Chapter 11: Working with the Australian community

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used in this report is available in the Glossary

The capacity of the APS to work effectively with the Australian community is fundamental to our success.

Interactions with the community can take a variety of forms. For most Australians, their greatest contact with the APS will be through the direct delivery of services, for example, income support, taxation or health rebates. The APS Values place a strong emphasis on the APS delivering services fairly, effectively, impartially and courteously and being sensitive to the diversity of the Australian public.

It is critical that the APS builds and sustains its capacity to deliver services, particularly as the complexity of the services delivered grows and community expectations of high-quality and seamless services increase. Meeting these expectations requires a whole of government approach, with an emphasis on a connected public service that is more responsive to the needs of the Australian public. The effective use of technology is an important part of this approach.

Another growing point of contact with the community is in consultation over policy development, programme implementation and regulatory change. These consultations occur with a wide range of groups—the general public, industry organisations, community groups and specialist professional bodies. Greater use of consultation has the potential to contribute significantly to the quality of policy and programme outcomes if used in a targeted way.

Increasingly, the APS delivers government programmes with and through a range of non-Australian Government bodies. At one level, this involves the use of contracted providers, for example, to provide employment-related services to unemployed people on behalf of DEWR through the Job Network. In other cases, it can extend to partnerships between the Australian Government, State and Territory, and local governments, such as Australian Government funding of local road infrastructure through the Roads to Recovery Programme, where local councils, rather than the Australian Government, nominate the projects to be funded.

These collaborations have already improved greatly the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery in some areas. However, they also highlight the need to ensure that appropriate accountability and governance arrangements are in place to manage relationships with external stakeholders, and to ensure that the APS has the skill set needed to make collaborations work.

In a number of countries, including Australia, there has been a growing emphasis on engaging with the community more directly as active participants in policies and programmes. Such participation reflects changing community expectations, but also a recognition that the delivery of outcomes across a range of key policy fronts requires a degree of community engagement of a more intensive and strategic nature than in the past to achieve the best results, for example, in the area of Indigenous disadvantage. This again highlights the importance of developing the skills in the APS to manage a more active approach to community engagement.

This chapter begins by examining the effectiveness of more traditional approaches to service delivery in the APS. It looks at how agencies are improving the effectiveness of their service delivery, including through e-government, and the issues that have been highlighted through complaints to the Commonwealth Ombudsman (the Ombudsman). It then looks at the extent to which agencies are using consultation with a range of stakeholders, from the general public to more specific interest groups, to contribute to policy development, programme implementation and regulatory reform. It also looks at the extent and effectiveness of APS contact with external stakeholders more broadly. The chapter concludes by looking at the implications for the APS of a move to more active engagement with the community.

In this chapter

Chapter 11: Working with the Australian community	PDF	Word	Excel
Working with the Australian community
Delivering services to the public
Figure 11.1: Involvement in delivering services directly to the public by classification, 2002–03 to 2005–06
Figure 11.2: Use of feedback mechanisms to obtain information from the public—relevant agencies, 2005–06
Figure 11.3: Use of feedback collected from the public—relevant agencies, 2005–06
Table 11.1 Service user satisfaction levels, 2005–06
Review of administrative action and decision-making
Working with external stakeholders
Figure 11.4: Formal consultation with stakeholders on government policy development, 2005–06
Figure 11.5: Formal consultation with stakeholders on government programme development, 2005–06
Figure 11.6: Formal consultation with stakeholders on government regulation, 2005–06
Table 11.2: Proportion of employees who deal directly with external stakeholders, 2005–06
Table 11.3: Agency involvement with external stakeholders, 2005–06
Table 11.4: Employees’ greatest level of involvement in working with external stakeholders, 2005–06
Table 11.5: Composite of agency and employee survey results for agency protocols/policies for dealing with external stakeholders, 2005–06
Table 11.6: Relevant employee views on working with external stakeholders, 2005–06
Engaging with the community
Key chapter findings