, M (1995) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government Harvard University Press
30 Bacchi, C (2009) Analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be? Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest
31 Dickinson H, Needham C, Mangan, C and Sullivan H (eds) (forthcoming) Re-imagining the future public
service workforce; Needham, C and Mangan, C (2014) The 21st Century Public Servant University of
Birmingham https://21stcenturypublicservant.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/21-century-report-281014.pdf
32
Carey G, Malbon E, Olney S & Reeders D (2018) ‘The personalisation agenda: the case of the Australian
National Disability Insurance Scheme’, International Review of Sociology, vol. 28:1, pp. 20-34, DOI:
10.1080/03906701.2018.1425084
6
aspirations is the reliance on structural change as a mechanism for achieving supposed gains, such as
governmental policy priorities, and improved coordination, effectiveness and efficiency.
Our research into machinery of government (MoG) changes suggests that they are frequently enacted
but poorly implemented and are, therefore, unlikely to deliver on anticipated gains. Our research
demonstrates that many MoG changes are highly disruptive, particularly when they involve functions /
departments with fundamentally different organisational cultures and they are implemented within a
short timeframe.33 Many MoG changes are implemented in relatively short timeframes, with public
servants claiming that inadequate time is devoted to planning, ensuring cultural fit between functions /
departments, and implementing the change effectively. 34 This means that not only are functions /
departments merged that are culturally incompatible, but departments are provided with inadequate
time to work through critical differences and establish a plan for how to effectively integrate different
cultures. As a result, they are unable to provide sufficient consideration to how to establish mechanisms
to facilitate integration across disparate groups, often leading to these groups operating in isolation to
one another and, therefore, not achieving the anticipated gains. 35 Our research also suggests that these
issues are exacerbated for those working in ‘support’ functions, such as finance, IT and human
resources, as this is where personnel are combined and departmental differences in policies,
processes, cultures, managerial approaches and so on are most stark. Finally, our research also
indicates that the period of disruption and dysfunction from structural change can be long-lived, due to
insufficient time to develop practices to overcome dysfunction induced by structural change.36 This is
particularly a problem when departments undergo multiple MoG changes within a short period as they
do not have sufficient time to recover from each change before embarking on a new one. Overall, our
research indicates that the disruptive nature of many MoG changes undermine the capacity and
capability of the APS to meet core responsibilities and deliver functions in an efficient and effective
manner.
Our research supports findings from the UK that structural changes are highly disruptive.37 They are
often associated with high transition costs associated with staff being distracted from daily operational
business as they change jobs, re-locate and develop new standard operating procedures.38 These
issues are often exacerbated due to the insufficient time allocated to planning and implementing the
changes, with little time devoted to longer term issues such as synergy identification, corporate
planning, and how to establish effective human resources, operations, and finance functions.39 Finally,
and most concerning, a study in the UK also found that structural changes are expensive, estimating
that establishing a new department costs at least £15m in the first year alone. 40 High costs often emerge
as a result of needing to cover additional resourcing (people and facilities), productivity losses and pay
settlements.41 We have been unable to find comparable figures in the APS, but nonetheless cite this
study to highlight the costly nature of MoG changes.
33
Buick, F., Carey, G. and Pescud, M. (2018). ‘Structural Changes to the Public Sector and Cultural Incompatibility:
The Consequences of Inadequate Cultural Integration’. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 77(1): 50–68
doi:10.1111/1467-8500.12262.
34
ibid
35
ibid
36
Carey, G., Buick, F. and Malbon, E. (2017). ‘The Unintended Consequences of Structural Change: When Formal
and Informal Institutions Collide in Efforts to Address Wicked Problems’, International Journal of Public
Administration, DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2017.1350708.
37 Andrews, R. and Boyne, G. (2012). ‘Structural Change and Public Service Performance: The Impact of the
Reorganization Process in English Local Government’. Public Administration, 90(2): 297–312. DOI:
10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01956.x.
38 Pollitt, C. (2007). ‘New Labour’s Redisorganization: Hyper-Modernism and the Costs of Reform – A Cautionary
Tale’. Public Management Review, 9(4): 529 – 543. DOI: 10.1080/14719030701726663
39 White, A. and Dunleavy, P. (2010). Making and breaking Whitehall departments: a guide to machinery of
government changes. Institute for Government; LSE Public Policy Group, London, UK.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27949/.
40
ibid
41 Andrews, R. and Boyne, G. (2012). ‘Structural Change and Public Service Performance: The Impact of the
Reorganization Process in English Local Government’. Public Administration, 90(2): 297–312. DOI:
10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01956.x; White, A. and Dunleavy, P. (2010). Making and breaking Whitehall
departments: a guide to machinery of government changes. Institute for Government; LSE Public Policy Group,
London, UK. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27949/.
7
Based on our own research – and that of other academics - we recommend that the government and
APS only initiate MoG changes when it is absolutely necessary for achieving desired outcomes. In doing
so, we recommend that the government and the senior executive service (SES) within the APS consider
if there are other mechanisms that could be pursued to achieve the desired outcomes. For example, if
the aim is to enhance greater inter-departmental working, then consideration could be devoted to the
likelihood of other mechanisms achieving the same objective. It is recognised that coordination and
collaboration occur along a continuum of activities, ranging from informal and intermittent (cooperation),
to more formalized, yet short-term (coordination) to more formalized, long-term and integrated
(collaboration) arrangements (see, for example, Keast, Brown and Mandell 2007 42). Thus, consideration
could be devoted to whether the anticipated gains could be better achieved through cooperation,
coordination (i.e. inter-departmental committees and working groups, taskforces etc.) and/or
collaboration (i.e. joint teams).
When it is determined that a MoG change is, in fact, necessary then we suggest more time is devoted
to the planning process. Planning should include an assessment of likely complementarities and
incompatibilities, highlighting potential problematic areas. Then attention should be devoted to how to
enhance integration across merged entities. We outline our recommendations for APS departments in
detail in Buick, Carey and Pescud (2018) 43, but in brief they include:
• Establishing an integration team that focuses exclusively on developing and implementing
integration strategies;
• Devoting closer attention to effective communication to enable employee understanding of the
rationale for the change, anticipated benefits, and the desired new organisational identity;
• Utilising performance management to support employees through the change process in order
to provide role clarity;
• Providing opportunities and forums for employees from the different groups to engage in
dialogue, and share ideas, learnings and knowledge; and
• Focusing on enhancing cultural learning across the organisation through being able to discuss
differences and synergies, establish a better understanding of how the groups could enhance
cooperation and work together.
Finally, we also recommend that the SES within APS departments ensure that individuals and groups
within the combined functions / departments are adequately developed and supported to undertake
intra-departmental boundary spanning roles. These activities may involve creating dedicated boundary
spanning roles where individuals and groups work across structural, cultural and/or functional
boundaries. We suggest these individuals and groups should be formally developed, mentored and
provided with adequate resources to undertake their roles.44
42 Keast, R., Brown, K. and Mandell, M. (2007). ‘Getting the Right Mix: Unpacking Integration Meanings and
Strategies’, International Public Management Journal, 10(1): 9-33.
43
Buick, F., Carey, G. and Pescud, M. (2018). ‘Structural Changes to the Public Sector and Cultural
Incompatibility: The Consequences of Inadequate Cultural Integration’. Australian Journal of Public
Administration, 77(1): 50–68 doi:10.1111/1467-8500.12262
44
Carey, G., Buick, F., Pescud, E. and Malbon, E. (2017). ‘Preventing Dysfunction and Improving Policy Advice:
The Role of Intra-Departmental Boundary Spanners’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 76(2): 176-186.
DOI:10.1111/1467-8500.12213.
8