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Last updated: 20 April 2004
Connecting Government: Whole of government responses to Australia's priority challenges
MAC
- The Management Advisory Committee (MAC) is a forum of Secretaries and Agency Heads established under the Public Service Act 1999 to advise the Australian Government on matters relating to the management of the Australian Public Service
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Preface
I am pleased to present this important Management Advisory Committee Report on Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia's Priority Challenges.
My strong perception is that the Australian Public Service (APS) performs well, compared to other public sectors around the world, in working across the organisational boundaries of bureaucracy. Every day, in many ways, we bridge successfully the demarcations of officialdom that can undermine successful policy development and delivery. But we cannot be lulled into a self-satisfied complacency. Challenges remain. More than ever before, agencies must continue to find new and better ways to work together to deliver results for the Australian Government and the community.
There are many reasons that we should work in a whole of government way. Not least is the fact that every major challenge of public administration-ensuring security, building a strong economy, coping with demographic change and crafting social policy-necessarily requires the active participation of a range or central and line agencies.
Australians rightly demand the delivery of government programs and services in a seamless way. They should also expect that, behind the scenes, all the resources of government will be brought to bear in the search for innovative solutions to the complex challenges of developing public policy.
It is important that commitment to a whole of government perspective is not misinterpreted as a call for 'group think'. Governance has been improved by the fact that public policy is an increasingly contested terrain. The challenge is to ensure that the collective decision-making of the Australian government is based upon the best informed articulation of the challenges faced and a strategic assessment of the relative merits of different approaches to how they might be addressed. For this, a comprehensive whole of government approach is required.
Connecting Government goes beneath the surface of the 'coordination' that the APS strives to achieve. It examines the many different and sometimes competing imperatives that contribute to successful whole of government work and seeks to learn from our successes and failures.
The report does not believe that effective solutions lie in moving around the deckchairs of bureaucratic endeavour. Rather it reinforces the need to continue to build an APS culture that supports, models, understands and aspires to whole of government solutions. Collegiality at the most senior levels of the service is a key part of this culture.
Portfolio secretaries and agency heads will be responsible for driving cooperative behaviours and monitoring the success of whole of government approaches. This has many elements. They will be required to ensure that their staff understand that their role on interdepartmental committees or task forces is not to defend territory but to seek solutions in the national interest. They will be expected actively to champion whole of government projects and to model critical behaviours such as collegiality.
The report also highlights the need for agencies to recruit and develop people with the right skills. Relevant topics should be included in induction and training so that coordination, cooperation, negotiation and openness are truly valued. Agencies will be encouraged to give their high performing staff experience on whole of government projects and to support their participation with other agencies in such projects.
Commitment needs to be recognised. New service-wide awards will be offered to celebrate the best whole of government work. The success or failure of the APS in taking whole of government approaches will be reported through the State of the Service report.
Knowledge is a key to cultural change. A web presence will be established to encourage agencies to share information, expertise and ideas so that the increasing volume of research on the organisation of whole of government approaches can be collected once but used many times.
MAC will fail if its reports are quietly filed away under the heading 'Read on a Wet Sunday'. There are many more initiatives in this report which offer practical help to Australian government agencies in their efforts to continually improve the way they work across boundaries. The objective is to implement many more.
Whole of government is the public administration of the future. It offers links and connections to the global community of ideas, knowledge and understanding essential for the APS to face the governance challenges of the 21st century. It extols team-based approaches to solving the wicked problems that are endemic to public policy.
Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia's Priority Challenges is a valuable guide to participating effectively in that future.
I hope it makes a difference.
Dr Peter Shergold AM
Contents
The whole of government challenge
There are many imperatives which make being successful at whole of government work increasingly important. These include pressures on the APS to offer sophisticated whole of government policy advice which comprehends a range of stakeholders' views, and to respond to complex policy challenges such as environmental or rural issues.
Structures and processes
There is a need for careful choice of the appropriate structures to support whole of government work
Culture and capability
Culture and capability critically shape the success of whole of government activities
Information management & infrastructure
Working more successfully across Australian government agencies, other jurisdictions and the private sector relies on better information sharing and requires structured approaches to the collection, reuse and sharing of data and information
Budget & accountability framework
The budget process provides the opportunity to identify cross-portfolio priorities and establish how they are to be considered
Making connections out of the APS
A sound whole of government approach requires understanding of how programs and policies come together to affect particular communities, social groups, sectors of the economy and/or regions
Managing crises & consequences
Australian experience in crisis management provides useful pointers for broader whole of government work.
Appendix 1 Whole of government project: Terms of reference
