Tackling Wicked Problems : A Public Policy Perspective

6.The Importance of Working Across Organisational Boundaries

As mentioned above, it is their social complexity that is often the hardest part of tackling wicked problems and that overwhelms most current problem-solving and project management techniques. It is the need to work across APS agencies, the need to work with other jurisdictions and organisations, and the need to engage with many dispersed stakeholders that makes tackling wicked problems such a socially complex exercise. The challenges posed by the social complexity of wicked problems have been recognised by the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet:

In terrain which is politically contested, in which the resources to address difficult human issues are necessarily finite, there are rarely clear questions, let alone easy answers. Progress is nearly always marked by consultation, discussion, negotiation and iteration.¹⁵

It is clear that existing public sector institutions and structures were, by and large, not designed with a primary goal of supporting collaborative inter-organisational work. It can be challenging enough to implement governance arrangements and foster cultures that facilitate collaboration across internal organisational boundaries within hierarchical, vertically structured organisations.

6.1 Whole of government working

The Management Advisory Committee (MAC) report, Connecting Government (2004), recognised that tackling complex policy challenges is one of the key imperatives that makes being successful at whole of government work increasingly important. The report focuses on working across organisational boundaries at the Australian Government level, but it also, albeit more briefly, looks at making connections outside the APS with community organisations, businesses and other jurisdictions. The report notes that, although whole of government working is costly and time consuming, it can be particularly suitable for complex and longstanding policy issues—the essential characteristics of wicked problems.

The Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has commented that whole of government is the public administration of the future:

It offers links and connections to the global community of ideas, knowledge and understanding essential for the APS to face the governance challenges of the 21st century. It extols team-based approaches to solving the wicked problems that are endemic to public policy.¹⁶

It is worthwhile briefly reiterating the key messages from the MAC report on working across agency boundaries within the APS because they are so relevant to tackling wicked problems. The key messages include the importance of APS agencies developing:

supportive structures and processes. There is a need for careful choice of the appropriate structures to support whole of government work. Structures and processes must be matched to the task—no ‘one-size-fits-all’. If there is deep contention between portfolios, or in the community, for example, and tight time frames are involved, a dedicated Taskforce under strong leadership and working directly to the Prime Minister, a senior Minister or a Cabinet committee may produce better outcomes than a more standard interdepartmental committee.
a supportive culture and skills base. Portfolio secretaries and higher-ranking Senior Executive Service (SES) staff have a key role to play in influencing the behaviour and attitudes of the APS towards collaboration across organisational boundaries. They can model best practice collegiate behaviour and ensure there is practical support for those involved in whole of government activities. These practical supports include developing systems and procedures to support authorisation for appropriate local decision-making and learning opportunities for middle and senior managers in skills relevant to whole of government activities, such as communication and influencing skills and relationship management.
facilitative information management and infrastructure. Working more successfully across organisations relies on better information-sharing and requires structured approaches to the collection and sharing of information and data. On a practical level this includes continuing the progress towards the adoption of common information policies, standards and protocols across APS agencies to improve interoperability, and identifying information management needs early in the planning process around wicked problems.
appropriate budget and accountability frameworks. The Department of Finance and Administration should be consulted at an early stage in the development of major cross portfolio initiatives to ensure that the flexibility that is possible in the existing financial framework is maximised and used to facilitate a cross-portfolio approach. In section 7 the impact of the accountability framework on inter-organisational collaboration is discussed in more detail.

These messages are illustrated by a range of case studies included as an appendix to the MAC report. These case studies are useful reading for those tasked with tackling wicked problems. While they illustrate that whole of government approaches are usually essential in effectively dealing with wicked problems, they also illustrate that such arrangements can be complicated, expensive and difficult to make work—especially for a sustained period of time.

Since the release of the MAC report in April 2004, experience with the implementation of more effective whole of government approaches has been mixed. Whole of government approaches have been implemented to address a wide range of issues, from crisis management and improving service delivery, to dealing with significant policy challenges, many of which could be described as wicked, for example, addressing Indigenous well-being or welfare dependency. The APS is learning how to work in this environment, and there have been positive results.

At the same time, the implementation of whole of government approaches in these areas has also confirmed how difficult more connected approaches can be to implement. Data collected for the State of the Service Report 2006–07 confirms a widespread perception among APS employees that barriers to effective whole of government working remain.These barriers are particularly at the systems level, in ensuring that underpinning financial and information and communications technology (ICT) frameworks support collaboration. More work also needs to be done in developing the appropriate agency culture and capability. Senior employees involved in structured whole of government activities continue to pass mixed judgements on how collaborative and well-supported these structures have been in practice.

The State of the Service Report 2005–06 concluded that whole of government working is not yet natural to public servants and will take many years to embed. Nevertheless, there needs to be a continual focus on improving the ability of the APS to work in a whole of government way if real progress is to be made in tackling Australia’s wicked problems.

6.2 Working with State governments

Most wicked problems will overlap with the traditional jurisdictions of State governments. The MAC report concluded that for the most part, interactions with State governments will continue to be managed through formal processes and structures such as the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), various financial agreements and a large number of councils of Ministers. Other initiatives to facilitate collaboration within and across jurisdictions include the National Service Improvement Framework which provides a tiered approach for government agencies to follow in agreeing the arrangements necessary to enable collaborative service delivery (see http://www.agimo.gov.au/services). On a more informal basis, Australian Government employees need to ensure that they understand the State government policies and programmes most likely to interact with their own work to ensure an ongoing capacity to respond to emerging priorities that may cross jurisdictional boundaries. ‘One approach to this is to establish ongoing forums and information exchanges [with State government employees] that foster not only understanding by employees of the issues inside their areas of control and influence but also the appreciation of wider issues and activities that may impact on those areas.’¹⁷

6.3 Devolved government

The need to work across organisational boundaries also encompasses the issue of working with organisations outside government. This is sometimes called devolved government (also distributed or networked government). As in many other developed countries, devolved government (the utilisation by the public sector of the community sector and/or the private sector for the delivery of public goods and services) has increased significantly in scope, scale and complexity over recent decades. While there is a range of drivers behind this increase, one factor is that a devolved approach to service delivery can assist in dealing with complex problems.

Addressing some wicked problems, such as the problems of various Indigenous communities or the causes of criminal activity in particular communities or natural resource management by landowners, needs to be tackled to some degree from a ‘bottom-up’ perspective (even if there is considerable ‘top-down’ coordinating control). Such bottom-up, community capability building needs to involve NGOs in distributing goods and services as both a matter of practicality (government can’t have that sort of presence and expertise everywhere it’s needed) and desirability (it can help if government is not seen to be the only entity tackling problems). NGOs, which have stronger community links than central government, can assist in achieving solutions that can be tailored to particular circumstances and/or communities and that can be owned by those involved, reflecting their beliefs and values. Governments do not usually have the reach or power to direct behaviours that might conflict with local beliefs, values and private interests, even if they are sure of the right policy answer to the problem. It is unlikely that government from the centre can specify how best to provide a complex serviceat the local level if there is to be scope to boost service satisfaction, improve outcomes and secure local legitimacy.

Improving the public sector’s capacity to work in a distributed way can help to enhance an understanding of causes and solutions to a particular wicked problem among the organisations delivering services, even if views on the relative importance of the various causes and/or solutions continue to differ.

6.4 Working across organisational boundaries: Other issues

One necessary first step in building up inter-organisational working on any specific issue is the identification of the organisations which could be concerned with the issues—an exercise in inter-organisational mapping. Part of the holistic approach required to tackle wicked problems is to think inclusively. A concern with child obesity, for example, could concentrate on those whose contribution is most obvious, that is, federal and state government health and education agencies. But other government organisations dealing with areas such as social services, housing, town planning, transport, sport and recreation facilities will also have a role to play (as will a range of community and commercial organisations).

Other literature around working in a whole of government way stresses the key importance of creating a shared understanding of the wicked problem among the range of organisations that can contribute to a full understanding and comprehensive response to the issue. This needs to be commenced in the pre-project planning stage to avoid the danger of dealing with a wicked problem too narrowly. It requires first ensuring that the relevant organisations understand the government’s broad policy objectives in relation to the wicked problem in order to encourage big picture, inclusive thinking. It also requires a degree of organisational understanding so that how the issue is dealt with in each organisation’s structure and how it is talked about (the terminology used) are understood. The difficulties of working across organisational boundaries are compounded by the different values, incentives and accountabilities of organisations from the government, commercial and non-profit sectors. Once a shared understanding is achieved organisations can work together to explore, map, frame and re-frame the wicked problem and try to find appropriate measures to take.

New technologies when used strategically can be an important tool to assist in working across organisational boundaries. Govdex, for example, is an Australian Government initiative tofacilitate business process collaboration across portfolios, administrative jurisdictions and agencies (see http://www.agimo.gov.au/services). It comprises a collaborative workspace, a registry and/or repository and tools and methods. Govdex is now being used by several hundred people at the federal, state and local government levels in Australia and to facilitate collaboration between elements of the Australian, UK and New Zealand Governments. Poorly handled, however, technology can exacerbate wicked problems, for example, when it results in a proliferation of uncoordinated government websites.

Delivering Natural Resource Management Programmes

The delivery of Australia’s federal and State government natural resource management programmes is a good example of working across organisational boundaries to tackle a wicked problem. Natural resource management in Australia displays many of the characteristics of a wicked problem, including disagreement among stakeholders and experts on the nature, scope and solutions to natural resource management issues, the need for coordination among all levels of government, the lack of a one-size-fits-all approach—natural resource management issues vary dramatically between regions and localities—and the need to achieve behavioural change amongst a range of land users.

The inter-organisational structure delivering key natural resource management programmes has evolved into a regional delivery model. Under this approach, 56 regional authorities, funded under bilateral agreements between the Australian Government and each State government, have been set up around Australia to determine and manage regional natural resource management priorities, investment strategies, and funding opportunities, under a range of natural resource management programmes. Although there have been teething problems as the new organisational structures have been bedded down, there is widespread support for the regional approach from members of all sections of the community, industry and government, as a mechanism for working across organisational boundaries to address natural resource management issues.¹⁸ The top-down strategic approach of the regional authorities still has scope to accommodate a community driven bottom-up approach to identifying local natural resource management problems at the local level where these local priorities are consistent with the strategic overview. This has proven to be the case in practice in the more well-established and highly performing regional authorities.

15 P. Shergold, ‘ “Lackies, Careerists, Political Stooges”? Personal Reflections on the Current State of Public Service Leadership’ (Sir Roland Wilson Lecture), Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 63, No. 4, December 2004, p. 9.

16 P. Shergold, ‘Preface’ to Management Advisory Committee 2004, Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia’s Priority Challenges, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p. vi.

17 Management Advisory Committee 2004, Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia’s Priority Challenges, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p. 104.

18 K. Keogh, D. Chant and B. Frazer 2006, Review of Arrangements for Regional Delivery of Natural Resource Management Programmes: Final Report (Prepared by the Ministerial Reference Group for Future Natural Resource Management Programme Delivery) <http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications/books/pubs/regional-delivery-review.pdf>