TOPIC 6.5: What is required of the modern public servant?

Overview

We have seen that there has been a raft of innovations introduced into the public sector, what new is required of the public servant? Topic 5 looks at the modern public servant, and the modern public service in terms of what you might be required to do with all the new knowledge you may have accumulated from Unit 1.

Now nearing the end of your Unit on Managing in the Context of Government, you might well be forgiven for wondering – ‘what do I do now?’ You have learned of traditional governance models rooted firmly in history and honed, and protected, through bloodshed, buttressed with rules and conventions required to make liberal democracy work. You have also learned about alternative ideas promoted by national systems elsewhere.

Behind this, you have been encouraged to think system wide, and been alerted to the concept of complexity theory and how it may create, or explain, wicked problems, and institute painful dilemmas, and the possibility that intervention may in fact make something worse. What role should a public sector manager play?

Sedgewick (2011)^[1], the Public Service Commissioner of the APS suggests the Australian government is:

“… looking for leaders in the Public Service:

• Who are strong on collaboration and deal effectively with ambiguity,
• who can think strategically and identify creative solutions,
• who have high levels of self and situational awareness,
• who are willing to learn,
• who instinctively identify the risks inherent in a situation and set about to manage them well (not avoid them at all costs) and
• who are interested in advancing the common good,
  • are guided by evidence,
  • are dispassionate in their analysis of what needs to change,
  • and have the courage to act on that analysis, even if it means ditching the idea they had championed at some earlier stage in their career.”

Your ability to deal with ambiguity is required into the future, for in spite of the best will in the world, the ‘plan and control’ methods also have had their fair share of problems and landed the government not only on the front page of the media, but have disappointed the Australian taxpayer.  As the Commissioner of the APS acknowledged:

Your role may be to pick ideas that are ‘winners’ and promote them further, to experiment and test, to adapt, to encourage learning in order to advance your outcomes. This is not to say the ideas you pick up are not big and bold but are considered, and have been incubated to contain cost and minimise waste, before you move from beta to the full market version.

As a community of practice, you will move with your peers to transform the public sector (If you didn’t view the PDIA video on ‘change’ presented previously, you might wish to do so now.)

Other Units in the PSMP will assist to build your management competency. Unit Two will deal with the personal frames of being a competent public sector manager and to understand this holistically in terms of your ‘in’ and ‘outside-work’ commitments. Unit Three will assist you to deal with the complexity of stakeholders and community, and some of the modern requirements for contracting, and contestability. Unit Four will offer insights into your role of managing within the public sector frameworks of planning, resourcing, and performance management.

The focus in this module has been on innovation. A change that has been observed in the transformation is the rise in the numbers of personal staff, which support the politicians. What is at the heart of this? Is it an indication that the public service has failed to support the political wing, or is the job of the politician becoming so complex and sophisticated that increased support is required? Discussion about the ‘other public service’ follows in Topic 6.