The ability to remember past policies and practices and to learn from their success or failure is a core function of a permanent public service. However, data about the relationship between corporate memory and public service performance does not exist. The University of Queensland and the Australian Research Council are therefore conducting a research project that is examining the effects of ‘institutional amnesia’ in the public services of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
The project relies on public servants completing a short survey on institutional amnesia. Completion of the survey will lead to findings about how memory loss affects public servants and recommendations about how agencies can better store and retrieve important lessons from the past.