TOPIC 3.6: Whole of Government approach to public management

Whole-of-government is not one management approach but a philosophy of management, which transcends a number of more specific approaches. These strategies include:

• integrated service provision
• Place management
• program linkages
• case management
• taskforces, working groups and interdepartmental committees (IDCs).

We will consider these in turn:

Integrated Service Provision

‘Integrated service provision’ means government agencies working together to improve service delivery to clients and communities. Ideally, this works to benefit both the recipients of services, and of government itself, the latter through lower administrative costs or a better work environment. What does ‘working together for better outcomes’ mean? It can mean more and different forms of collaboration; or new or better uses of technology, such as shared client databases or a shared call centre; or building partnerships. However, it is not limited to these meanings alone. Below, we outline in more detail some of the actions that may be required for successful implementation. The general message though is that there is no one best model for undertaking integrated service provision.

Place Management

Place management recognises place or location as an important variable in achieving better outcomes from government programs. However, there is considerable variation in the outcome of any program and the methods employed to achieve it. Place can be understood as a local street or neighbourhood or as a region or even an entire state. Pockets or places of social exclusion may be caused by the differential impacts of changing labour markets, changing household and demographic structures, and shifts in public policy.

Although a number of government programs and actions have unintended spatial or locational effects, the public sector processes that affect location or place have been either ignored or poorly understood. Thus, there may be several agencies from different levels of government running health or employment programs in a given area, but with no co-ordination of, or perhaps even no knowledge of, what the other agencies are doing. Services or programs might be replicated across an area or region, or at worst, one program may negate the effect of another. Can strategic management processes be set up to better coordinate place-based programs or actions?

Program Linkages

Program linkages are another form of whole-of-government activity and have a client focus. They recognise that in certain program areas, such as human services, a client with multiple problems might need a range of services beyond one department or agency. Linking such services has become a key ambition of public policy.

Consider a client with a psychiatric disability. This is a mental illness that affects the ability to live independently, maintain employment or develop relationships. The support required to enable people to maintain personal autonomy and engage with the wider community includes both the formal and informal, but typically could involve disability services, health and housing departments and people ranging from social workers, counsellors and health specialists to housing officers. Linkages encompass all the ways in which programs, service sectors and different levels of government and their respective departments work together to achieve a co-ordinated response for clients. Approaches to establishing linkages in this case include:

• interdepartmental or agency agreements/protocols
• service co-ordination in local service networks (i.e. a single location where services work together and develop shared or common approaches)
• the funding of support packages (with a number of services therein) targeted to clients’ needs
• education and training programs to enable workers at all levels of the service system to understand and work with other services
• education and training to ensure that workers have a good understanding of how mental illness affects people’s capacities and behaviours particularly as they relate to service provision
• each local area or region to have a range of service models or approaches in order to offer the supports relative to individual needs.

By reviewing each of these approaches, you can start to appreciate where developing better linkages between agencies, as part of a whole-of-government approach, can be problematic. These sorts of approaches require both very high-level commitment and resources (such as the provision of ‘support packages’ which may comprise funding for services across programs or even departments) and the ability (including the time) to build the necessary relationships and agreements between services at the local level. The aim overall is to try to ensure that the process and the outcome is as ‘seamless’ as possible for the client.

Case Management

Case management has as the focus of its whole-of-government action the client or individual. It typically relates to that situation where a client (for reasons of disability, poverty, health, lack of employment, etc.) may have to access a range of government services, support agencies and social workers or client support offices. Historically, there has been a tendency to leave it to the client to make individual and multiple contacts with the respective agencies and individuals. In many cases, clients had minimal knowledge of what other agencies or individuals were doing. The case management approach is to coordinate the services around the individual in such a way as to minimise duplication, to provide complementary support and to focus on a common client outcome, such as the ability to maintain independence without support or with reduced support.

For the public sector worker, case management may present similar challenges to working through program linkages – the need to have clear protocols and agreements about contact and coordination around the client, and the need to present options and services which support the needs of the client rather than supporting the convenience of the agencies involved.

Taskforces, Working Groups and IDCs

An important element that is growing in relevance in whole-of-government initiatives in Australia is the presence of taskforces, working groups and interdepartmental committees (often called IDCs).

This specialist or functionally related groups encourage the joining of people from across different government agencies to concentrate on a particular issue or policy area requiring attention. The cross-dissemination of ideas and skills can provide a fertile method for achieving the type of whole-of-government philosophy to governance that is so desired today in public sector management. The following table indicates some of the key capabilities and behaviours that can characterise such initiatives:

Table 3.1: Interdepartmental committees: Key Capabilities and Behaviour

Source: Management Advisory Committee (MAC) 2004, p55.^[1]

A number of important governance issues flow from the use of such whole-of-government mechanisms. Important among these is record-keeping, particularly in the handling of emergency and crisis situations. Another issue is the need to have tight terms of reference. Whole-of-government initiatives, like taskforces and steering committees and IDCs, can be used as political devices. In many ways, these types of whole-of-government tools can be likened to inquiries and royal commissions in that they can marshal a range of experts and resources to concentrate in a thorough manner on a particular policy problem requiring attention. This can offer many advantages and disadvantages to governments. What distinguishes them from royal commissions and inquiries, of course, is that they traditionally lack public transparency and normally comprise only public servants (although peak body representatives can sometimes be incorporated).

Finally, the collaborative imperative is more enabled now than ever due to digital capacities within and across government and the community – the ease with which information can be transmitted/received/searched suggests that collaborative potential is increased in networked organisations.

Digital democracy

The convergence of new and emerging digital technologies is disrupting and allowing new space for democratic deliberations. Expressions like ‘i-gov’, ‘e- government’ and ‘online government’ are used interchangeably. These terms convey the essential idea of transforming government through the use of new information communication technologies.

An example in Queensland using deliberative polling as a unique form of political consultation was conducted in 2013 when the government invited citizens to participate in a poll about the budget. The poll was called ‘Strong Choices’.

Alternatively, revisit the reading from Module 1 for innovative examples of e-government and reflect on your agency’s investments in and benefits of e-government.

All organisations are grappling with the opportunities for business transformation presented by mobile technologies. Government organisations have used:

• Information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing) to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.
• E-commerce – allows businesses to transact with each other more efficiently (B2B) and brings customers closer to businesses (B2C)
• E-government – aims to make the interaction between government and citizens (G2C), government and business enterprises (G2B), and inter-agency relationships (G2G) more friendly, convenient, transparent, and inexpensive.
• Business process re-engineering and redevelopment of new electronic systems is likely to generate new approaches to customer service delivery.