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CRITICAL CHALLENGES FOR THE APS AS A WHOLE

The size and complexity of the APS means that most critical challenges facing the APS as a whole are unlikely to change dramatically from year-to-year. Many of the challenges facing the APS have clearly been emerging for some time, and it is likely that some of them will continue to be reported in future State of the Service reports.

Each year, however, the State of the Service report adds new insight into the challenges, and influences the priorities between them and the approaches needed to address them; reports may also add new critical challenges, or allow past ones to be taken off the critical list. Importantly, the way the APS tackles these major challenges may determine whether they gradually disappear from the radar screen, having been dealt with in a systematic way, or whether they become entrenched and prove difficult to turn around.

Last year, the report identified four critical challenges: succession planning for the future leadership of the APS; diversity particularly in relation to Indigenous employment and the employment of people with a disability and people from non-English speaking backgrounds; workforce planning and performance management; and effective relationships between the APS and the Government and the Parliament. Whole of government was also identified as a cross-cutting theme in last year’s report.

The findings of this year’s report generally confirm these challenges, but suggest some refinements to the focus of attention for some of them.

The critical challenges for the APS as a whole would appear to be:

1. Building and sustaining the capability of the APS. The continued ageing of the APS presents a particular challenge for managing succession to the future leadership of the APS. The Service also needs to review what it means to be a graduate Service, the importance of structured learning and development in a more mobile Service, the need to strike the right balance between leadership capabilities, management skills and technical or professional skills as demands increase for both greater expertise and greater ability to draw together different expertise, and ensure that the Service is an employer of choice attracting and retaining the best.
2. Whole of government capacity. The MAC report, Connecting Government, is a timely reminder of the growing importance of the capacity to draw together all the resources of government to address major and complex issues. It does not represent a major shift away from devolution; rather, it highlights the importance of a more agile and flexible Service to respond across boundaries where necessary, to find solutions and to deliver responsive services, as well as to meet the changing business requirements of individual agencies. Apart from the capacity to work productively across agencies, the challenge also involves the capacity to work productively with other jurisdictions and non-government organisations (both private and not-for-profit), and to engage with citizens. Much of the Government’s policy agenda requires this whole of government capacity, and it is important that agencies and the APS as a whole continue to learn from each new exercise, such as the most recent moves to improve the delivery of Indigenous services, and other structural changes aimed at providing more seamless services to the community.
3. Ensuring diversity in the APS. Diversity is an important dimension of organisational capability, as well as a requirement for equal employment opportunity. The APS faces two particular diversity challenges: Indigenous employment and the employment of people with a disability. Both are in long-term decline, and current strategies are not sufficiently effective.
4. Ensuring an effective relationship between the APS and the Government and the Parliament. The confirmation in this year’s report of the wider range of employees in direct contact with Ministers and their advisers adds further weight to the importance of clearly understanding the APS Values as they relate to working with the Government and the Parliament, and building further the confidence of APS employees in this interaction. There is a particular role here for the APS leadership–agency heads and the SES.
5. Embedding the Values and the Code of Conduct. Considerable progress has been made in improving employees’ understanding of the APS Values and Code of Conduct, and their appreciation of the relevance of these to their day-to-day work. The challenge is to ensure this continues, so that all new staff are appropriately inducted, new leaders appreciate their statutory responsibilities to promote the Values, and agencies have supportive management and assurance mechanisms. A particular aspect identified in the last year is the need for greater consistency within agencies in the handling of allegations of misconduct and in the imposition of sanctions where misconduct has been found to have occurred.

The responsibility for meeting these challenges lies with individual agencies, the MAC and coordinating agencies including in particular the APS Commission.