Some issues surrounding the support of ministers by secretaries never change: getting the balance right between responsiveness to the elected government and its minister and apolitical professionalism in the public interest has always been a challenge and a matter for judgment. Both are essential, but pursuing one to the extent of compromising the other is not appropriate.
Some secretaries in the late 1990s referred to their ministers as their departments’ ‘primary customers’ in their strategic plans and other exhortations to staff. I always firmly rejected that view, not only because it misrepresented the accountability framework in government, but because it promoted excessive responsiveness and even obsequiousness to ministers. If private sector analogies must be used, a minister is more like the chairman of the board and the secretary more like the CEO. The CEO is responsible to the board, which agrees on the strategic direction of the organisation, including who is the primary customer and how the organisation is to serve them. For government departments, the ‘primary customer’ was the Australian public, and I used our strategic planning to ensure ministerial endorsement of the way we intended to serve the public.
In my experience, there is rarely much controversy in providing policy advice to ministers. Most ministers are keen to be presented with options and do not object to advice advocating an option they do not support (though inexperienced ministerial advisers do sometimes try to constrain such advice). The challenge is more acute when the advice concerns an issue of due process: a freedom-of-information (FOI) request, information to be included in an annual report, the need for a competitive tender process or other constraint about a grant or contract. In this situation, a secretary might consider there is no room for offering options: there is only due process. The minister may still reject the advice (if it is lawful to do so) because of immediate political embarrassment, but most know that in doing so their future political risks might be heightened. The advice on due process is itself sometimes regarded as the problem and the provision of such ‘frank and fearless’ advice requires the most courage, in my experience.
Table 3.6 Whose annual report?
Annual reports set out departmental performance against the targets set out in the portfolio budget statements for that year.
In the draft 2000–01 annual report, we included data on the number of occupied aged-care places compared with the targets set out in the portfolio budget statements: there was a small shortfall. This was of considerable concern to Minister Bishop, who had been responding to sustained criticism of insufficient places by announcing new funding for more places. Her statements, including approved places not yet occupied, demonstrated a commitment to considerable expansion, but the annual report would show that we had not yet met the government’s own target in terms of occupied places.
Following usual practice, I had provided copies of the draft report to ministers well in advance to allow time for comment. After some initial response, I agreed to include in the report figures on approved places showing that new investments were being made, but insisted that the data and comparisons based on occupied places remain.
As the deadline approached for publishing to meet parliamentary obligations, I advised Minister Bishop’s office that I needed to proceed that weekend. Bishop rang me, directing very forcefully that nothing was to go to the printer until she had approved the wording, which was not possible for another week as she was travelling to Central Australia. It was her report, she said, and it would not include data that were not in her public statements. I gently reminded her that it was in fact my report, that I was obliged to report against the published portfolio budget statements targets and that Parliament had set the deadlines.
Nonetheless, we held back the printing to the last possible minute. Deputy Secretary Mary Murnane spent several hours with the minister in Alice Springs going through the draft in minute detail and I agreed to a few minor amendments while retaining the key data. The report was eventually tabled (after further resistance from the minister when the 2001 election was called).
The challenge to balance responsiveness and impartial professionalism is not always about resisting excessive pressure for responsiveness. In the early days of a new government, the challenge is frequently in the reverse direction: departments can be slow to understand the priorities and styles of the new minister and government and considerable attention has to be given to providing ministers with the opportunity to exercise the authority they have earned and to change policies, procedures, priorities and resource allocation. Wooldridge has told me he felt some areas of the department continued to pursue their own agendas and were slow to respond to his decisions when they did not align with their views (there might have been some truth to this and there were cases where I intervened to press for quicker and more positive responses, but some of the concerns of the relevant officers reflected statutory responsibilities not personal agendas and certainly did warrant testing of the minister’s directions).
Officers can also sometimes move into ‘caretaker mode’ too early, resisting acting on minister’s political decisions before an election has been called. I always took the view that three-year terms were already very short and the public interest would not be served at all if the Public Service effectively shortened these terms. There are clear rules as to when the caretaker period begins and until that time ministers have every right to expect their lawful instructions to be obeyed. Of course, the nearer governments get to elections, the more often poor decisions tend to be made, and the more important good and frank advice can be.
More recent issues include working with substantial ministerial offices and handling the closer control of government communications.
Ministerial staffers are a critical part of the political landscape in Australia, reflecting an international trend in government. They not only provide important politically oriented support to the minister, in doing so, they can take pressure off ‘politicising’ the Public Service through partisan appointments or activities. These advantages can be jeopardised if the advisers overstep the mark in their relations with public servants.
Table 3.7 Building trust with ministerial staff
Good relations with the minister’s staff are important but not always easy. I learned from my early experience with Brian Howe’s staff that, as secretary, I needed to invest more of my own time in the relationship.
I had some concerns about his staff relating in particular to the level of intervention down into my (small) department and the lack of clarity about responsibilities in the office (indeed, there was frequently disagreement among his staff and competition to gain his ear). Given the chief of staff seemed to have limited authority over the other advisers, I chose to raise my concerns with the minister himself, but only after I felt confident of our own performance in serving him and addressing his policy priorities. This proved at least partially successful (see also Chapter 7), but ran the risk of openly challenging people with a very longstanding and close personal relationship with the minister.
With Michael Wooldridge’s office, I used a different tack, which I think is generally the better one. I worked hard on my own relationship with the chief of staff, Barbara Hayes (and later Ken Smith). We arranged to meet every month or so over a glass of wine in my office. We would each draw up an agenda, which, while dominated by issues of policy or program substance, usually included a few incidents between the department and office causing one or other (or both) of us concern. The informality allowed us to talk frankly about the department’s performance or an adviser’s overstepping the mark, including incidents involving either of us personally. It did not resolve everything, but it diffused many situations that might otherwise have escalated into a brawl requiring ministerial involvement.
Control of communications similarly can present a two-edged sword. Good control can help build confidence in the relationship between ministers and the Public Service (nothing so quickly destroys trust as leaks or other failures in communications management). Excessive control, however, can inhibit the release or even the preparation of information, such as research and statistics, which is in the public interest.
Trust, relations and confidence are put under greatest pressure during political crises. I have experienced my fair share, learning the importance of keeping open channels of communication with the minister and office while taking responsibility for project management of the crisis within the department, ensuring timely collection of information, preparation of useful briefs, and so on. I was not always successful in this (Table 3.8).
Table 3.8 Managing political crises: the ‘scan scam’ and kerosene baths
The years 1999 and 2000 were particularly difficult for me and the department, as well as for my two ministers, Michael Wooldridge and Bronwyn Bishop. Administrative weaknesses in the department contributed to incidents that spiralled into political crises colloquially known as the ‘scan scam’ and the kerosene baths case. Years later, I might be able to convince some people that, in both cases, despite the immediate failures, the underlying programs and initiatives were achieving substantial improvements in the quality of care, and in a cost-effective way. At the time, however, we were all in the bunker under continuous attack by the media, interest groups and the Opposition.
An interesting side to this was the different approaches taken to managing the two crises—one effective, the other not.
During the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) crisis in 1999, we established a small team in the department to coordinate support for Wooldridge. The team met in my office briefly each morning and we would have a short teleconference with the minister’s chief of staff to discuss the latest media stories, the information needed to respond, the likely tactics in Parliament (for example, Question Time, Matter of Public Importance debate, censure motion). My officers would then seek out the necessary information and draft some briefs. Late in the morning, we would meet again in my office, go through the material, send it to the minister’s office and have a further teleconference to test if we had covered what was needed and to discuss further the tactics the minister might prepare for. The minister’s office would then take over control, turning the briefs into speeches and so on, liaising with the Prime Minister’s Office and the minister representing in the Senate. Most days, I spoke to the minister late in the day to review the situation.
For a time, relations between the minister’s office and the department were understandably fraught, but I rang the chief of staff advising him that whatever their criticisms of the department, the minister and I (and he) needed to keep the lines of communication between us open, every day. This we did, and it helped enormously.
The aged-care crisis in 2000 was inherently more complex (new claims were being aired about nursing homes around Australia each day), but it still was not managed nearly as well as it should have been. First, despite my objections, the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Max Moore-Wilton, instructed me to work from Bishop’s office. This confused my role and the office’s role. We set up a team in the department under the deputy, but control there was made more difficult by pressure on me to intervene continuously when briefings were late. Briefings were constantly late, as we attempted to get the facts on every claim from around Australia by lunchtime, rather than prioritise and insist on extra time to investigate details. The department was also struggling to get its state offices to appreciate the importance of the crisis and their responsibility to respond more quickly and clearly.
The office was not operating smoothly either, with the Prime Minister’s Office constantly intruding to criticise the department (‘You need a baseball bat, Andrew, to take to the department’) and insufficient attention was paid to ensuring the minister representing Bishop in the Senate (Amanda Vanstone) was properly briefed. Support from the portfolio minister’s office was offered but not taken up. Everything was done on the run, with much blame and insufficient cooperation.
The only one I felt could hold their head up for performing well was the deputy secretary, Mary Murnane, who was calm in the crisis and accepted the second-best management approach, performing as leader of the team back in the department and at times providing some of the personal support for the minister that should have come from the office.
Postscript: some light reliefTwice during the kerosene baths crisis, while in difficult meetings with Bishop and her advisers, I was called away to answer an urgent phone call from the portfolio minister, Wooldridge. While each time there was some point of substance to the call, the main purpose was: ‘I thought you might need a break, Andrew.’