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RELATIONS WITH THE GOVERNMENT

As mentioned above, the APS Values require that APS employees be responsive to the Government, and also apolitical and openly accountable. A related requirement of the Code of Conduct is for APS employees to maintain appropriate confidentiality in dealings with Ministers and their offices, a critical factor for a relationship built on trust and cooperation.

Both the agency and employee surveys explored aspects of the relationship between the APS and the Government. The key results of both surveys are presented below. In addition, the chapter draws on the findings of a Commission evaluation of agencies’ protocols on interactions with ministerial offices.

RESPONSIVENESS TO MINISTERS

To monitor how agencies are meeting their obligations of responsiveness to Ministers in terms of providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and services, the agency survey again asked agencies to advise on the quality control and evaluation measures they use.

Most agencies providing regular services to Ministers include in their portfolio budget statements target measures of the level and quality of those services, against which they report performance in their annual reports. This report does not attempt to summarise those performance results but to assess in general terms the adequacy of the quality control and evaluation measures being used, as reported in the agency survey.

Sixty agencies reported providing regular (i.e. monthly or more often) services or advice to Ministers. Large agencies (95%) are much more likely to provide regular services or advice than medium (70%) or small agencies (54%). These results are similar to last year’s.

In an improvement on last year, however, all 60 agencies reported having at least one quality control measure¹ in place (last year two small agencies reported not having any quality control measures in place), and only six agencies (compared to 14 last year) reported having no evaluation measures² in place during 2003—04.

The most common quality control measures reported were the specification of a minimum classification for signing off ministerial briefs and a central function for the quality assurance and coordination of written material to and from Ministers’ offices (95% of relevant agencies). Nearly half of relevant agencies reported having a policy in place requiring telephone contact with ministerial advisers be limited to certain classification levels.

The most common evaluation measure was some form of internal peer review to evaluate ministerial advice (80% of relevant agencies). The other measures reported were the use of a formal rating system to collect ministerial feedback (47%), a formal requirement that oral feedback is collected from ministerial staff (28%) and a formal requirement that oral feedback is collected from the Minister (20%).

Agency survey responses indicate that there has been a change in the use of quality control and evaluation measures in the APS over the last three years. A comparison of the results shows that while there has been a slight trend upward in all of the quality control measures, the use of evaluation measures has altered significantly.³ Figure 3.1 shows that internal peer review of ministerial briefs has increased (from 21% to 80% of relevant agencies) over the last three years and oral feedback both from Ministers and ministerial staff has decreased (70% to 22% and 85% to 33% of relevant agencies respectively).⁴

Figure 3.1: Quality control and evaluation measures for services to Ministers

Source: Agency survey

Last year’s report suggested that more effort by agencies was needed to gain regular feedback from Ministers and their staff. Unfortunately, this year’s results show that even fewer agencies are gaining such feedback. It may be that the figures reflect in part greater stability amongst Ministers and senior public servants in recent years, and reduced pressure from Ministers for further service improvement or from agencies for clarity about their assessed performance. Even if this is so, regular feedback from Ministers and their staff remains an essential element of any strategy to improve service, and there are risks from complacency. That said, the increase in internal peer review of written briefing is commendable.

APS agencies seeking guidance in this area are encouraged to refer to the ANAO’s better practice guide on managing parliamentary workflow, which stresses the need for regular feedback.⁵ The guide is intended to assist agencies in their management of ministerial and parliamentary support arrangements. The 2003 guide updates the previous guide on this subject, released in 1999, and includes advice on feedback mechanisms.

INTERACTIONS WITH MINISTERS AND MINISTERIAL OFFICES

As mentioned, 60 agencies provide regular services or advice to Ministers, and all reported having at least one formal measure to ensure quality or evaluate the quality of services provided, with 92% having three or more measures.

Apart from the measures outlined above, most agencies also report having explicit policies on record keeping in relation to interactions with ministerial offices. Eighty per cent of relevant agencies report requiring that hard and/or electronic copies of significant email communication with advisers be retained on file. Seventy per cent of relevant agencies require that file notes be made after significant discussions with Ministers or advisers, and 62% of relevant agencies require that oral briefing to Ministers or advisers be followed up by written briefing where appropriate. Figure 3.2 shows that over the last three years there has been an overall trend toward agencies having such requirements in place.

Figure 3.2: Agency record keeping requirements

Source: Agency survey

The increase in agencies with explicit record keeping requirements is primarily due to a number of agencies having put new protocols into place. Last year seven agencies reported that they were developing at least one of the protocols on record keeping mentioned above. This year’s agency survey results show that of those seven agencies, the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS), DHA, Defence, DEST and the Attorney-General's Department (AGD) have since put some or all of those protocols in place.

The agency survey also asked agencies whether they had certain measures in place to assist employees in their dealings with ministerial offices. In response, 58% of relevant agencies reported having agreed unwritten processes in place for resolving staff concerns that may arise about the nature of requests from ministerial offices. Just one agency reported having written processes of the same kind. Further discussion of employees’ level of awareness of these agency protocols is included below. In addition to these processes, 40% of relevant agencies indicated that they provide training for relevant employees on interacting with ministerial offices.

Employee contact with ministerial offices

According to this year’s employee survey results, 20% of APS employees had been in direct contact with Ministers or their advisers in the previous 12 months.⁶ The 2003 employee survey found that 26% of all APS employees had been in contact with Ministers or their advisers in the previous 24 months. The six percentage point drop in the survey result can almost certainly be attributed to deliberate differences in the question asked of respondents. Unlike the question posed last year, the 2004 survey question was limited to direct contact (‘direct’ was defined as contact in person, by telephone or email) and the contact period was limited to 12 months; moreover, those who responded that they had had contact but revealed in more detailed questions than last year that the contact was marginal were removed from the figures. As a result, the 2003 and 2004 results are not directly comparable. Accordingly, analysis of this year’s employee survey results in the following sections is limited to 2004 survey results.

Nevertheless, this year’s figure of 20% confirms that last year’s surprisingly high result was not an anomaly, and that interaction with Ministers and their advisers down and through the APS is occurring on a wide scale.

Seventy-three per cent of SES employees, 35% of EL employees and 15% of APS 1—6 staff reported having had direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers in the last year. Contact was far higher in departments (32%) than other agencies (13%), and in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) (34%) than elsewhere (13%).

In response to a multiple response question about the types of matters upon which employees came into direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers, respondents indicated that the majority of contact was related to the provision of advice and factual information. Table 3.1 shows the variation of reported contact by type of matter.

Table 3.1: Types of matters upon which APS employees came into direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers

Source: Employee survey

Overall, 35% of relevant employees had had direct contact in relation to at least three of the above types of matters; 23% had had direct contact over two types of matters and 42% over one type of matter. SES employees are much more likely to have direct contact over multiple matters (73% of relevant SES employees had had contact in relation to at least three matters compared to 45% of relevant EL level employees and 26% of relevant APS level employees).

As is to be expected, there were substantial differences in the types of matters dealt with when location was taken into account. For example, employees in the ACT were much more likely to have come into direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers in relation to advice, factual information, Parliament-related functions and public affairs support, whereas employees outside the ACT were much more likely to have had direct contact over constituent issues. Figure 3.3 shows the variation by location. A similar pattern emerges when employee survey results are examined by departmental status (i.e. department versus other agencies), the only exception being the provision of advice, which did not differ between employees that worked in departments and those in other agencies (both around 60%).

The employee survey results also show that SES employees were generally more likely to deal directly with Ministers and/or their advisers than more junior employees. The only exception related to constituent issues, in which APS level employees (27% of relevant APS level employees) were more likely to be involved. It is worth noting, however, that direct contact in relation to advice and factual information was still high for APS level employees–nearly half of APS level employees who had been in direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers in the last 12 months had done so in relation to the provision of advice (compared to 70% of relevant EL level employees and 83% of relevant SES employees). Figure 3.3 shows the variation by classification level.

Figure 3.3: Nature of APS employee contact with Ministers and/or advisers by classification level and location

Source: Employee survey

Overall, the employee survey results show that one in five APS employees had been in direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers during the last 12 months. They also show that where direct contact had occurred it was overwhelmingly in relation to matters of substance (such as the provision of advice and factual information) rather than administrative support and, for more senior employees, was more likely to be in relation to multiple types of matters than a single type of matter.

Notwithstanding the lack of historical data, this level of interaction is almost certainly far greater than in the past.

The extent and nature of contact between APS employees and ministerial offices is presumably related to the number of advisers, which has steadily increased over the last twenty years. As at 1 May 2004, the total number of government personal staff⁷ was 391.6⁸ compared to 207 at April 1983,⁹ representing an increase of 89%.

New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom have also seen large increases in the number of advisers.¹⁰ In the UK, for example, the number of advisers has more than doubled in recent years, albeit from a much lower base than Australia (from 38 to 83).¹¹ The number of advisers in those jurisdictions remains significantly lower than in Australia, as shown in Table 3.2, but there is an international trend amongst Westminster systems for ministerial advisers to play a more substantial role in public administration.

Table 3.2: Comparative overview of adviser numbers

Sources: (a) S King, Regulating the behaviour of ministers, special advisers and civil servants, University College London, 2003, page 10.

(b) Australian Public Service Statistical Bulletin 2002—03 (c) Third Howard Ministry, 3 August 2004, see <http://www.pmc.gov.au/pdfs/ministry_list.pdf> (d) Department of Finance and Administration, tabled at Senate Estimates on 26 May 2004, see <http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fapa_ctte/estimates/2004-05/budget/finance/tab-doc1-260504.pdf>

Notes: (c) This figure excludes Parliamentary Secretaries (d) This figure excludes all secretaries, administrative assistants and executive assistants/office managers as well as Parliamentary Secretary and other non-ministerial advisers.

The increasing reliance of government on advisers and the extent to which APS employees now interact with them requires that advisers and relevant APS employees share a common understanding of, and respect for, the necessarily different roles and responsibilities of the political and administrative arms of government. Along side this there is a need to ensure that relevant APS employees are not only aware of, but understand and can readily access, any specific requirements of them concerning their interactions with ministerial offices including the guidelines on official conduct¹² and agency protocols.

Employees’ awareness of agency protocols

Agencies apply various policies and practices to manage their interactions with Ministers and their offices to ensure quality services, to manage workload efficiently and to meet their statutory obligations, including under the PS Act and financial legislation. These policies and practices may be set out in formal written requirements or applied in less formal ways; in both cases agencies have an obligation to ensure that employees understand their responsibilities and agency expectations.

As was highlighted in last year’s report, substantial proportions of relevant employees (i.e. those who have had direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers in the past year) were unsure of whether their agency had specified protocols in place to guide employees’ interactions with Ministers’ offices. For example, 36% of relevant employees were not sure whether their own agency had a protocol in place requiring that file notes be routinely made after significant phone calls or oral discussions with Ministers and ministerial advisers. The level of relevant employees’ awareness of agency protocols is shown in Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4: Employees’ awareness of agency protocols

Source: Employee survey

Clearly, some protocols by their very nature are more likely to have a reasonably high profile among employees likely to be in direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers. For example, mandatory requirements around process issues, such as minimum classification level sign-offs on written briefing, are more likely to be known to employees than agency protocols or practices for dealing with specific issues as they arise (e.g. processes for resolving staff concerns about the nature of requests from ministerial offices). However, the very significant proportions of relevant employees (up to 64%) who indicated they were not sure whether their agency had certain protocols in place is of concern.

While Figure 3.4 provides a useful representation of APS-wide results, it is not able to take into account whether or not an agency does in fact have the protocol in place. Examination of large agency results of the employee and agency surveys, however, can provide statistically reliable evidence of employees’ awareness of protocols relative to whether those protocols are actually in place. As Table 3.3 highlights, substantial proportions of employees working in agencies that have protocols in place are unsure about their existence. This is particularly the case for unwritten processes for resolving staff concerns that may arise about the nature of requests from ministerial offices–10 large agencies reported in the agency survey that they had this (albeit unwritten) protocol in place and yet between 48% and 78% of employees working in those 10 large agencies were not sure whether their agency had such a protocol.

Table 3.3: Relevant employees’ awareness of protocols to guide interactions with ministerial offices– employees in large agencies that reported the protocol(s) in place

Note: The ranges provided are derived from agency-specific employee survey results of up to 12 large agencies that reported the protocol(s) in place, except for (a), which is derived from the results of all 12 large agencies. They do not include the APS-wide results.

Source: Agency and employee surveys

This is not to suggest that every agency practice or policy should be set out in detail in writing. The concern is that the significant number of staff involved with Ministers and their advisers should be clearly aware of the protocols, whether or not they are written, and where to turn for support and advice.

In 2003 the PS Commissioner released APS Values and Code of Conduct in Practice, a guide developed to assist APS employees to understand the practical application of the APS Values and Code of Conduct in both 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 of Conduct. Those parts of that guide that bear on interactions with Ministers and their advisers should be familiar to, and readily accessible by, all employees who may become involved in those interactions.

There will inevitably be situations in which employees will be uncertain about how to respond to a request from the Minister or an adviser: sometimes their concerns will be entirely legitimate; sometimes they may reflect a misunderstanding of the request or inappropriate protection of a previous policy or practice. Public servants must be responsive to government, but they are also required to be apolitical and accountable, and to comply with the law. Agencies should establish whether there are particular issues that present challenges to their staff from time to time and that might call for more specific guidance than that available from the Commissioner or from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C).

More generally, relations with the Minister and office are likely to be managed better–consistent with the APS Values and any agency policies and practices–if there is a culture of open discussion within the agency that can shape the approach staff take in particular situations, and give confidence that they will exercise good judgement consistent with the Values. A strong leadership role must be played by senior managers in this respect. Staff faced with difficult situations, and inexperienced staff, need to be able to discuss the problems, without fear, with more senior managers and/or a central area of expertise and support, rather than be left to make decisions on their own and feel isolated. The benefits of seeking guidance should not be underestimated, and exist for staff at every level. Some comments from the employee survey about agency protocols highlight some of the issues employees are currently facing in their agencies.

[It is] all very arbitrary in our department. Depends on the personalities involved and their relationship management channels.

Protocols seem to vary depending on which advisers are being consulted.

Even though there are (as far as I know) no written guidelines about retaining emails or making notes about significant contact with the Minister's office, this has been my practice and I suspect would be the practice of my peers.

Have no idea what agency's protocols are for dealing with the Minister's office.

The Secretary has suggested that many of the above should be utilised as good practice but has not mandated them.

Even though protocols and guides are in place, it doesn't stop ministerial advisers contacting more junior staff than allowed for in the protocols. Sometimes this is OK, other times junior staff have had less than satisfactory interactions with advisers.

The employee survey results of the last two years were confirmed by the APS Commission’s recent evaluation on agencies’ interactions with Ministers’ offices. It appears that one of the main reasons for the high levels of uncertainty about agency protocols is the lack of documentation, making it difficult for employees to access relevant information.

The Commission plans to include details of the suggestions and ideas that came out of the focus groups and interviews conducted as part of the evaluation in a good practice guide Supporting Ministers, Upholding the Values, later in 2004—05.

The evidence suggests that agencies need to put further effort into promulgating and actively supporting policies or protocols on employees’ interactions with Ministers and their offices. The consistency and strength of the survey and evaluation evidence of the last two years suggests that this is a priority for the APS and trends will be monitored in future State of the Service reports.

CHALLENGES IN MANAGING THE RELATIONSHIP

Consistent with the findings of last year’s report, the majority of employees (61%) who reported having had contact with their Ministers or ministerial advisers indicated they had not faced a challenge in balancing the relevant APS Values of being apolitical, impartial and professional, responsive to the Government and openly accountable. Thirty-five per cent said they had faced such a challenge in the last 12 months and five per cent were not sure.

Two-thirds of employees who had been in direct contact with Ministers or their advisers in the last 12 months felt highly or very highly confident that they could balance the APS Values appropriately, and 10% had low or very low levels of confidence.

Confidence in balancing these Values does not appear to be related to age, sex, the size of the agency (i.e. small, medium or large). Confidence is correlated with some other factors, including:

• classification level (confidence is high amongst the SES and APS employees but EL staff are much more likely to report low confidence than staff at other levels)
• location (employees located in the ACT are much more likely to report low confidence and much less likely to report high confidence)
• type of agency (employees working in departments are much more likely to report low confidence and much less likely to report high confidence than employees in other agencies)
• whether employees had faced a challenge in balancing the Values (employees who had faced a challenge were more likely to report low confidence and less likely to report high confidence)
• overall job satisfaction (employees with a low overall job satisfaction rating were much more likely to report low or very low confidence and vice versa)
• views on whether the most senior managers in their agency act in accordance with the APS Values (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 than high or very high levels of confidence)
• views on whether their immediate manager acts in accordance with the APS Values (employees who reported that their immediate manager does not act in accordance with the Values were more likely to have moderate, low or very low than high or very high levels of confidence)
• awareness of agreed written and unwritten processes in place in their agency for resolving staff concerns that may arise about the nature of requests from ministerial offices (employees aware that such processes were in place in their agency were much more likely to have high or very high confidence levels compared with employees who thought that such processes did not exist in their agency).

Amongst the 13 large agencies with statistically valid employee survey results, employee confidence levels varied widely. The proportion of relevant employees in these large agencies with high or very high confidence levels ranged from 37% to 89%; and low or very low confidence ranged from two per cent to 25%.

Whether or not an employee had faced a challenge in balancing the relevant Values when dealing with Ministers and/or their offices does not appear to be related to their sex, location (i.e. inside or outside the ACT) or the size of the agency they work for (i.e. small, medium or large). There was, however, a correlation between experiencing this situation and some other factors, including:

• classification level (SES employees were more likely to have faced a challenge than APS and EL level employees)
• the type of matter being dealt with (employees providing public affairs support were more likely to have faced a challenge than those providing advice or factual information)
• nature of the agency (those in departments were more likely to have faced a challenge than those in other agencies).

Of the agency-specific results available for the 13 large agencies, results varied widely with no obvious pattern. The proportion of employees in these large agencies who reported having faced a challenge of this kind ranged from 17% to 57%.

Comments from the employee survey reflect a strong desire to make the relationship work well.

In policy areas, maintaining an appropriate balance between responsiveness to Ministers and the requirement to operate in an apolitical, impartial and accountable manner is always a challenge. Nothing is black and white, it is usually a matter of judgment. But I think the accessibility of public servants, even at relatively junior levels, to ministerial advisers makes this balancing act even more difficult. The sheer volume of work generated through email requests from ministerial office, and the expectation that all will be answered immediately, undermines the capacity of systems, and individual officers to scrutinise the appropriateness of requests from advisers.

… on balance I think there is a recognition within the APS and ministerial offices that there is a demarcation between the APS role and that of Ministers and advisers in dealing with political aspects...The APS is professional, objective and apolitical but there is a growing level of interaction between agencies and offices and perhaps an increasing reliance on agencies for support (e.g. media releases). This may inadvertently blur the line of demarcation over time.

The challenge for agencies is to ensure that employees likely to deal with Ministers or their advisers have the confidence to manage the challenges that inevitably arise, that they have available ready and reliable support from those around them and confidence that their immediate and most senior managers act in accordance with the Values. This is very much a leadership responsibility, requiring open engagement with employees down the line about the judgements being made by both leaders and others in the agency. In addition, clear policies on procedures and protocols support a close relationship of trust and mutual respect between senior managers and Ministers and their advisers.

1 In the agency survey, quality control measures were ‘central coordination function for the quality assurance and coordination of written material to and from the Minister’s office’, ‘policy/protocol on minimum classification level for signing off ministerial briefs’, and ‘policy/protocol on minimum classification level for phone contact with ministerial advisers’. Agencies were also asked to specify other measures in place.

2 In the agency survey, evaluation measures were ‘formal ministerial feedback is collected via some form of rating system’, ‘requirement that oral feedback is collected from Ministers’, ‘requirement that oral feedback is collected from ministerial staff’, and ‘some form of internal peer review is undertaken of written briefing material’. Agencies were also asked to specify other measures in place.

3 Please note that the differences between questions in the 2002 agency survey and the 2003 and 2004 agency surveys may account for some of the variation.

4 2003 and 2004 agency survey results include agency responses to a question about formal requirments for oral feedback as well as information provided by agencies on less formal oral feedback arrangements.

5 ANAO, Better Practice Guide on Managing Parliamentary Workflow, April 2003, <http://www.anao.gov.au>

6 Coding of an open-ended response option in a subsequent question about the type of matters upon which respondents had direct contact with Ministers and/or their advisers involved the removal of responses considered irrelevant (e.g. where the response was not related to the question, where comments indicated that contact was marginal (such as at an all-staff meeting) or non-work related (such as social contact)). The removal of these irrelevant responses brought the overall result down from 22% to 20%.

7 Government personal staff includes principal advisers, senior advisers, media advisers, advisers, assistant advisers, personal secretaries, executive assistant/office managers, secretaries/administrative assistants and whips’ clerks.

8 Department of Finance and Administration, tabled at Senate Estimates on 26 May 2004, see <http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/ committee/fapa_ctte/estimates/2004-05/budget/finance/tab-doc1-260504.pdf>

9 Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee, Staff employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984, October 2003, page 11, see <http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fapa_ctte>

10 S King, Regulating the behaviour of ministers, special advisers and civil servants, University College London, 2003, page 11.

11 ibid.

12 APS Commission, APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice: A guide to official conduct for APS employees and agency heads, 2003, <http://www.apsc.gov.au>