We know Australians want high-quality, tailored public services. This need will continue to grow with increasing personalisation in other areas of their lives, developments in technology and societal shifts.
The Australian Public Service needs to deliver its services faster, at a better value, and in the time and way that the people of Australia want.
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What are the major barriers to delivering tailored services to individuals and local areas?
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What changes could help overcome these barriers?
We’ve also heard that people would like more seamless and connected services.
- How can the public service better coordinate and collaborate with states and territories to deliver services?
Public services are delivered through a range of approaches: some are delivered directly by the Australian government; some are delivered on behalf of the government by state governments, businesses or not-for-profits; and some are delivered through a combination of the above.
The right approach to delivery will change depending on the circumstance. How can the public service improve how it determines how and who is best to deliver services?
The New South Wales Government does this using its Commissioning and Contestability Policy, which provides guidance to help create better services to enhance people’s life. Could the Australian Public Service adopt a similar approach?
- What principles should the public service use to determine the best delivery model?
We’ve also heard that there have been persistent issues for the Australian Public Service in designing and managing service delivery contracts with third parties.
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How can we turn this around?
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How could the public service make sure it and its partners are held accountable if things go wrong?
A fundamental issue for the APS is the longstanding bias towards “policy” skills in selection for leadership roles. The deep technical knowledge, experience and practical skills to achieve required outcomes appear to be perceived more as those of under-labourers, and achievable through “training”. They are also substantially accessed from outside sources. Thus there is insufficient regard paid, for example, to: • risk management performance at agency and whole of government levels; • commercial skills (including procurement, which is much more than the management of tendering processes); • project management – as relevant to policy development as it is to service delivery and major acquisitions; and • knowledge management – a fundamentally important issue in professional services organisations of any kind. Technology is an enabler in all these instances. How well has the APS kept up with investments by the private sector to deal with similar issues? These matters are directly relevant to the development of capabilities in collaboration. There has been little interest here since the early 1990s, when it was the subject of an APS conference in Canberra. Meanwhile, the UK based Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW) has led the way to the development of ISO 44001, the Collaborative Business Relationships Standard. Various UK public sector bodies involved in commissioning are represented in the ICW Executive Network. As to the NSW Commissioning and Contestability Policy as a model, the Review should note the recent observation by ICAC that this means "a greater proportion of public officials need to have procurement, contract management and negotiation skills, as well as broad commercial acumen."
Hi, I have been working in a new way through the Community Grants Hub, Department of Social Services, and it is clear to me that we need more seamless service delivery. How to achieve this? I have been working more with other delivery partners, including state government, NGO's, other Commonwealth agencies. I think it is imperative that as part of delivering grant funding, we can link up with the key players in a location, rather than being isolated in our own department. This has already achieved tangible results. eg providing information to key players in a region, so they are aware of grant opportunities. Connecting with the right people so that we know who is missing out on services, often the most vulnerable, despite funding being directed to a high needs location. Once we know what's happening on the ground, we can influence to ensure better targeting, and more seamless delivery.
Even more difficult, as it is the bureaucracy and their political masters who cause the delay and result in policy, legislation and regulations being implemented sometimes years after initiated and needed and even to the extent that the some so delayed that out of time for appropriateness.
Again it seems that only way to get around this delay is to remove bureaucracy from the process and leave to knowledgably, external experts in the field to deliver - probably impractical, but at least reduce its involvement as far as practical.