Managing public services in Australia

This section focuses on the question how can the APS improve the management of public services? It draws on three main sources: the public management literature on better practice in delivering integrated public services in Westminster style democracies; findings from the DTA GovX team’s “common pain points” project; and preliminary findings from a set of interviews conducted for this project with APS thought leaders on how to improve the quality of public service production in Australia.

This will help us to identify the barriers to integrated service delivery in Westminster style democracies. It reviews a broad range of grey (practice-based) and academic based literature crystallised around two key issues that emerged from our findings in the previous section. Firstly, to identify the qualities of an ideal-type service delivery framework which will provide us with a benchmark for assessing the current state of play. Secondly, we will see that the establishment of integrated service delivery is seen as synonymous with achieving “line of sight” i.e. “Line of sight” is achieved when there is a clear line between the delivery of public services in the community and the high-level goals the organisation has set itself. Hence in this sub section we will focus on what stands in the way of achieving “line of sight” and being strategic in public service delivery.

What does an Ideal-type service delivery framework look like?

A service delivery framework (SDF) normally sets out the principles, standards, policies and operational constraints to be used to guide the design, development, deployment, operation and termination of services delivered by a service provider with a view to offering a consistent quality of service experience to a specific user community. For example, the 2008 Australian Government Service Delivery Framework (AGSDF) provides a whole of government roadmap to assist agencies to recognise and exploit the opportunities available for innovative and collaborative service delivery. Its purpose is therefore to achieve “line of sight” between goals, policies, programs, services and their achievement and generate public value.^[13]

The most common strategic elements that are used to build an effective SDF include:

• Service culture – normally directed by the host Department’s strategic vision and delivered through its leadership principles, APS values, business processes and performance framework. Once a service delivery system and realistic service level agreements have been established, there is no other component more integral to the long-term success of a service organization as its culture.
• Organisational capacity and capability – even the best designed processes and systems will only be effective if carried out by organisations with the capacity, and people with the capability, to deliver. Organisational capacity and capability are key determinants of service excellence. In cases where services are augmented through forms of collaborative governance with States, territories or the community sector a focus needs to be placed on evaluating the quality of collaboration.
• Service quality – includes strategies, processes and performance management systems. The strategy and process design is fundamental to the design of the overall service management model.
• Service experience – involves elements of user intelligence, account management and continuous improvement. Successful service delivery works on the basis that the user/stakeholder is part of the creation and delivery of the service and then designs processes built on that philosophy – this is called co-creation or co-design.
• Service innovation and forward thinking – ensures that the organization has access to a strong evidence base on what works and has developed innovation systems to allow it to build effective knowledge networks to co-create new service products to stay ahead of the game.

By implication our qualitative inquiry should be cognisant of whether these five elements are effectively integrated within current service systems and achieving line of sight between goals, policies, programs, services and their achievement.^[14]

Achieving “Line of Sight” and being strategic

The term strategy is very much part of the vocabulary of Westminster civil and public services but it is used quite indiscriminately. It is attached to a wide variety of statements without much apparent thought and often used only to confer importance and seriousness. Moreover, there is little analysis of the impact of strategic working on policy outcomes.^[15]

Strategic organisations develop an understanding of their likely future operating environments. This brings obvious advantages for companies in the private sector, helping them to develop new markets, goods and services in advance of competitors and to increase profitability. For government, whether at national, departmental, state, regional, agency, local or sectoral level, a stronger understanding of potential futures gives it the capability to track which future is emerging, enabling organisations and policies to be more robust and resilient. Many parts of government do use strategic analysis to improve their planning and performance. But it is not a sufficient ambition for government simply to understand how to survive in a particular future. The job of government is to change the future, that is, to set-out a vision of a desired future and, through policies and achievement of those policies, to bring that future about. This is also a key component of its stewardship role which differentiates the permanent bureaucracy from the political class. Indeed this is the key difference between strategy work in the private sector – which is about optimal performance and profitability for their own organisations in whichever future comes about, and in the public sector – which is about achieving better outcomes for citizens. To make strategic thinking and delivery a reality, the political (elected) leadership of organisations and the permanent (unelected) leadership have to share an understanding of how to work strategically, not simply with each other but with their organisations and the world beyond.

Outcomes-based policy is more likely to motivate those who will achieve the results government seeks; front-line workers and citizens themselves. We find from our review of the literature that the theory of public value is posited as a helpful way of testing whether outcomes will enjoy the confidence of ministers and other accountable leaders.^[16] Public value comprises three main components: services, trust and outcomes. One of the difficulties working in a government department or in many other parts of the public sector is that employees tend to be measured and rewarded for success in refining processes (for instance, better consultation, less regulation, the monetisation of benefits), or for helping to produce outputs (more nurses, more qualifications achieved) or for managing inputs (a bigger budget for recycling, a ten per cent saving in administrative costs) but are very rarely recognised for the contribution they make to achieving outcomes.

What is it that government organisations exist to achieve? The Roads to Recovery Programme supports ‘the maintenance of the nation’s local road infrastructure asset, which facilitates greater access for Australians and improved safety, economic and social outcomes”; the Army exists to win wars and keep the peace; Medicare exists to treat illness and promote health; schools exist to educate young people and help them to realise their full potential. When we express each of these aims in outcome terms, we release greater potential for the achievement of public value.

For instance: ‘People are able to travel by road safely and without delay’; ‘People live in a safe and secure world, with strong international institutions that keep the peace and uphold human dignity’; ‘People know how to stay healthy and receive effective treatment when they fall ill’; ‘Young people are motivated to learn and are supported in their learning by able teachers who help them to develop the skills and knowledge they need to fulfil their potential’.

Schools cannot alone improve education. Children and parents and peer groups are crucial to learning, so the outcome must be co-produced, not simply ‘delivered’ by schools. Similarly, highways alone cannot ensure that people travel speedily and safely; the amount of drivers and their behaviour, the nature of the vehicles that we use; the necessity to travel or the ability and inclination to work from home all contribute to the outcome.

Once an organisation has a strategic vision and a set of policies working to achieve that vision, it then needs to look at itself. The implementation of a strategic vision almost always requires change: change in the activities and behaviours of staff and of the organisation as a whole, including of budget allocations. If a strategy is constructed properly then it will be possible to construct objectives, indicators and feedback mechanisms that will enable government to measure and report on whether the outcomes are being achieved, not only by the organisation itself but by the wider delivery system. This is important so that the organisation can use public money efficiently and effectively. Accountability to the public, when handled honestly and accurately, can in turn build public value by increasing trust.

Any organisation should be able to express its reason for existence in a single sentence. For the supermarket Coles this is: “To offer real value to our customers by lowering the price of the weekly shopping basket, improving quality through fresher produce and delivering an easier, better shopping experience every day of the week”; for DIIS it is: “To enable growth and productivity for globally competitive industries”. In each case the statement of core purpose should be the product of a strategic process that has meaning for the organisation’s customers, staff and stakeholders. (Note: statements like ‘We will be the best at x’ or ‘We will be the leading provider of Y’ are ineffective statements of core purpose, because they offer no definition of what the organisation stands for).

In summary, to create strategy in government we need an understanding of plausible potential futures, a desired vision of the future, a set of outcomes that create public value, organisational alignment and allocation of resources throughout the delivery system to support achievement of those outcomes, together with accountability and feedback mechanisms to measure attainment, plus clear core purpose. These together can give us ‘line of sight’: a way for leaders – both political and permanent – to see the links between strategic aims and intent, policy processes and delivery and achievement at the front line – and a way for the front line and citizens to see exactly the same things.

Typical barriers to achieving “Line of Sight” and being strategic

So what makes it so hard to be strategic in delivering services? The literature suggests that there are at least six main areas where difficulties arise in the implementation of public services.

• Delivery burdens. Daily operational pressures (the 24/7 media cycle, the three year electoral cycle) on both the political and permanent leadership can tend to ‘squeeze’ strategic working out of the system.
• Analysis. Strategic analysis can either be too short term and trend-based to help steer the organisation or too far-fetched and improbable to hold the attention of policy-makers.
• Poor “Line of sight”. Strategy work can seem to be exclusively about high-level goals, or it can seem to be purely about a particular set of policies, or it can appear to be a preoccupation with functional strategies or with delivery planning. Line of sight is achieved when there is a clear line between delivery in the community and the high-level goals the organisation has set itself. This requires the strong integration of policy, programmes and delivery.
• Product but not enough process. Strategies that create change within organisations and in the world beyond are the result of a process driven by those who work in the organisation and its stakeholders. Yet too often they are simply documents produced by a small group or by consultants which do not create new understanding, still less change. These strategies act like tightropes, from which the organisation must eventually fall, rather than as a compass enabling it to set and re-set its direction. This suggests the need for inclusively generated change management process with clear performance accountabilities enshrined in performance agreements and appraisal.
• Insufficient innovation and challenge. A common complaint in government and the wider public sector is that public servants are poor innovators. Strategy requires new understanding and a preparedness to do things in new ways, challenging received wisdom. Yet government tends to incentivise compliance and conformity in its employees and restrict challenge. Commitment to continuous improvement should be embedded in performance agreements and appraisal.
• Uncertainty about public value. Outcomes can be identified using sound analysis, but they also need both the mandate of political leaders and their sustained interest. This means that the organisation as a whole must be capable of focusing on a set of goals and returning to them again and again.

Evidence from the front-line on how to improve the management of services

As noted in the previous section, the DTA GovX team’s “common pain points” project analyses “how people interact with government as they experience different events in their life, such as looking for work or caring for a loved one”. The findings correlate with much of the evidence presented in the last two sections of this report and provide a set of action points for improving the management of the service experience (see Box 3).

APS thought leaders on how to improve the quality of public service production in Australia

We have interviewed 10 APS thought leaders for this project on how the APS can improve elements of service-delivery to drive higher levels of public trust. The majority of informants argued that a culture shift was required in the way Commonwealth departments and agencies manage and deliver public services to meet the Thodey aspiration of “seamless services and local solutions designed and delivered with states, territories and partners”. Although many noted that the process of change was underway. Five specific themes loomed large in discussion:

1. Problem seek – see user feedback as an opportunity for progress. Take all complaints seriously and use simulators to make progress (e.g. ATO simulation lab, co-lab). Consider complaints at executive board level with reporting requirements.
2. Use the APS footprint to facilitate whole of APS collaboration in community engagement.
3. Collaborate whole of government in policy design and delivery through shared accountability mechanisms and budgetary incentives.
4. Practice co-(user) design by default and use behavioural insights to improve our understanding of the needs and aspirations of target groups and develop personalised service offerings.
5. Develop opportunities for dynamic engagement with users through inclusive service design and strategic communication.

Box 3. Barriers and enablers to quality service provision

Hence, the evidence from the interviews also points to the need to build collaboration across the APS, enhance service-delivery reform, and ultimately, drive tailored responses that reflect the plurality of identities in Australia.

^[13] See: https://www.finance.gov.au/publications/delivering-australian-government-services-access-and-distribution-strategy/framework.html. Accessed 19 May 2019.

^[14] For key research in this area see: Ansell, C. and Gash, A. (2008), ‘Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol.18, No.4, pp.543-571; Dunleavy, P. (2010), The future of joined-up public services. 2020 Public Services Trust and ESRC, London, UK; Halligan, J. (2011), ‘You win some, you lose some: experiments with joined-up government’, International Journal of Public Administration, 34(4), 244-54; Hill, M. and Hupe, P. (2003), ‘The multi-layer problem in implementation research’, Public Management Review, 5, 4, 471-490; and, Schofield, J. & C. Sausman (2004), “Symposium on Implementing Public Policy: Learning from Theory and Practice: Introduction”, Public Administration 82, 2, 235-248.

^[15] Boaz A, Solesbury, W. (2007), Strategy and Politics: The Example of the United Kingdom in The Strategy of Politics Eds. T. Fischer, G. P. Schmitz and M. Seberich. Gütersloh Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung p. 130.

^[16] The best-known exponent of the theory of public value is probably Professor Mark Moore of Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. See: Moore, M Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1995. See also the work of Gerry Stoker (2006) on its application to the UK context.