related resources

on our site

news

Home page
> Publications > Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values > Part one > Next: Part two
> Employment policy and advice
‹ Previous page

Last updated: 9 March 2006

Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values

Part one: Building effective relationships—basic requirements, roles and responsibilities

The Australian Public Service Commission’s evaluation found a high level of commitment to building and maintaining effective relationships between APS employees and Ministers and their advisers. This commitment reflected a widespread belief that good relationships between agencies and Ministers’ offices are vital to effective Government, and that if the relationship breaks down, the consequences can be bad for Government and bad for the public service.

Recent analysis of a controversy in the late 1960s, the so-called ‘VIP affair’, suggests that a breakdown in communication and failures in the provision of frank and accurate advice contributed to an incident that damaged the Government of the day, and may have fuelled doubts about the effectiveness of the APS.⁸ Former APS departmental Secretary Tony Blunn said the same thing regarding his experience in the APS in the1990s, at the time of the ‘sports rorts affair’.⁹ A.J. Ayers, when Secretary of the Department of Defence, generalised the consequences of a breakdown in the relationship between APS employees and Ministers and their offices as follows:

The simple truth is that where there is significant conflict or significant lack of cooperation between a Minister’s office and his or her department, it is the performance of the Minister which suffers. In this event, particularly when a Minister is under pressure, it is easy for the office to develop a bunker mentality. To use a military analogy the classic Soviet armour defensive pattern was for the tanks to form into a circle like a western wagon train, with friends inside and everyone outside being the enemy … There are plenty of examples at a federal and state level that this tactic is disastrous for Ministers. A constructive working relationship between advisers and department officials is essential.¹⁰

As Roger Beale (then Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Heritage) has outlined, ‘a very rewarding relationship [can be founded on] a mutual respect for the different roles of the private Office and the Department’:

It follows from all this that Ministerial staff do not have any executive power or other legal authority to direct APS employees, but in a professional and cooperative arrangement they can provide early advice about the Minister’s policy leanings. This can be taken into account in advice provided by the Department, but of course it does not overtake the obligation for comprehensiveness, accuracy and timeliness. At the heart of a good working relationship is a mutual respect for the different roles of the private office and the Department. One is there to serve the Minister’s priorities and needs, the other to deliver the Government’s programmes and provide policy advice in accordance with the values and obligations set out in the Public Service and Financial Management Acts, and any other relevant legislation.¹¹

1.1 Basic requirements

The relationship between APS employees and Ministers and their offices exists within a framework of laws and guidelines. These include the constitutional and statutory framework within which agencies and Governments must act, and the Prime Minister’s Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility.¹²

1.1.1 The statutory framework

Public servants, Ministers and parliamentarians operate under the law within a democratic political system in which there is ultimate accountability of Governments to the Australian people through the electoral process. Many commentators over the last two decades, in endorsing the need for greater responsiveness, have highlighted that the elected Government alone has the authority to determine the public interest in terms of policies and programmes, while public servants assist Governments to deliver that policy agenda and those priorities. The public service does, however, have a responsibility for protecting the public interest in terms of ensuring the integrity of government processes, including compliance with the law and fair and impartial decision-making in accordance with approved guidelines. It also has an important role in providing Governments with a longer-term perspective to decision-making and policy making, including a balanced view of the impact of policy options on the Australian community as a whole.¹³

The Values that guide decision-making reflect the core principles of public administration that have applied in comparable systems of government for over a hundred years. Since 1999 these have been set down in the Public Service Act at section 10. Together with the Code of Conduct, these form the statutory foundation underpinning the conduct of all APS employees. While most of the time they complement each other, at times the APS Values need to be balanced so that no single Value is pressed to the point that it conflicts directly with another.¹⁴

Three key APS Values apply to interactions with Ministers and their offices. These are that the APS is:

• apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner
• responsive to the Government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the Government’s policies and programmes
• openly accountable for actions, within the framework of Ministerial responsibilities to the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public (sections 10(1)(a)(f) and (e) of the Public Service Act 1999).

Being apolitical does not mean being ‘independent’: it means providing advice that is not influenced by party political considerations, or not acceding to requests from a Minister’s office that would involve engaging in party political activities. An apolitical APS is one whose staffing is free from political interference and that performs its functions in an impartial and professionally detached manner, unaffected by individual employees’ political allegiances.

Following the passage of the 1999 Public Service Act, the Public Service Commissioner released APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice: A Guide to Official Conduct for APS Employees and Agency Heads, developed to assist APS employees to understand the practical application of the APS Values and Code of Conduct in common and unusual circumstances, and to assist agency heads to establish policies and procedures that promote the APS Values and ensure compliance with the Code. Those parts of that guide bearing on interactions with Ministers and their offices underpin good practice in managing these relationships, and have been incorporated in this guide for that reason.¹⁵

In addition to upholding the Values, all APS employees are required to comply with the Code of Conduct (set out in the Public Service Act 1999 at section 13). One aspect of the Code that is central to their relationship with Government is the obligation under section 13(6) to maintain appropriate confidentiality about dealings with any Minister or Minister’s member of staff .

Laws specific to an agency can also affect the relationship between a Minister and that agency. It is important that, in these cases, agencies work to ensure that their employees(and, of course, their Ministers) are aware of how laws might affect their agency in distinctive ways. This can include statutory frameworks for decisions about individuals and individual organisations, the management of grants etc., which determine procedures APS employees must follow.

1.1.2 The Prime Minister’s Guide

The Prime Minister’s Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility provides guidance on Ministerial conduct to Ministers and their staff . This is how it describes the relationship between Ministers and Government departments:

The Australian Public Service (APS) exists to provide advice to the government, and give effect to its policies. The Service is based on a number of important principles, including: high standards of honesty, integrity and conduct; equitable service to the public; provision of frank and comprehensive advice to Ministers; a strong emphasis on responsiveness to the government, the Parliament and the community; party-political impartiality; and staffing based on merit.

It is important that there be trust between Ministers and public servants, and each must contribute to the establishment and maintenance of the trust. Ministers should be scrupulous in avoiding asking public servants to do anything that the APS principles do not permit, and in particular should not ask them to engage in activities which could call into question their political impartiality.

The Guide also outlines aspects of the role of Ministers’ offices in liaising with departments:

Ministerial staff provide important links between Ministers and departments when the Minister is unable to deal with departmental staff personally, and add essential political dimensions to advice coming to Ministers. A close and productive relationship between a Minister’s staff and the Department maximises the Minister’s effectiveness. Ultimately, however, Ministers cannot delegate to members of their personal staff their constitutional, legal or accountability responsibilities. Ministers therefore need to make careful judgements about the extent to which they authorise staff to act on their behalf in dealings with departments.²⁰

1.2 Roles and responsibilities

Effective leadership is critical to ensuring that agency staff are confident in managing day-to-day relationships with Ministers and their offices.

The 2003–04 State of the Service report indicates that two-thirds of APS employees who had been in direct contact with Ministers or their offices in the 12 months to June 2004 felt highly or very highly confident that they could balance the APS Values appropriately during those interactions. Ten per cent had low or very low levels of confidence. Importantly, levels of confidence vary considerably between agencies.

We know that high levels of confidence among employees in their capacity to balance apolitical professionalism and responsiveness to Ministers are correlated with awareness of agency protocols providing guidance on the handling of routine and special case interactions. We also know that employees who reported that the most senior managers in their agency do not act in accordance with the Values were more likely to have moderate, low or very low confidence in their ability to balance the Values when interacting with Ministers or their offices. There is a similar correlation where immediate managers are not perceived to act in accordance with the Values.²¹

These correlations are unsurprising. The application of Values-based principles can require both concrete guidance and, on occasion, mentoring from trusted and experienced senior practitioners. It is the responsibility of agency heads and senior managers to provide guidance of both types and foster a culture in which such guidance can be sought and applied with confidence.

1.2.1 Agency heads and the executive

Agency heads have an important role in providing advice, implementing Government decisions and meeting Government objectives within a whole of government context. They are entrusted to continue building on the achievements of the past and improving the performance of the public service.²²

Agency heads set the overall tone for the relationship with Ministers and their offices. Tony Blunn, former departmental Secretary, discussing his time as head of the Environment Department at the time of the ‘sports rorts affair’, reflected that

the Department took its lead from me and thought that if I thought it was okay to be a bit cavalier with [Ministerial] staff members, they thought it was okay to be a bit cavalier with staff members … [H]ad I been a better departmental head in that instance, I believe I could have helped [the Minister] avoid that situation. And that is what I mean by working constantly on the relationships and managing the relationships to achieve the results you need to achieve.²³

Opportunities to review the relationship arise in particular with the appointment of a new Minister or agency head, the issuing of a Charter Letter by the Prime Minister to a Minister at the beginning of a term of Government, any performance assessment process for the agency head, the preparation of corporate plans and reviews of agency performance such as those required for annual report purposes.

Most agencies have clearly defined administrative arrangements, managed by Ministerial liaison areas, for handling Ministerial correspondence, briefs, speeches etc., which are regularly revised, particularly with changes of Minister. These implicitly set some standards of service by defining context and style and, in most cases, expected timeframes. Agencies can, however, go further in their policies and guidelines on standards of service. Agency heads and the executive need to keep all relevant employees informed of any changes in the Minister’s requirements or priorities, and of any feedback on performance.

Such feedback may be garnered through formal or informal arrangements. Thirty-nine per cent of agencies reported through the 2003–04 State of the Service report that they used a formal rating system to collect Ministerial feedback; 21% reported having a formal requirement that oral feedback was to be collected from the Minister; and 25% reported a formal requirement that oral feedback be collected from Ministerial staff. Others draw on comments made in the course of regular meetings. This variation may reflect a concern raised during the evaluation that some Ministers were not consistent in using the ratings pro formas attached to briefing material, and that as a result the pro formas might be being filled in informally by other staff .

Other ideas on high quality services are contained in Allen Behm, Lynne Bennington and James Cummane’s work on a value-creating model for effective policy services, referred to above, John Uhr and Keith Mackay’s work on evaluating policy advice, and Australian National Audit Office guidance on developing policy advice and on managing parliamentary workflow.²⁴

Agency heads can also, by example, foster close relations with advisers built on trust and understanding of their respective roles.

It can be good practice to invite the Minister’s Chief of Staff and advisers to meetings of the agency’s executive or management committee at least once a year, to discuss mutual support for the Minister and any issues arising from the respective roles and responsibilities of the agency and the office, including APS employees’ responsibility to uphold the APS Values.

The Public Service Act 1999 requires agency heads to promote as well as to uphold the APS Values. One important means of doing so is to ensure that important guidance is articulated in agency-specific policies, procedures and written protocols (discussed in Part 2 of this guide).

Agency heads should also regularly remind senior managers of their responsibility to provide staff with ongoing support in managing their relations with Ministers and their advisers. Working from a number of relevant APS Values, some of which must be balanced at times, can mean that people reach different conclusions from each other about the right course of action in particular situations. An agency’s leadership should foster an environment that encourages discussion around the practical implementation of the Values concerning interactions with Ministers and their offices.

Good practice may include agency heads explicitly reminding their Senior Executive Service staff in particular of their responsibilities to promote the APS Values, and their responsibilities as leaders to encourage discussion of ethical behaviour and of upholding the Values in working with Ministers and their offices. This might be demonstrated by regular discussion in the agency’s executive or management committees of the agency’s general performance in serving the Minister, and of the handling of specific, sensitive issues where the Values have to be balanced.

Good practice could include demonstrating senior management’s support for Values- based decision-making, by incorporating questions in agency staff attitude surveys asking employees about their level of confidence in the decision-making processes of managers during interactions with Ministers and their offices.

As a good example of managing ethical issues generally, the Department of Health and Ageing has conducted an ethics awareness programme entitled ‘Fork-in-the-Road Café’. Its theme is to encourage staff to stop and discuss the issues when faced with an ethical dilemma: to seek advice from respected colleagues, or expert guidance on precedents and legal requirements, before proceeding. Sometimes there may be no clear answer, as competing considerations need to be balanced: but if there has been serious consideration and discussion with colleagues, the basis of the decision can be explained with knowledge that all aspects of the issue were fully explored.

The benefit of seeking guidance should not be underestimated, and exists for staff at every level. Agency heads themselves will benefit from discussion with a deputy or with colleagues in other agencies. The Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Public Service Commissioner may also offer useful counsel.

1.2.2 Heads of statutory authorities

The government has agreed in response to the Uhrig report (recommendation 2) that the role of portfolio departments as the principal source of advice to Ministers, should be reinforced by requiring statutory authorities and office holders to provide relevant information to portfolio Secretaries in parallel to that information being provided by statutory authorities and office holders to Ministers. The broad intention of this requirement is to reinforce the role of portfolio Secretaries as the principal source of advice to Ministers in relation to all matters within the portfolio.

This decision emphasises the importance of maintaining effective communication channels between departments and statutory authorities in the portfolio to ensure that the Department is well placed to provide timely advice to the responsible Minister. Such channels could include links between Ministerial liaison areas and parliamentary workflow systems (see section 1.2.8), as well as direct discussions between heads of statutory authorities and the Secretary of the portfolio department.

In the case of statutory authorities, it should also be noted that following the Uhrig report the Government has agreed that Ministers should periodically issue statements clarifying government expectations, and bodies should be requested to respond through Statements of Intent. Ministers will make both Statements of Expectation and Statements of Intent public. Examples of matters which could be included in statements include: references to communications protocols and/or Memoranda of Understanding between the body, the Minister and/or the department, and the expectation that they be kept up-to-date; key performance indicators (where appropriate and agreed); government objectives and/or policies relevant to the body; and any other expectations agreed with the body.

1.2.3 Senior managers

All members of the Senior Executive Service have a statutory responsibility to promote the APS Values and compliance with the Code of Conduct by personal example and other appropriate means (section 35(2)(c) of the Public Service Act 1999). Personal example is important: the State of the Service employee survey results make it clear that staff confidence in addressing challenges arising during their interactions with Ministers and their offices depends to a significant degree on their belief that their managers act in accordance with the Values.

Consultations conducted for the Australian Public Service Commission’s evaluation all strongly indicated that employee learning about relationships with Ministers and their offices generally takes place ‘on the job’, through peers, supervisors, and by example. There is clearly scope for the Senior Executive Service to regularise this process, thus ensuring that the messages being communicated are clear and intentional, and can be put in context. Most of the issues that can arise in specific situations are dealt with in Part 2 of this publication. But staff have indicated they want more day-to-day advice and guidance from their organisation on these issues, as well as wanting them dealt with more systematically through agency protocols.

Members of the Senior Executive Service need to make clear their expectations of the conduct required of staff in interacting with Ministers and their offices. If they believe that any of their own actions could give rise to a perception of inconsistency with the APS Values or Code of Conduct, they need to make the rationale for their decisions known. Senior Executive Service employees should use such discussions as a means of encouraging staff faced with difficult situations, and inexperienced staff , to approach them without fear if any problems arise.

The Senior Executive Service should also put in place arrangements to ensure that they are regularly advised of the extent and content of informal exchanges that are taking place between staff for whom they are responsible and the Minister’s office. In programme areas, where advisers may be seeking information from a number of junior staff , members of the Senior Executive Service should arrange to make themselves the initial point of contact for the Minister’s office.

Good practice can involve regular efforts by the Senior Executive Service to advise and mentor staff on managing relations with Ministers’ offices generally.

Good practice can involve encouraging staff to approach senior managers and/or a central area of expertise and support, rather than be left to make decisions on their own and feel isolated.

Good practice could also involve regular feedback to staff on particular priorities and requirements of particular Ministers. Feedback can be based on periodic discussions between senior managers and the Minister’s office and/or reviews of the agency’s feedback received from the Minister for the previous six months or year, for example. This kind of material may also be suitable for discussion in staff meetings.

Questions for agency heads, the agency executive and senior managers to consider include:

• When did you last discuss with your staff balancing the APS Values in particular cases, particularly the Values of impartiality, accountability and responsiveness? Do you need to do more on this?
• Do staff understand the difference between responsiveness and second guessing the Minister?
• If your staff differed over how to balance the APS Values, would you know they had different views from each other? Would they involve you in a discussion about their different views?
• Would they know they had different views from each other? Would you know if their views differed from your own?
• Have you ever had someone from outside your area (e.g. from your corporate area or the Australian Public Service Commission or the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet) come to a staff meeting to facilitate a discussion on balancing the Values?
• Have you had experiences that have led you to reconsider how the APS Values should be balanced in interacting with Ministers’ offices? Have you shared what you learned from those experiences?
• Do employees come to you with questions about upholding the APS Values in dealing with the Minister or the Minister’s office? If staff are not raising these sorts of questions with you, how are they resolving them?
• Do you need to make any changes to help ensure that you will be a port of call for an employee with a question? Do you need to intervene in their discussions with a Minister or their office to resolve the question?
• What steps could you take to be better able to provide advice when someone comes asking?
• What steps are you taking to ensure that you are aware of the contact that is occurring between your staff and the Minister or their office?
• Do your staff have opportunities to share any of their experiences that might lead you to reconsider how you are balancing the APS Values in interactions with the Minister and their office?

1.2.4 Working with advisers

A Minister’s Chief of Staff and advisers are an important part of the machinery of government advice and support. They can be a valuable resource for agencies as well as for Ministers, helping them to plan for the Minister’s needs and to tailor their support to the Minister’s priorities.

Ministerial staff are not directly accountable to Parliament. The system of employing Ministerial staff under legislation that is separate from the Public Service Act 1999 has provided Ministers with essential support that reflects party political positions, without compromising the apolitical role of the APS. Indeed, it can act as a buttress to the apolitical role of the public service, by providing Ministers with a source of advice that is explicitly political.

When the distinct roles of Ministerial and APS staff are not acknowledged or understood, the overlap can compromise APS employees’ duty to be apolitical and impartial, and constrain the agency’s ability to provide good and timely advice or to implement the Government’s policies and programmes effectively. While APS employees are responsible through their agency heads to the Minister and cannot be directed by Ministerial advisers, they are bound to build cooperative, professional relationships with Ministerial advisers that do not compromise the distinct role of the APS and the operation of the APS Values:

. . . in clarifying the proper relationship between the Service and Ministerial advisers there is no doubt a relationship of trust is essential, where the different responsibilities of the two groups are acknowledged, along with the common commitment to serve the Minister; this is best formed when the working arrangements between advisers and APS employees are articulated clearly by agreement between the Minister and Agency Head; advisers need to appreciate the legal responsibilities of APS employees to the APS Values and Code of Conduct; they also need to appreciate the formal lines of authority from the Minister to the Secretary, and from the Secretary to Agency staff; public servants similarly need to understand that close and ongoing communication with advisers is essential, but that advisers do not have the power to direct; all public servants need to understand that confidentiality is critical to a relationship of trust between the Agency and its Minister.²⁵

As noted above, Ministerial involvement in corporate planning processes can be an important ingredient to ensure responsiveness to the Government. Such interaction with the Minister’s office may usefully be extended to Ministerial advisers and include corporate planning activities. Staff in Ministers’ offices are generally busy, particularly during sitting periods and in the lead-up to elections. But with appropriate planning, agencies can work with Ministerial advisers to ensure they can contribute to planning processes and comment on the agency’s performance.

Most departments have regular meetings between the Secretary and the portfolio Minister(s), with similar arrangements for many other agencies between the relevant agency head and the relevant Minister. However, regular meetings with relevant advisers and/or Ministers’ Chiefs of Staff can also be valuable. In the case of portfolios whose Ministers have little time, regular meetings or phone conversations between agency heads and the Chief of Staff are particularly likely to be most useful. They can help the Chief of Staff in his or her role in managing the advisers, and help the agency head in his or her role in managing APS employees, to ensure there is mutual understanding of respective roles and responsibilities and of the shared objective to serve the Minister.

Regular meetings between programme managers and relevant advisers can also help to build effective relationships. Having a standing meeting, with an agenda on which either party can place items, helps ensure there is a forum in which issues can be addressed before they become problems. Because some advisers, and in particular the Chief of Staff, will have heavy demands on their time, regular meetings may be subject to regular postponement. In such cases, it would be desirable to ensure as a minimum that there is ongoing informal contact.

Agency heads and senior managers should ensure that feedback loops include consultation with stakeholders at appropriate points during policy development and implementation, and that relevant Ministerial advisers are kept informed and involved as issues emerge and responses are developed.²⁷

All agencies, whether or not they have close and frequent dealings with their Ministers or their offices, can aim to establish regular, mutually beneficial discussions to improve responsiveness and mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities.

Face-to-face meetings with departmental staff help to build the relationship and enable all parties to share information about issues, frameworks, programmes etc.

Good practice can involve agencies organising regular meetings between agency leadership and the Minister’s advisers. These could be issue-specific or could involve regular briefings reflecting hot issues or other Ministerial priorities and departmental issues requiring urgent attention.

Good practice can involve agencies initiating briefings for individual advisers when they start a job, to assist the adviser to get up to speed more quickly and ask questions.

Good practice can involve inviting Ministerial advisers to be part of agency, business or branch planning days and processes.

Good practice can be to maintain open and ongoing communication between the Chief of Staff and the agency’s Ministerial liaison area. The different responsibilities of different advisers, and any particular requirements by the office for handling communications, should be regularly discussed.

Getting the linkages between individual advisers and line managers right depends in part on a clear mapping of responsibilities between Ministerial advisers and agency outputs or programmes or structures. Formal statements of roles and responsibilities can make a substantial contribution to clear and productive working relationships between Ministers’ offices and APS employees.

Good practice can include preparing and maintaining accessible lists of the allocation of responsibilities amongst Ministerial advisers for departmental staff, and conversely preparing and maintaining accessible lists of departmental programme responsibilities for the use of Ministers and their advisers.

Operational requirements can over time introduce practices that, while making good practical sense, need to be handled in a way that maintains the fundamental relationship between Ministers and the APS. For example, the establishment of email links between Ministerial staff and APS employees increases the speed and frequency of request and response, but reduces their formality. This may lead to some uncertainty as to whether the advice is authoritative, and whether it is advice to the Minister. Similarly, it may lead to uncertainty in the other direction, as to whether requests or directions are from the Minister or the adviser.

As advised in APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice: A Guide to Official Conduct for APS Employees and Agency Heads, it is good practice to address all formal advice to the Minister, rather than to an adviser, and it is important to appreciate that advisers do not themselves have power to direct. That said, advisers have a very good appreciation of the Minister’s requirements and views, and APS employees should normally accept that they are speaking on behalf of the Minister. But there will be occasions where that might need to be tested directly. Where agencies believe that their Minister’s inclination to pursue a particular option is not based on a full appreciation of the facts, they must advise their Minister accordingly.

So, while informal communications are essential for an effective relationship, there should be some constraints (such as up the line reporting) to ensure appropriate quality control. These are addressed in more detail in Part 2: Agency protocols, and would generally reflect an understanding that APS employees cannot be directed by Ministerial advisers, and where this occurs employees may seek confirmation of Ministerial directions and decisions, or provide additional advice to ensure the Minister’s directions or decisions are well informed.

The relationship can also be strengthened by improving exchange of information on current issues and prioritisation of incoming work. Some agencies provide brief bulletins to their Minister(s) at the end of the week. Ministerial liaison areas typically prepare these bulletins, with input from the heads of each area of the agency. Sometimes line areas also prepare such bulletins where major issues are involved. Bulletins can be particularly valuable in situations where:

• the Minister has a large office where many staff interact with the agency
• there are new staff in either the Minister’s office or the senior levels of the agency
• a Minister is carrying a particularly heavy workload
• a hot issue is running and regular updates are required.

Some agencies draw these bulletins from weekly reports provided for internal management purposes, such as Monday morning executive meetings to identify key activities for the week.

Good practice can include asking the Minister and/or senior Ministerial advisers if they want a written weekly bulletin from agencies that provides an overview of agency or portfolio issues requiring urgent attention.

Areas of common concern to Ministers and their advisers relate to timeliness and accuracy. If advice is subject to unavoidable delay, the Minister’s office should be advised well in advance that the usual workflow timetable will not apply. Conversely, where Ministerial offices have been aware of planned meetings it is critical that they be encouraged to ensure that the relevant information reaches the agency in time to ensure that the agency can provide appropriate support. Problems of this nature should be obviated by regular meetings between the Minister’s Chief of Staff and the senior agency manager responsible for parliamentary workflow.

Advisers are not always aware, or do not always adjust demands, when there is heavy pressure on a particular part of an agency. If that is the case, an agency head may need to discuss priorities with the Chief of Staff or directly with the Minister.

If an error has been made in advice provided to the Minister or an adviser, or in factual material cited by the Minister and related to portfolio responsibilities, it is vital to ensure  that the Minister is quickly and clearly advised that this is the case. It is most particularly important that errors be reported quickly when the Minister might use, or has already used, the information in Parliament.

Speed in recovering errors is a critical indicator of appropriate sensitivity to the political risks to which a Minister can be exposed by inaccurate information. In any event, bad news rarely gets better when it is not passed on. Telephone advice should be followed up in writing.

Good practice is to respond quickly to requests, or contact the Minister’s office promptly to explain why a fast response is not possible. It does not help the relationship when employees know something will take a number of days or weeks, but do not tell advisers that this is the case.

Good practice includes always correcting incorrect information as quickly as possible, without being delayed by fear of any embarrassment.

Areas of occasional concern to agency heads and their staff in working with Ministerial advisers include crossing the boundary into politically partisan discussions or activities, proposing to circumvent due process in allocations or appointments, and adopting an abusive approach to seeking information or advice. Some of these matters are addressed in Part 2 of this guide, and in the associated extracts from the Commission’s APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice: A Guide to Official Conduct for APS Employees and Agency Heads.

Good practice should include avoiding (or at least not contributing to) party-based discussions, particularly with Ministerial staff, while nevertheless being prepared to seek confirmation of what Government policy on a given matter may be.

Participants in the Australian Public Service Commission’s evaluation told us that in their experience different Ministers absorb information in different ways, and that the same is true for different Ministerial staff. Some participants in the Commission’s evaluation found that telephone contact with the Minister’s office, in conjunction with written and email communication, enhanced acquaintance with Ministerial staff and helped build trust in the relationship.

Good practice can involve finding out what modes of communication suit the staff in the Minister’s office, and making this information available to staff in the agency. But this should not undermine the requirement to seek and document the Minister’s decisions finally.

Support services for Ministers and their offices are provided by the Department of Finance and Administration. These include advice on entitlements to Senators, Members, office holders and their respective staff. Agencies consulted in the preparation of this guide indicated that there would be benefit in easy access to the guidelines setting out these entitlements and clarifying any responsibilities that agencies have in bearing the costs associated with them. This would forestall confusion about the respective roles of Ministers’ offices, agencies and Finance in providing financial and in kind support.

Guidance on entitlements of Ministers and their staff provided by the Department of Finance and Administration is included in Appendix 2.

Questions for agency leadership to consider include:

• What processes are available for frank discussions with the Chief of Staff and advisers of areas of concern either to the office or to the agency?
• What is your agency currently doing to give the Minister’s office advance warning of issues requiring urgent attention? Is it systematic enough? Is it reliable enough?
• Would a weekly bulletin help your Minister’s office?

Questions for Ministerial liaison areas to consider:

• Would a weekly bulletin help your Minister’s office?
• Would they like it to contain:
  • coming events for the Minister or the agency
  • the agency’s understanding of prioritisation of incoming work
  • contact information for officers within the agency who are responsible for incoming work for the next week
  • status reminders on outstanding work, for either the agency or the Minister’s office
  • any other item.

1.2.5 Working with new Ministers and new or less experienced advisers

Agencies may need to adapt to the requirements of new Ministers immediately following an election or reshuffle, or the departure of their Minister from the Ministry. The arrival of a new Minister creates an opportunity to review existing arrangements for providing services to the Minister, and for establishing good working relations with the Minister and any new advisers accompanying the Minister. This can be particularly critical where the Minister does not have previous experience in working with public servants in a portfolio.

Agencies will generally prepare incoming Government briefs (following an election) or incoming Minister briefs (following the appointment of a new Minister). Th ese will address the structure and staffing of the Department and portfolio agencies, the workof the portfolio, key portfolio legislation, consultative mechanisms and stakeholders, options for the implementation of the Government’s election commitments, and matters requiring urgent action. Where Ministers have no direct prior experience of the role, briefs should also provide a working overview of key process issues (such as those associated with Budget preparation and the legislative process).

New or less experienced advisers may also benefit from the provision by the Ministerial liaison area of training, mentoring or briefing on subjects or processes critical to their interaction with the agency.

New Ministers may also require agency support in establishing office systems, including workflow and record keeping arrangements, links to the agency’s email systems and agency electronic resource documents, as well as briefing on options around procedures for structuring the interactions between the office and portfolio agencies. The Ministerial liaison area will generally provide the Minister’s office with administrative level support in setting up the office. The Minister, Chief of Staff and agency head are likely to be directly involved in higher level decisions.

Costs of establishing and maintaining Ministerial office services are generally subsumed under Ministerial entitlements, with the costs shared between a number of agencies. A list of those items under the entitlements framework whose costs can be met by the Department of Finance and Administration is included in Appendix 2 to this guide.

Good practice may involve providing new Ministers and their staff with advice and support in establishing office workflow and record keeping arrangements, links to portfolio agencies’ email systems and electronic resource documents, as well as briefing on options around procedures for structuring the interactions between the office and portfolio agencies. Where Ministers have no direct prior experience of the role, incoming briefing should provide a working overview of key process issues (such as those associated with Budget preparation and the legislative process).

Good practice can involve providing new or less experienced advisers with a combination of training, mentoring or briefing on subjects or processes critical to their interaction with the agency. Such support could also be used to begin to establish personal relations between the adviser and relevant agency staff.

1.2.6 Working with non-Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries

The respective roles of portfolio Ministers, non-Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries are set out in the Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility issued by the Prime Minister.²⁸ Public servants should provide support to all Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the portfolio.

Ministerial responsibilities in a portfolio are allocated by the portfolio Minister subject to the general views of the Prime Minister (which may be set out in the Prime Minister’s charter letter). Public servants in portfolios with more than a single Minister may need to ascertain the lines of responsibility for particular or emerging issues if there is no clear or explicit articulation of the roles of the portfolio and non-Cabinet Ministers and the way in which they mesh to provide consistent government.

It is important that portfolio Secretaries talk to all Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the portfolio at an early stage following their appointment to establish how they see their roles and their respective responsibilities. It can be helpful in these circumstances to commit any agreement reached by Ministers to writing so that a departmental or agency head can work through the division of responsibilities with senior management and it can then cascade down.

Some public servants work substantially or exclusively with one Minister (or Parliamentary Secretary) in a portfolio and others may work equally substantially and exclusively with another Minister. Officials with non-Cabinet Ministers should represent the views of their Ministers with the same strength as those of a portfolio Minister. They should also ensure that there is a common understanding of Cabinet and Budget strategies at both Ministerial and agency levels. Ministers in a common portfolio should get consistent advice and at the same time the confidences of both should be respected.

Sometimes, non-Cabinet Ministers are new to Ministerial work and may require support in working through administrative processes, including operational aspects of the preparation of Budget submissions or draft legislation, or the support provided by agencies to Ministers for particular engagements. Advisers in the offices of non-Cabinet Ministers may also be new to Government and to the detailed accountability arrangements applying to their Minister and to APS staff (see section 1.2.5 above on working with new Ministers and new or less experienced advisers).

Departments should support Parliamentary Secretaries in their role of supporting portfolio Ministers. This includes ensuring that there is agreement with other Ministers in the portfolio about the role taken by Parliamentary Secretaries in particular activities in their portfolio, and that such agreement cascades down to the relevant APS staff .

1.2.7 Departmental Liaison Officers

It is important that, in working to ensure a good relationship with Ministers’ offices, each agency’s leadership is deploying the right employees as Departmental Liaison Officers (DLOs), and using them effectively to help manage the flow of Ministerial papers and briefs and as sources of feedback about relationships with those offices.

The DLO’s role is to facilitate liaison between Ministers’ offices and their departments and/or agencies. They are APS staff rather than Members of Parliament (Staff ) Act 1984 employees; their obligations under the APS Values and Code of Conduct are the same as those of all other APS employees. They are not meant to be used as additional Ministerial staff, and DLOs should avoid activities that could create a perception that they are being used for party political purposes.

Different Ministers and departments may have different approaches to the way DLOs best complement the work of advisers and the work of policy and programme managers in the agency. While the DLOs are employed by the agency, they are critical to the success of the Ministerial office and the Minister’s ability to get the best service from the agency.

Prior to appointing DLOs, agency heads should establish a clear understanding of the role the DLO is to play in the Minister’s office. There are advantages to an agency in providing the Minister with a DLO who is able to clarify the background and directions of agency policy advice and the more complex agency procedures. Particular Ministers may, however, prefer to deploy a DLO in a more strictly administrative capacity and request a DLO with more operational experience. In some departments, the DLOs play a role in tracking material from the Department and this works well.

Good practice may be ensuring that, subject to the Minister’s requirements, DLOs are selected at sufficiently senior levels to ensure that agency advice is put on the table and that complex agency procedures can be fully explained to the Minister or advisers, and to provide relevant feedback to agency heads. This should not militate against considering a short rotation for graduate trainees or other junior staff with strong potential, to assist an experienced DLO in a Minister’s office.

DLOs are likely to have a detailed understanding of how a Minister’s office works, what the Minister wants, and how to interact most successfully with the Minister and their staff. If there are problems looming in the relationship, DLOs may be the first to know. An agency’s leadership can make use of this information to re-position the agency’s services, if that is necessary. DLOs need to know that they have direct access to speak frankly with the agency head or the deputies or other senior staff in the agency.

Good practice is fully briefing and preparing DLOs for their role in Ministers’ offices, including making clear to them their role as a member of the Minister’s team and their role as a departmental officer.

Most small agencies will not have their own DLOs. However, that need not stop them liaising with DLOs in their portfolio or establishing part-time or shared arrangements.

There may also be value in arranging for DLOs to meet relevant small agency staff from time to time, to build familiarity and with it confidence in handling the relationship.

Good practice can be inviting DLOs and/or senior Ministerial advisers during non-sitting periods to contribute to briefing sessions about their roles and on how their Minister’s office works. These sessions could be organised at the local branch level, whole-of agency level or opened up to people from agencies across the portfolio. This last suggestion may be particularly valuable for agencies that have only a few staff who deal with Ministers’ offices, and who feel unable to justify organising a session for that small number of staff.

Because DLOs are a vital link between the agency and the Minister’s office, keeping

DLOs ‘in the loop’ is an important part of building and maintaining effective relationships.

Agencies’ Ministerial liaison areas play an important part in this, but it is something that every staff member who deals with Ministers’ offices should be conscious of.

It can be good practice for APS staff to copy DLOs into email correspondence with staff in Ministers’ offices.

While it is important that DLOs are kept ‘in the loop’ in correspondence, it is equally important that they are kept ‘in the loop’ of what is going on in their agency. Most DLOs work long hours almost exclusively within the confines of their Minister’s office. At the same time, they remain responsible for pursuing agency objectives, and are accountable to and overseen by an agency manager.

Good practice can be regular discussions between the DLO and the agency head or deputy, and a debriefing of DLOs by the agency leadership and the manager of the Ministerial liaison area on a regular basis and on their return to the agency.

Good practice can be ensuring agency staff know their DLOs, particularly in large agencies, and know to talk to them about issues that the DLOs might be able to help resolve.

The unusual working arrangement, where the employee is effectively ‘outplaced’, can create challenges for DLOs in balancing the APS Values. They are both thoroughly immersed in the activities of the Ministerial office and required to comply with the APS Values and Code of Conduct, as they remain APS employees. This is both an issue for daily conduct of the DLO and an issue for agency handling of the DLO’s performance management arrangements.

Good practice can be to take a careful and cautious approach to performance assessment of DLOs, ensuring feedback is obtained from both the Chief of Staff and relevant agency managers. Another approach may involve providing a prior set payment in lieu of performance pay while the officer is in the DLO position.

Questions for an agency’s leadership to consider include:

• Do you allow the Minister the opportunity to comment on proposed agency DLOs?
• Do you provide briefing to new DLOs on the APS Values and their responsibilities in the Minister’s office before they take on their appointments?
• Do you ensure that your DLOs are sufficiently senior to be aware of and able to analyse their agency’s relationship with Ministers’ offices, and able to communicate effectively with the Minister’s staff and agency leadership about the relationship as necessary?
• When did the senior managers in your agency last talk to a DLO, other than about a specific briefing or agenda item?
• Does your agency systematically debrief its DLOs?
• Do your senior managers get to share the information that DLOs have?
• Does the Ministerial liaison area of your agency get included in any debriefing session?

1.2.8 Ministerial Liaison Areas

Most departments and large agencies have dedicated parliamentary and/or Ministerial liaison areas (referred to as Ministerial liaison areas in this guide).These units are usually involved in managing both Ministerial and parliamentary workflow, and will often work closely with any DLOs the agency has in Ministers’ offices. They are important to the relationship between Ministers’ offices and agencies.

Participants in the Australian Public Service Commission’s study stressed the importance of Ministerial liaison areas that were strong, well staffed, and pro-active, had strong quality assurance measures in place to assist with briefings and documentation fl owing to and from the Minister’s office, and were able to provide process advice in cases that are sensitive or arise infrequently. Ministerial liaison areas also have a key role to play in preparing, promoting and advising on policies and procedures that an agency may have in place to support interactions with Ministers and their advisers. Policies and procedures of this nature are the subject of Part 2 of this good practice guide, Agency protocols.

Participants in the Commission’s evaluation were overwhelmingly positive about the value of having relatively centralised, well-resourced Ministerial liaison areas staff ed at appropriate levels in their agencies with reliable resources that facilitate the preparation of written material including responses to Ministerial correspondence, briefings, responses to questions on notice, and draft press releases, speeches or talking points. Good parliamentary workflow systems use or are linked to sophisticated templates and require processes to be followed that minimise the opportunity for mistakes, and maximise the chance that material going to Ministers’ offices will be timely and in the form needed.

Good practice can be having a single area of the agency, and a single workflow management system, within which all work (other than meetings) for Ministers’ offices can be recorded or processed.

Workflow systems should be designed to be equally useful for both APS employees and Ministerial staff. Managing parliamentary workflow is the subject of a better practice guide prepared by the Australian National Audit Office (see the Better Practice Guide on Managing Parliamentary Workflow). An updated version of that guide was released in April 2003.²⁹

The Australian National Audit Office guide provides considerable practical advice and assistance to agencies regarding the handling of parliamentary workflow, which for this reason is not considered here in any detail. It is, however, worth noting that participants in the Commission’s evaluation were strongly supportive of making available model letters or briefs, and of systems that used key points and electronic templates to minimise routine reliance on detailed manuals and other reference material.

It is valuable if liaison areas have sufficient capacity to be pro-active about working with all employees to raise awareness of agency processes and policies, rather than only responding to material, and issues, as they happen to come to the attention of the liaison area. There may be agencies that have sufficiently diverse functions, and/or serve several Ministers, so that devolved policies on some matters are appropriate. However, this possibility should be balanced against employees’ need for having clear, agency-wide policies that are administered by a Ministerial liaison unit.

Good practice can be having consistent standards and policies operating across the agency, rather than devolving them to individual groups or branches.

Some statutory authorities, statutory office holders and small agencies may have relatively few dealings with Ministers and accordingly have less familiarity and fewer skills to assist in managing the interactions effectively. Where these entities have the same requirements in working with Ministers’ offices (in terms of processing Ministerial responses, question time briefings, Cabinet and legislation documents), and where confidentiality and security requirements permit, they may welcome support in the effective management of workflow and advice on procedural arrangements to support interactions with Ministers’ offices.

The provision of such support by departments is consistent with the spirit of the Government’s response to the Uhrig report. An enhanced flow of information between statutory authorities and departments will help to ensure that portfolio Ministers can receive advice on agency matters from their portfolio Secretary.

The Australian Public Service Commission recognises that for agencies with relatively limited interaction with Ministers’ offices, guidelines such as those applying to Ministerial correspondence may not be able to be ‘automated’.

Good practice in these cases can involve providing a checklist for employees to use for the major types of documents prepared for Ministers’ offices.

1.2.9 The Parliamentary Network

The Parliamentary Network is a whole of government initiative designed to provide support and share information about parliamentary services provided by departments. The network, originally set up by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in early 2004, works like a ‘community of practice’, that is, the network facilitates three avenues for members to share information. They are:

• regular information sessions on topical issues affecting many parliamentary service areas
• an email chat list, to share information, ask questions and maintain contacts
• a website that contains useful information from information sessions and other sources. The website is password protected for network members.

The Parliamentary Network met a number of times in 2004 to discuss issues such as electronic workflow systems, caretaker conventions and changes to the Legislative Instruments Act 2003. The majority of departments are members of the Network and responsibility for hosting meetings is rotated through those members.

 

8 Ian Hancock, ‘The VIP Affair 1966–67: The Causes, Course and Consequences of a Ministerial and Public Service Cover-Up’, Australasian Parliamentary Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, Spring, 2003.

9 ‘Sports Rorts Shock’, Canberra Times, 27 July 2003, p. 1. The ‘Sports Rorts’ or ‘Whiteboard’ affair was widely reported in the period November 1993 to February 1994. The Minister and her staff had used a whiteboard to list the applicants for a set of grants, to compare their claims and to compile a list of successful applications. The record was deleted when the whiteboard was cleaned at the end of the day giving rise to accountability concerns. The Minister subsequently resigned.

10 A.J. Ayers, ‘Not Like the Good Old Days,’ Garran Oration, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 55, No. 2, June 1996, p. 7.

11 Roger Beale, ‘Ministerial Responsibility for Administrative Actions: Some Observations of a Public Service Practitioner’, Agenda, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2002, p. 302.

12 Prime Minister, A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra, 1998, <http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm>

13 Australian Public Service Commission, State of the Service Report 2002–03, 2003, p. 37, para. 1, <http://www.apsc.gov.au>

14 Andrew Podger, ‘Managing the Interface with Ministers and the Parliament’, Senior Executive Service Breakfast presentation, 23 April 2004, <http://www.apsc.gov.au/media/podger230404.htm>

15 Extracts from APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice are from the revised edition (2005). Where necessary, references to documents have been updated (e.g. Guidance on Caretaker Conventions ( July 2004) replaces Guidelines on Caretaker Conventions (September 2001)).

16 Australian National Audit Office, Developing Policy Advice, Performance Audit Report No. 21, November 2001, <http://www.anao.gov.au>

17 Agency or programme legislation may specifically constrain Ministerial direction.

18 A description of accountability in the APS context is given in the Management Advisory Board publication, Accountability in the Commonwealth Public Sector (1993).

19 In some statutory authorities, relevant legislation requires considerable independence from Ministers, and accountability direct to the Parliament.

20 Prime Minister, A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra, 1998, pp. 13, 14, <http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm>

21 Australian Public Service Commission, State of the Service Report 2003–04, 2004, p. 40, <http://www.apsc.gov. au>

22 Foundations of Governance in the Australian Public Service, published by the Australian Public Service Commission in 2005, provides a substantive overview of agency heads’ obligations and responsibilities and canvasses the key elements of the legislative and policy framework within which agency heads operate. It is available at: http://www.apsc.gov.au/foundations.

23 ‘Sports Rorts Shock’, Canberra Times, 27 July 2003, p. 1.

24 John Uhr and Keith Mackay (eds), Evaluating Policy Advice: Learning from Commonwealth Experience, Federalism Research Centre and Commonwealth Department of Finance, Canberra, 1996; Australian National Audit Office, Developing Policy Advice, Performance Audit Report No. 21, November 2001, <http://www.anao.gov.au>; Managing Parliamentary Workflow, Better Practice Guide, April 2003, <http://www.anao.gov.au>

25 Andrew Podger, ‘Beyond Westminster: Defining an Australian Approach to the Roles and Values of the Public Service in the 21st Century’ (Address to IPAA Seminar), 2 May 2002, <http://www.apsc.gov.au/media/ podger020502.htm>; see also Roger Beale, ‘Ministerial Responsibility for Administrative Actions: Some Observations of a Public Service Practitioner’, Agenda, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2002, pp. 301–2.

26 Section 57 of the Public Service Act 1999 sets out the responsibilities of Secretaries of departments, providing that they are responsible for managing the Department, ‘under the agency Minister’. Section 57 also requires Secretaries to assist Ministers to fulfil their accountability obligations to the Parliament to provide factual information about the operation and administration of the Department.

27 A. Behm, L. Bennington and J. Cummane, ‘A Value-Creating Model for Effective Policy Services’, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2000, pp. 168–9.

28 Prime Minister, A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra, 1998, pp. 2–3, <http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm>

29 Australian National Audit office, Managing Parliamentary Workflow, Better Practice Guide, April 2003, <http://www.anao.gov.au>

Australian Public Service Commission   A-Z index   Privacy, legal & copyright   Contact us
This page can be found at www.apsc.gov.au/publications06/supportingministers1.htm