I am acutely conscious that my career experience, while personally very rewarding, should not be seen as the model for others to try to replicate. It is my personal history, reflecting my choices, my good fortune and my own strengths and weaknesses.

What capabilities and experiences do secretaries require? I do not suggest there is a simple formula. Indeed, there is advantage to the Public Service as a whole to have a diversity of people at the top with different personalities, skill mixes, expertise and personal and career backgrounds. Nonetheless, those trying to guide career development rightly look for some balance in the mix of each secretary’s experience, seeing benefits in:

The last is, in my view, quite important. In some cases, there remains a need for the relevant secretary to have particular subject matter expertise (for example, in the Attorney-General’s Department and in Treasury). In others, the secretary might not require subject matter expertise, but must appreciate its importance to the success of the department. I was always persuaded by a comment Sir John Crawford made to a forum at The Australian National University that I attended in 1970 to the effect that the best generalist was someone who had been an expert. I also tend to favour some streaming of most top people according to areas of expertise, despite my own eclectic career. That streaming might reflect expertise in social policy, or industry, or defence and foreign affairs, or economics and financial management, or law, or large-scale management.

Whatever our own attributes, secretaries require substantial support in terms of personal staff, the agency’s executive team and external networks. Cementing personal commitment and trust is essential and there are some simple rules to follow that can help.

I have highlighted the importance of retaining some form of performance feedback, primarily peer based, despite the welcome removal of performance pay. The five areas identified under the old regime remain apposite: support for the minister, support for the government as a whole, management, leadership and the APS Values. In saying this, I should also caution against too much formality in the process. With this in mind, I encourage readers to examine a Canadian paper, Distinguishing the real from the surreal in management reform, by two former deputy ministers (the Canadian equivalent of Australian departmental secretaries), Ian Clark and Harry Swain (2007), in which they distinguish between the duties of deputy ministers to manage people and public monies in a sensible way and duties to comply with centrally imposed requirements associated with idealised government-wide management frameworks.