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Last updated: 25 October 2007

Agency Health: Monitoring agency health and improving performance

Corporate Health and Agency Performance

Six broad areas of corporate health are central to the early identification of agencies at risk of poor performance. These areas cover the broad spectrum of governance issues and include organisational direction, leadership, organisational capability, corporate governance processes, relationships and integrity, and organisational culture. There are also some issues that are specific to the public sector.

These areas are of course not mutually exclusive. In assessing corporate health the areas need to be considered as a whole.

Each area is discussed in detail below. A checklist highlighting the key points that need to be monitored under each heading is at Attachment A.

1. Organisational Direction

A strong and clear sense of organisational direction is central to the corporate health of any agency. Agencies need to maintain an awareness of, and keep a focus on, their core business, including by communicating organisational purpose, strategies and vision to their staff.

In the dynamic environment of the modern public sector, what is core business may be fluid. Organisational purpose and strategies, and communication mechanisms for relaying these to staff, need to be reviewed regularly if an agency is to maintain high performance.

For organisational direction to be embedded within an agency, the agency’s structure should stem directly from an identification of organisational direction. Organisational structure should make sense to the agency’s employees, be understood and be easily communicated.

Organisational direction needs to be underpinned by a significant investment in research and strategic policy capacity. High-performing agencies do not let the pressures of day-today activities and management allow them to erode their research and policy base. Research and policy needs to be seen as an investment in the future.

An agency that demonstrates a strong sense of organisational direction by consistently achieving improvements in the quality and efficiency of its outputs through innovation and continuous improvement, and where staff understand how they contribute to organisational goals, is unlikely to be at risk of poor performance.

Signs of a lack of strong direction, however, include:

• neglecting core business and core processes
• failing to invest in research and strategic policy capacity
• taking on too much risk and innovation
• exercising little delegation and not adequately empowering staff
• staff losing sight of, or never being informed of, the outcomes being sought by the organisation.

A key issue in ensuring a strong sense of organisational direction is responding appropriately to changes in the operating environment of the organisation. Failure to notice a changing environment such as a change in government policy, expectations of new Ministers, or public expectations, puts an agency at clear risk of poor performance.

2. Effective Leadership

Agencies need effective leadership which identifies and addresses emerging signs of poor performance in organisations.

The expectations of the APS concerning the capability and behaviour of its senior leaders are set out in the Senior Executive Leadership Capability (SELC) Framework, and expanded in more detail through the Integrated Leadership System.⁶ The leadership of high-performing agencies will demonstrate strong capability against all elements of the SELC Framework including in the areas of achieving results, cultivating productive working relationships, displaying personal drive and integrity, and communicating with influence.

More specifically, high-performing organisations tend to enjoy a strong, diverse and talented leadership which is:

• enthusiastic and well-regarded
• displays visible commitment to the values it espouses
• has a clear sense of its roles and responsibilities
• effectively communicates organisational direction
• pays appropriate levels of attention to all aspects of an agency’s operations
• looks beyond immediate priorities and engages in forward planning
• balances the need to provide vision with a focus on the process of achieving results
• brings a relatively high level of scrutiny and focus to the work of the teams that they manage
• provides a strong framework of support to build judgment and confidence in making decisions.

Effective leadership is particularly important in responding to threats to organisational performance. Bazerman and Watkins⁷ argue that anticipating and avoiding a business disaster requires a number of steps by the organisation’s leadership, including recognising the threat, making it a priority in the organisation, addressing it, and mobilising the resources required to prevent it.

In contrast, leadership characteristics that may be early warning signs for an agency at risk of poor performance include:

• lack of depth in the management team
• leaders not effectively managing poor performance
• leaders failing to resolve issues
• leaders failing to communicate to staff the direction and purpose they set
• a disconnect within and between senior leaders and middle managers
• an inability of leaders to prioritise between policies and initiatives
• a focus on the most high-profile aspects of the agency’s operations at the expense of other important line and support areas.

Management literature draws a particularly strong link between failing organisations and leaders not open to alternative or dissenting views. Finkelstein⁸ outlines four main reasons why organisations fail, with an emphasis on executive mindset failures (incorrect strategy and assumptions) and poor leadership behaviour. These habits include:

• the illusion of personal pre-eminence
• the attitude that the organisation is theirs (including identifying too strongly with the organisation)
• having all the answers in every situation
• refusing to countenance contrary viewpoints
• allowing image or public relations to override operational importance
• failing to overcome obstacles by thinking there is nothing that cannot be beaten
• inability or unwillingness to learn.

Some of these habits are echoed by Gettler,⁹ who observes that groups led by narcissistic leaders go off the rails when everything is built around the autocrat and where dissent and diversity of thinking are not tolerated. Gettler mentions the ‘echo chamber effect’, where adulation from followers generates self-confidence which grows. The charismatic leader is less inclined to listen to advice and words of caution. This can lead to wilful arrogance and delusional thinking and the taking of poor risks. It can also result in badly-conceived strategies and distorted visions.¹⁰

While Finkelstein and Gettler tend to focus on the private sector, and the language may sound foreign to the public sector, there are important lessons here for the APS. In the public sector, these attitudes might be reflected in hostility amongst senior leaders to scrutiny by external bodies. They may also be reflected in the selection of staff for positions on governance committees who are unlikely to challenge the status quo, and in the expectations of the behaviour of staff on such committees.

A related but slightly different issue is the danger of ‘group think’. Here, senior leaders share the same views and put a high emphasis on consensus and avoiding conflict. This can mean that poor organisational decisions go unchallenged, and a lack of independent critical thinking is applied to governance processes.

In contrast, leaders in high-performing organisations welcome constructive critical views and are prepared to put the organisation regularly under the spotlight. They recognise the dangers of complacency and the potential for rapid declines in corporate health and performance if the conventional wisdom goes unchallenged.

The impact of the failure of leaders to listen to alternative or dissenting views in the Australian context was highlighted in Western Australia’s King Edward Memorial Hospital Inquiry.¹¹

3. Organisational Capability

Building and sustaining organisational capability across all parts of an organisation is central to an agency’s ability to perform effectively. Organisational capability covers a broad range of concepts that relate to the capacity of an agency to achieve its business outcomes. Overall organisational capability is determined by a combination of people, processes, systems, culture, structures, and assets.

A failure in organisational capability can have a strong impact on organisational performance. The Commonwealth Ombudsman report Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez Matter (Comrie Report), highlighted the consequences of failing to ensure capability of staff in key business areas, notably the application of regulations.¹³ Similarly, the Palmer Report, Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Immigration Detention of Cornelia Rau, highlighted the importance of organisational capability in the areas of systems and effective processes. This includes administrative systems around ICT and finances, but also extends to governance arrangements and human resources management systems and processes.¹⁴

On the people side of organisational capability, there is a strong focus in the literature on the link between the ‘intellectual capital’ of an organisation, in terms of depth and breadth of experience and relevant educational qualifications, and its performance.¹⁵ A framework for assessing corporate health needs to have a focus on assessing the intellectual capital of an organisation, including by measuring an organisation’s accumulating (or declining) expertise in terms of long-term experience, and the undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications of personnel, particularly in high-risk areas and senior management. It may also involve examining trends in staff turnover across the agency. In the APS, it may involve measuring the extent of the experience of staff, particularly leaders, in portfolio agencies as well as the strength of advisory committees.

Assessing an agency’s intellectual capital needs to occur in context. A lack of experience among management, for example, due to high staff turnover and a loss of key executives and expert staff, is likely to be an indicator of potential problems, particularly where it is accompanied by staff being promoted (or acting) beyond their level of competence. However, low levels of turnover of senior management and a lack of exposure to fresh ideas from outside the organisation can also expose an organisation to serious risks. Agencies may benefit from undertaking cross-sectoral comparisons on such issues, and benchmarking their performance against that of comparable organisations.

A particular risk in the area of capability that all agencies need to monitor is the impact of the ageing of the population on their workforce. Agencies need to be aware of the age profile of their workforce and to have put in place formal approaches to workforce planning, succession management, and knowledge transfer designed to address the impact of a loss of a significant proportion of their workforce.

The extent to which an agency values and invests in learning and development is also important, but can be harder to assess. Nevertheless, there are likely to be a number of indicators that can be used to reflect this, including:

• the extent to which the agency identifies the capabilities it needs and any skills gaps
• the extent of investment within the organisation in the development of key skills, for example, managerial and strategic skills
• the level of take-up of training and development activities among staff generally
• the breadth of the agency’s approach to capability development. For example, is formal learning and development available; is it supplemented with targeted approaches to allowing employees to broaden their experience and exposure; and is the organisation providing improved infrastructure and systems that allow employees to perform more effectively?

More broadly, high-performing organisations with a strong emphasis on improving employee capability are likely to be characterised by:

• a focus on aligning capability with organisational priorities
• a strong emphasis on providing performance feedback
• capability strategies integrated with reward and recognition frameworks
• a strong focus on encouraging and rewarding innovation
• a focus on effective recruitment processes which ensure the right person is recruited at the right time
• a focus on organisational and personal resilience.

Agencies at risk of poor performance are less likely to put a strong focus on improving employee capability, and may have pockets of poor capability in critical areas, for example, policy development or programme management skills.

Organisational capability, of course, extends well beyond the capability level of employees. It also reflects, for example, the effectiveness with which knowledge is handled within organisations. Robertson¹⁶ argues that persistently failing organisations inhibit knowledge transfer, including across internal boundaries, and knowledge transfer downwards. Since information is largely concerned with the successful management and manipulation of data and its conversion into effective learning, organisations that stem the circulation of information close down their learning.

Organisational capability also extends to the effectiveness of other systems within an organisation, whether programme management, ICT, financial or workforce planning. In a healthy organisation, these systems will be consciously aligned to corporate outcomes and priorities, and lines of accountability for the performance of systems against corporate outcomes and priorities will be clear. Governance systems will be established to ensure that large projects are properly managed and there will be a strong emphasis on effective risk management. There will be a clear focus on project implementation, supported by coordinated implementation strategies, the development of project management capability, and adequate business continuity planning.

High-performing organisations are likely to be characterised by a continual focus on improving organisational systems. Agencies at risk of poor performance may have failed to emphasise the need for effective systems; have poor systems in key areas, such as the management of large-scale projects, ICT or human resources; or have inadequate resources for necessary systems and developments.

A major failure in administration such as a poor financial situation, a major ICT failure, a large-scale project that overruns budget and timeframes, or an adverse finding in an audit can be a signal that there are other underlying corporate health issues that need to be addressed within an organisation. Such failures can be the result of the cumulative effect of a number of weaknesses in organisational capability and should always be taken seriously.

The impact of an organisation’s systems and processes on project outcomes was highlighted in the ANAO’s report on the Customs Cargo Management Re-engineering (CMR) Project.¹⁷

4. Corporate Governance Processes

The effectiveness of the governance processes by which an agency is directed, controlled and held to account is a key indicator of an agency’s corporate health.

Organisations that perform well tend to establish a simple, holistic operating governance environment that cascades from key business outcomes and incorporates support mechanisms such as research programmes, evaluation, audit and fraud programmes, financial and other business support systems, and appropriate measurement instruments.

In high-performing agencies:

• resources are aligned with desired outcomes
• responsibility and accountability requirements are made clear
• key risks are identified, articulated and remediated, and the focus is on effective risk management, rather than on an absolute focus on process monitoring and measurement, beyond what is mandated
• a conscious assessment is made about the appropriate level at which particular decisions should be made
• performance is benchmarked against the wider environment
• governance arrangements are regularly reviewed to take into account changes in the agency’s internal or external environment
• committee systems operate in a timely and efficient manner with a clear sense of purpose
• committee membership is considered carefully
• agency leadership cooperates fully with external scrutiny requirements.

A lack of clarity in accountabilities and responsibilities can be associated with poor performance. The Western Australian King Edward Memorial Hospital case (Case Study 1 above) is a good example of this.²⁰

Effective governance processes require integrated systems and processes for finance, human resources, and ICT aligned to business needs, with effective controls of costs and core processes. The importance of such processes was particularly highlighted in the Palmer Report which stressed the link between establishing a culture of governance and accountability with sound systems and effective processes. It was also highlighted in the Customs CMR Project (Case Study 2 above).

Effective information management systems are of particular importance. The impact on an organisation of poor information management, and a range of other governance process deficiencies, were illustrated by the experience of the New South Wales Department of Community Services (DoCS). Effective recordkeeping has also attracted substantial attention at the Australian Government level, for example, in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Services Case, the inquiry into A Certain Maritime Incident, and in the Palmer Report.²¹

Issues of information management are of course broader than those of effective recordkeeping. An overly secretive culture, a reluctance to share information, and a lack of transparency are also qualities that can be associated with poor corporate health.

Choo²³ identifies three main information failures and links them with leadership issues. First, signals are not recognised because they are consistent with organisational beliefs and aspirations. Secondly, warning signals are noticed but those concerned do not act on them. Thirdly, problems can arise because groups have partial information and interpretations, and no one has a view of the situation as a whole. Ultimately, Choo believes that a vigilant information culture is a continuing set of conversations and reflections about safety and risk, backed up by the requisite imagination and will to act.

How an agency responds to difficulties can itself be an indicator of corporate health. In high-performing agencies, change is more likely to be initiated through an effective governance programme (including self-criticism and analysis of an organisation’s actions, processes and outcomes which takes a holistic view of root causes) than as a result of crisis management directed at fixing an immediate problem. High-performing agencies tend to have rigorous audit and evaluation programmes in place, including the use of staff and stakeholder surveys. A lack of evaluation or tardiness in completion of evaluations can itself be a sign of poor corporate health.

5. Relationships and Integrity

Organisations that perform well have high ethical standards, effective and appropriate relationships with stakeholders, and high levels of service provision and client or customer focus. Good internal relationships—between and among employees and management—are also important.

Concerns about relationships and integrity in the context of the health of organisations are not unique to the public sector. The demise of a number of firms has been linked to corruption, greed and its association with collusion and deceit, for example, the corporate cases of Enron, Waste Management, Sunbeam and HIH.²⁴ In the public sector, concerns about the way some public servants exercise their duty have attracted public attention through inquiries such as those undertaken by Comrie, Palmer and Cole.²⁵

There can be significant overlap between information failures, leadership, management, governance issues, and matters of integrity. Gettler²⁶ argues that collusion and cover-up form the backdrop to organisational dysfunction. In Gettler’s view, ignoring the obvious can be a function of greed and sometimes of power but it is usually a mixture of deception and self-delusion. People dissenting or asking hard questions are swept aside so the organisation seems to be unaware that it is falling apart.

The integrity and effectiveness of relationships with key stakeholders are fundamental to the effectiveness of organisations. A clear and consistent strategy that is well-known and understood by key stakeholders, and with stakeholders understanding their importance to the agency, is likely to be a sign of an organisation that performs well. Conversely, poor stakeholder relationships can put an agency at risk of poor performance (see Case Study 2 above).

For almost all APS agencies a key stakeholder relationship is the one between the agency and the Minister and the Minister’s office. An agency that is performing well is likely to have put considerable effort into developing effective working relations between the agency and the relevant Minister’s office. Conversely, a lack of understanding of the role of the Minister and the Minister’s office, and a lack of timely and effective responses to Ministerial requests is likely to reflect a lack of understanding of the organisational direction and purpose, and could be a sign of poor corporate health.

The effectiveness of interactions with clients and customers, in particular, is another important measure of organisational effectiveness. High levels of client-focused behaviour, both internally and externally, are likely to be a sign of an organisation that performs well. Client satisfaction surveys can be an important tool in measuring corporate health in this area as can regular reviews of complaints and identification of emerging systemic issues. Nevertheless, in the public sector a fine balance needs to be maintained between high levels of client service, and an understanding that in many cases public servants are exercising regulatory power, and need to do this consistently within their regulatory framework.

Another important area is the relationship between an agency and the consultants it contracts to perform specific services. Agencies need to be confident that consultants appreciate their business requirements and understand the impact of what and when they deliver.

Public perceptions of agencies more generally, while not definitive, can also help to provide an early indication of emerging problems. Warning signs can include sustained bad press or gossip about agencies among a range of stakeholders, public concern about the ethical behaviour of employees or perceived ‘perks’ enjoyed by senior staff, and concerns raised by MPs and Senators. Agencies need to be careful in this context to differentiate between criticism of government policies and the performance of an agency.

At the internal level, there are a number of behaviours that may be a sign of poor corporate health. These include bullying tolerated or practised by leaders, unhelpful game playing in the organisation, and a lack of professionalism and respect for others, such as poor meeting behaviours or a culture of malicious gossip. Staff surveys and the monitoring of workplace harassment and grievance indicators can help to identify some of these behaviours.

A range of research suggests that high levels of engagement of employees, with their work and their organisation, are associated with improved productivity in organisations and the retention of employees.²⁷ Similarly, a high proportion of employees who are actively disengaged with their work could be a sign of an agency at risk of poor performance. The extent of engagement and disengagement is likely to reflect a range of factors relating to the quality of internal relationships, including the quality of immediate management, the provision of feedback, the quality of broader workplace relationships, and the quality of leadership.

An important indicator of corporate health for any agency is the level of staff morale or job satisfaction. There can be real advantages to an agency in regularly testing the level of staff morale through employee-senior staff interaction as well as more formal processes such as staff surveys.

6. Effective Agency Culture

An agency’s performance in the area of relationships and integrity is clearly linked to the next indicator, that is, the effectiveness of an agency’s culture.

Agency culture is difficult to define, but is what people experience when they deal with an organisation or work in it. Agency culture relates to shared assumptions, beliefs, values, norms and actions as well as language patterns. These collective beliefs shape behaviour.

An agency’s culture needs to be effectively aligned to its outcomes and business. There is no one culture that will suit each agency’s circumstances. The culture in a regulatory and/ or inspection agency, for example, will differ from the culture of an agency with a strong policy development focus.

Nevertheless, all APS agencies need to create a high performance culture with a focus on continual improvement, empowerment of staff and trust. To create such a culture, an agency must have a strong focus on its people and a strong focus on performance. It must take steps to address elements of its culture that do not support its employees and support, to the extent possible, an effective work-life balance.

In the APS context, high-performing agencies also need to be characterised by a culture that encourages collaboration with other agencies and whole of government outcomes. Perceptions by stakeholders that an agency is insular and inwardly focused could be a sign of poor corporate health.

In large agencies, with a range of different business lines, it is appropriate for there to be a number of different sub-cultures. Nevertheless, agency leaders need to focus on the overarching values and objectives that provide coherence. There may be a need to take action if incompatibilities between cultures are affecting business outcomes or undermining organisational cohesiveness and cooperation.

Although difficult to measure, culture can have a direct impact on agency performance. A fiefdom mentality, with a widespread culture of ‘us and them’, that treats all customers, clients and sometimes work units or occupations within the organisation as ‘the enemy’, is unlikely to make for a healthy organisation. A lack of confidence among the senior leadership group that their colleagues are committed to identifying and working towards achieving corporate goals is of particular concern. A fear that colleagues may attack one another at any time doesn’t encourage creativity or innovation or even cooperation.

A consistent culture of crisis, blame and lack of accountability, an inwardly focused culture that is unwilling to learn from other organisations, or even the lack of any clearly articulated and understood ‘culture’, can also be early warning signs of underperformance.

A culture of openness, transparency and collegiate behaviour, built on the APS Values and Code of Conduct is desirable.

One of the best ways to measure agency culture, and changes in agency culture, is through regular surveys of staff attitudes. Such surveys can cover issues such as integrity, consultation, handling of risk, conflict of interest, staff recognition, attitudes to learning and development and attitudes to performance improvement.

7. Factors particularly relevant to the Public Sector

There are some indicators of agencies at risk of poor performance which may be unique to the public sector. In the public sector, even where organisations have the best leadership and the best governance structures in place, agencies can be affected by government decisions, changes in the political environment, the influence of advocacy groups, and the ongoing sustainability of their funding base (for both front line and support activities).

Agencies that have to take on rapidly a range of new responsibilities, absorb a large number of new staff, or which experience massive workload increases are likely to have their capacity to manage these changes stretched, from a governance, financial, leadership and cultural perspective.

To deal effectively with such situations, agencies need to foster high levels of agility, and establish effective systems for anticipating and managing change. Agencies facing such issues need to be particularly vigilant about monitoring their corporate health, and respond immediately to indicators that changes are having an adverse impact on corporate health.

The nature and level of contention around the work performed by agencies can also have an impact on corporate health. Under the Westminster system of government, the public service must be responsive to the Government of the day. Nevertheless, agencies can havetheir corporate health compromised where there is a high level of public attention to the work of the agency, leading to frequent political involvement in day-to-day operations. Agencies in these situations need to ensure that their staff understand the nature of the APS’s relationship with Ministers and Ministers’ offices, and ensure that staff feel free to approach senior managers and/or a central area of expertise and support if they are facing a challenge in handling this relationship. The Australian Public Service Commission’s guide, Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values, is a useful resource in this regard.²⁸

The performance of agencies is also fundamentally dependent on the sustainability of the funding base provided by government. A high-performing agency will put a strong emphasis on managing its operations in an efficient and cost-effective way, and in pursuing continuous improvements in productivity. Nevertheless, where funding for the agency is not sustainable, whether for front line policy development, regulation and service delivery, or for support services, such as information management, a high-performing agency will be proactive about raising such issues with central agencies and with government. This is not a sign of failure, but a sign of an agency that puts a high priority on maintaining its corporate health.

A particular issue for some public sector agencies is the tension between the need to ensure compliance with the regulatory framework and the need to provide enough flexibility to deliver outcomes. Agencies need to monitor this issue, to ensure that they are achieving the right balance.

There are a range of additional challenges for APS agencies whose staff are dispersed across Australia and in overseas posts. This situation is not unique to the public sector, but is a characteristic of many APS agencies.

High-performing agencies in these circumstances are likely to be characterised by the establishment of:

• governance controls, processes and communication that maintain a consistent focus across all geographic areas and provide coherence
• establishing effective feedback loops to allow communication to occur horizontally and vertically across the organisation (including through effective use of ICT)
• establishing effective approaches to knowledge management and knowledge transfer across teams (Case Study 4).

In contrast, geographically dispersed agencies at risk of poor performance may be characterised by:

• a failure to communicate a common sense of organisational direction across regions
• the creation of pockets of isolated and incompatible organisational culture
• marked differences in performance and compliance between regions
• ineffective staff training arrangements across regions
• poor communication across regions and between regions and senior leadership, with problems presented when there are crises rather than early on.

(See Case Study 2 for an example of problems caused by poor management of geographical diversity).

An assessment of agency corporate health needs to take into account these issues.

 

6 <http://www.apsc.gov.au/ils/>

7 M. H. Bazerman and M. D. Watkins, ‘Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 81, No. 3, March 2003, p. 74. Max Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Staus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Michael Watkins an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

8 D. Tarrant, ‘Cautionary Tales of Corporate Confusion’, AGSM Magazine, 8 December 2005 <http://www2.agsm.edu.au/agsm/web.nsf/Content/AGSMMagazine-SydneyFinkelstein> Professor Finkelstein is the Stephen Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in the USA.

9 L. Gettler, Organisations Behaving Badly: A Greek Tragedy of Corporate Pathology, John Wiley and Sons Australia, Milton, 2005, p. 96.

10 L. Gettler, Organisations Behaving Badly: A Greek Tragedy of Corporate Pathology, John Wiley and Sons, Australia, Milton, 2005, p. 115.

11 <http://www.health.wa.gov.au/kemhinquiry/recommendations/index.cfm>

12 <http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_01_050704/fau10254_fm.html#elementId-1087499>

13 Australian Public Service Commission 2005, State of the Service Report 2004–05, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p. 6.

14 M. J. Palmer, Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Immigration Detention of Cornelia Rau: Report, July 2005 <http://www.minister.immi.gov.au>

15 See, for example, A. Carmeli and A. Tishler, ‘The Relationships between Intangible Organisational Elements and Organisational Performance’, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 25, No. 13, December 2004, p. 1260.

16 D. Robertson, ‘Persistently Failing Organisations: Some Tell-Tale Signs’, Training Journal, November 2000, p. 23.

17 <http://www.health.wa.gov.au/kemhinquiry/recommendations/index.cfm>

18 Australian National Audit Office, Customs Cargo Management Re-engineering Project (February 2007) <http://www.anao.gov. au/director/publications/auditreports/2006–2007.cfm?item_id=9>

19 Booz Allen Hamilton, Review of the Integrated Cargo System, May 2006, pp. 47–9 <http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/ filesBoozAllenHamilton_ICSReport.pdf>

20 <http://www.health.wa.gov.au/kemhinquiry/recommendations/index.cfm>

21 Australian Public Service Commission 2005, State of the Service Report 2004–05, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p. 46.

22 NSW Ombudsman, DoCS: Critical Issues, Concerns Arising from Investigations into the Department of Community Services: A Special Report to Parliament under s. 31 of the Ombudsman Act 1974, New South Wales Government, Sydney, April 2002, pp. 14–17.

23 C. W. Choo, ‘Information Failures and Organisation Disasters’, MT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 46, No. 3, Spring 2005, p. 8.

24 L. Gettler, Organisations Behaving Badly: A Greek Tragedy of Corporate Pathology, John Wiley and Sons, Australia, Milton, 2005, p. 4.

25 Australian Public Service Commission 2005, State of the Service Report 2004–05, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p. 6.

26 L. Gettler, Organisations Behaving Badly: A Greek Tragedy of Corporate Pathology, John Wiley and Sons Australia, Milton, 2005, p. 36.

27 For example, D. Robinson, S. Perryman and S. Hayday, The Drivers of Employee Engagement, Institute for Employment Studies, Sussex, UK, 2004 and Corporate Leadership Council, Driving Employee Performance and Retention through Engagement: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Employee Engagement Strategies, CLC, Washington, DC, 2004.

28 Australian Public Service Commission 2006, Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values: A Good Practice Guide, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra <http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications06/supportingministers.htm>

29 <http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/industry/casestudies/abc.pdf>

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