Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values

Appendix 6: Good Practice Checklist for APS Employees—Supporting Ministers, Upholding the APS Values

APS employees are responsible through their agency heads to the Minister and cannot be directed by Ministerial advisers. They are equally 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.

Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values: A Good Practice Guide is available at: http://www.apsc.gov.au. There is a discussion of how to apply the Values of responsiveness, accountability and remaining apolitical in Chapter 2 of the Australian Public Service Commission publication, APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice: A Guide to Official Conduct for APS Employees and Agency Heads. This can be found at: http://www.apsc. gov.au/values/conductguidelines4.htm.

The following checklist has been developed to assist staff in applying these principles during their interactions with Ministers and their advisers.

Working with Ministers and their advisers

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.
Always correct incorrect information as quickly as possible, without being delayed by fear of any embarrassment. Oral advice should be followed by written advice.
Avoid (or at least do not contribute 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.
If you need to contact an adviser from a different Ministerial portfolio, contact should be made through your own Minister’s office and the relevant agency should be involved in any discussions.
Where there are requests from Ministers’ offices that entail departmental funding and you are unclear whether your agency should be providing such support, you can consult guidance prepared by the Department of Finance and Administration on entitlements of Ministers and their staff . This guidance is available in Appendix 2 to Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values on the web address above. Specific queries should be directed to the Helpdesk at the Entitlements Management Branch of Ministerial and Parliamentary Services, within the Department of Finance and Administration (Ph: 02 6215 3542; Fax: 02 6267 3279; Email: emb@finance.gov.au).

Working during caretaker periods

As an election approaches you should make yourself familiar with and follow the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s guidance on the operation of the caretaker conventions. These are for observation during the caretaker period, which comes into effect after an election has been called by the government of the day and is one of the especially sensitive periods for relationships between the Government and the APS. The guidelines are available at: http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm. If you are unsure about how to handle issues that arise during the caretaker period, you should raise the matter with senior agency management in the first instance. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Government Division can provide advice on issues that arise for agencies, and is an important port of call regarding caretaker conventions during an election period.

How to handle the disbursement of grants and making appointments

When making decisions, you must act in accordance with the law, including the APS Values and Code of Conduct, and with any government policy and decisions. If a conflict arises between government policy, agency guidelines and the law, the law prevails.
If you have concerns that your Minister’s office is not fully briefed on the processes under which grants schemes and appointments processes operate, you should raise these with your senior managers.

Briefing materials

Ensure that you, or your managers, are always confident that instructions are coming from the Minister by:
- in the case of briefs, requiring the Minister’s signature before acting on the recommendations
- in the case of significant oral requests from Ministerial staff , requiring subsequent confirmation in writing or by email that the request is endorsed by the Minister.
Ensure that briefings are comprehensive and outline a range of options for action, and the agency’s analysis of the implications of the options, rather than providing only a single or a limited range of options.
Where you believe that your Minister’s inclination to pursue a particular option is not based on a full appreciation of the facts, you should raise with senior staff in your agency the need to advise your Minister accordingly.
You may receive requests from your Ministers’ offices seeking changes or additions to briefs they receive from the agency. This may mean that briefs have not been sufficiently comprehensive or have been overtaken by events, or that new matters have come to light; on occasions, it may represent a request to vary the advice or restrict the scope of the brief. Where additional material is sought, it is important that any supplementary briefing or additions to original briefs clarify what advice has been provided at the request of advisers (‘your office has also asked that we canvass …’).
In general, briefing advice should not be changed or opinions omitted if your agency remains of the belief that particular arguments should be considered by the Minister. Where any changes to advice are involved, the brief should record the nature of the changes and the source of the request.

Providing briefings that relate to particular electorates

You should respond positively where your Minister seeks briefing materials and speeches tailored to a specific electorate in relation to particular functions or activities.
If the collation of electorate-specific data raises issues about the prudent management of agency resources, consult your manager.
Speeches and speaking notes should be prepared on the assumption that the Minister’s office will incorporate political commentary. Speeches should not be prepared for Ministers during the caretaker period.
You should respond to requests for electorate briefings and speeches from Government backbenchers where the backbencher is representing the Minister on the task that gave rise to the briefing request, or the information is readily available to any Member of Parliament. Provision of electorate briefing material directly to Government backbenchers would otherwise generally not be appropriate. Any requests for briefing by backbenchers should be made through the relevant Minister’s office.
Where electorate or international visits call for briefing on a range of matters outside the Minister’s portfolio, the general practice is that departments contact one another for briefing or facts and then add this information to the package of materials provided for the visit.
Where briefing is being prepared on an electorate basis, it is good practice to use community-wide standards of statistical reliability and privacy, and a timescale relevant to the services delivered.

Supporting Cabinet processes

Cabinet submissions (which are taken to Cabinet by Ministers) seek decisions on the Minister’s recommendations; Cabinet memoranda present the conclusions that departments and agencies in a Minister’s portfolio, or several Ministerial portfolios, are seeking to convey and may form the basis for a Cabinet request for further action to be taken.
Cabinet memoranda are departmental documents, and should not be seen as necessarily binding portfolio Ministers or reflecting their views, although they are still taken to Cabinet by Ministers. This means that, while close consultation with the Minister and/or the Minister’s office will still be required, the findings and conclusions will be those of the Department.
Similarly, coordination comments on both submissions and memoranda are recorded as the views of the departments providing them, are intended to add to the information available to the Cabinet in its deliberative processes and should not be seen as binding Ministers or necessarily reflecting their views. The Cabinet Handbook notes that it is for departments to settle with their Ministers the extent to which Ministers may wish to clear their department’s coordination comments or otherwise be drawn into the consultation process.
The same principles of confidentiality and Ministerial consultation apply with Cabinet submissions and memoranda as with other Ministerial interactions. Stringent guidance around process issues for the preparation and handling of Cabinet materials is set out in detail in the Cabinet Handbook which can be found on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s website at: http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm.

Record keeping procedures

All significant decisions or actions need to be documented to a standard that would withstand independent scrutiny. Briefings and records maintained need not be lengthy, but should be fit for their purpose.
The Australian National Audit Office has provided guidance on good record keeping.
This is available at: http://www.anao.gov.au. The National Archives of Australia has also provided advice for all APS employees on good record keeping. This is available at: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/default.html.
It is good practice to maintain a record of oral briefing provided to Ministers and their advisers of significant issues and any resulting discussions and decisions.
On key issues, and where sufficient time is available, Ministers should be provided with written briefings to give assurance that the issues and options have been clearly presented and that any decisions taken by the Minister are understood and recorded.
Employees should be aware that any email, and not just those that have been formally put on the record, can be the subject of a freedom of information request.

Responding to questions on notice and appearing before parliamentary committees

Responses to questions on notice are Ministerial and not departmental. Draft responses should be prepared and provided to the Minister.
Public servants are regularly called upon to provide information directly to the Parliament by appearing before committees. The key principle applying to these interactions is the need to maintain the confidence of both the Minister and the Parliament. APS employees are required by the Parliament to provide full and accurate information about the factual and technical background to policies and their administration. This may include reasons for the policy, but not comment on policy.
Most APS employees liable to appear before the Parliament know when they are likely to be asked sensitive questions. You should be aware that you are not expected to volunteer information, and need to forewarn Ministers where information that would have to be provided could be politically contentious. You are required, when asked, to explain the reasons for and implications of policy and you would be expected to do so in a way that avoids undermining the policy objectives. But you must not mislead, or actively avoid answers or cross the line to sell policy rather than explain it.
Guidance on appearing before parliamentary committees is available in the Government Guidelines for Official Witnesses before Parliamentary Committees and Related Matters (November 1989) on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s website at: http://www.pmc.gov.au/guidelines/index.cfm.

Assistance with media issues and public presentations by public servants

It is good practice to ensure that you are familiar with any agency guidelines for dealing with media inquiries.
Agencies are likely to receive requests for material for the media or for checks on material prepared in Ministers’ offices. Examples of such requests are: draft press releases, letters to the editor, ‘opinion editorial’ pieces or articles, and draft interview answers. These will explain policy, provide information or correct factual errors. The same good practice principles apply to ad hoc requests as to appearances before the Parliament. You should explain the reasons for and implications of government policy in a way that is consistent with other public material and the government’s policies. You should ensure that facts are accurate, and any more political comments are added in the Minister’s office. You must not mislead or cross the line to sell policy rather than explain it.
Where you have any concerns that information you have provided has been presented inaccurately, it is good practice to discuss such concerns first with senior managers who may be able to assist you.

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