In contrast with the past approach that often combined several functions, modern public organisations have tended to be established to achieve one distinctive purpose such as policy, delivery or regulation. Centrelink’s principal task is service delivery, but in its conception and execution as a public organisation, several different organisational imperatives have been apparent. Four models underpin Centrelink and each provides a different lens for viewing the organisation’s functioning and thus a basis for considering the potential conflicts identified between them (Halligan 2004).
The first model, the political, derives from being directly or indirectly subject to ministerial direction, despite operating under special governance arrangements. Centrelink must adhere to the top-down authority relationship with ministers and government agendas and function as a public service organisation subject to public service legislation as a statutory agency. This model is ultimately grounded in traditional, but still central, ideas about responsible government (Aucoin et al. 2004).
The second model is of Centrelink as an agent and service provider in a purchaser–provider relationship in which it is expected to behave in specified quasi-contractual ways. Its operations are grounded in relationships with client departments: the purchasers of its services. The link to new public management is strong (for example, disaggregation and contractualism), but it is influenced specifically by principal-agent theory and particularly the concept of executive agencies (James 2003; Pollitt and Talbot 2004; Pollitt et al. 2004).
The third model is that of an entrepreneurial organisation, which must compete in the market to secure existing core work as well as seeking new work. Under this conception, Centrelink is concerned with market share and with competition in the public and voluntary sectors, and even with extending its operations to the private marketplace. This imperative derived from the government’s injunction to the Australian Public Service (APS) to operate more like the private sector and reflected new public management and entrepreneurial government dictums in vogue in the mid-1990s (Halligan 2003).
The final model conceives of Centrelink as a customer-driven organisation that is responsive to recipients of its services and thus driven by customer relationships and satisfaction. Feedback is gathered through surveying and benchmarking with the aim of stimulating continuous improvement and realignment within the organisation.
Each model captures an organisational imperative that is externally grounded and usually has a basis in the agency’s empowering legislation. Each has a different external driver: politicians, clients, competitors or customers. They reflect top-down authority and contractual relationships and environmentally determined pressures from quasi-markets in which choice operates.
A further imperative can also be distinguished. A public sector agency that operates within the core public service is subject to the budgetary and administrative requirements of central agencies such as the Department of Finance and Administration (DOFA) as well as the strictures of external accountability from, in particular, the Auditor-General, the Ombudsman and parliament. An agency this large with extensive dealings with the public invariably attracts continual scrutiny from external organisations.