Governments have policies on public service management and the APS Commission advises ministers on these policies, seeks clarification of the policies and consults ministers on the commission’s strategies and programs to ensure consistency with the government’s policies. In this sense, the commissioner’s role has similarity to that of a departmental secretary. The ministers concerned, however, have other portfolio responsibilities, which greatly overshadow those concerning the commission. The Prime Minister has very limited time to spend on public service matters and the minister assisting in my time was also Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations (under the Rudd Government, he is the ministerial Cabinet Secretary as well as Special Minister of State within the finance portfolio).
I sought monthly meetings with the minister assisting, partly to remind him we were there and to ensure a level of comfort with what we were doing. I was conscious of the risk of others displacing the commissioner as the key adviser on public service matters, including in particular the secretary of the minister’s department. I also encouraged the minister assisting (without success) to have an adviser with clear responsibilities for public service matters, who was not just the department’s liaison officer (DLO). It was not possible to justify a full-time officer to be a dedicated DLO for the commission, though I also tried to have the minister’s chief of staff consider one of my people to play the shared role with the department. To be fair, the department’s DLO generally played the liaison role with the commission quite effectively, but I still felt it was not the optimal solution for us.
Table 12.4 Advising on workplace relations within the APS
The APS Commission did not have responsibility for industrial relations matters in my time: that was the responsibility of the Employment and Workplace Relations department. Nonetheless, I did have statutory responsibilities to explain and promote the APS Values, which included a number relevant to industrial relations (for example, the merit principle, fairness, managing performance, consultations), and to develop APS employment policies and practices and facilitate continuous improvement.
When the minister, Tony Abbott, was pressing for all public servants to be on individual AWAs, I was concerned that his department was encouraging him without adequate advice on the issues and the problems involved. I became aware that the department had received legal advice that it would be possible to require all new appointees to the APS to be on AWAs, though not to require current employees to do so or to apply this as a condition for promotion. While this advice on the law might have been technically correct, it did not include consideration of the broader issues involved in any attempt to push for universal use of AWAs and I was not amused that it was sought and given without consultation with me (as required by standing rules on legal advice from the Attorney-General's Department).
I advised the minister of my statutory role to evaluate the extent to which agencies incorporated and upheld the values and that wider use of AWAs would require agencies to satisfy me that they were meeting the requirement of the merit principle. In my view, they would need clear, public remuneration policies, consistent with classification principles, and to demonstrate that open competition for promotion was not being circumvented by individually negotiated pay deals.
I also advised that organisational performance was not necessarily enhanced by individual-based pay flexibility even if this enhanced individual performance (and it was not clear if it did). More important elements include alignment with the organisation’s objectives; timely, positive and fair feedback; and management addressing obstacles to individual and team performance.
Finally, I drew to his attention the views of the CEOs of every large APS agency (including the Tax Office, Centrelink, Customs and the Bureau of Statistics) that the administrative workload to manage individual AWAs for all staff would be excessive.
The minister said he appreciated my advice, but it was clear he was more appreciative of the advice I believe he received from the secretary of his department.
I generally only met the Prime Minister each year when advising on agency heads’ performance and at joint forums such as the portfolio secretaries’ retreat. While my written communications were usually with the minister assisting, I did send the Prime Minister some minutes directly, particularly on highly significant issues (for example, after the 2004 election, I advised him on a range of public administration matters for the next term of government including ministerial advisers’ code of conduct and secretaries’ contracts and performance pay).