Governing the City State - Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate ...

Allocation of Leadership Responsibilities – Ministers and Directors-GeneralOne option under this proposed structure would be, as in the Scottish model, for theresponsibilities of Directors-General to align with key themes in the Canberra Plan. Thisapproach would have the benefit of aligning explicitly public service structures with theGovernment’s articulation of its priorities. It would come at the cost, however, of reducingfuture flexibility (and likely creating additional costs) in needing to reorganise ACTPSstructures in the event those themes were to change in the future. This approach would alsomean a much greater number of changes to the Administrative Arrangements and machineryof government that risk unpicking recognised synergies in current arrangements. Thisconfiguration also risks creating an uneven allocation of official and Ministerial workloadand capacity across the spread of government activities. The Review therefore recommendsDirectorates and Ministerial Portfolios continue to be arranged along functional lines.The relationship between Ministers and Directors-General would be largely unchanged inrelation to day to day operations from that which exists now between Ministers and ChiefExecutives of Administrative Units. There would be a direct reporting and accountabilityline, for example, from the Director-General, Health to the Minister for Health, but thisrelationship would be supplemented by the reporting line from the Director-General, Healthto the Chief Executive and Head of the ACTPS. This relationship would focus on majorstrategic policy developments, coordination and alignment of whole of government effort, ormission critical projects like the Capital Asset Development Program, rather than day to dayoperation of the health system.In any event, there should be a consolidation of the overall number of Ministries. A commontheme in consultations was that the current 24 Ministries are unnecessary and add complexityand confusion to dealings with the ACT Government. The Ministerial Portfolios in thepreferred model (formed with a presumption in favour of one Minister per Directorate toimprove alignment and reduce bureaucratic complexity) would be:• Chief Minister;• Treasurer;• Attorney-General;• Community Services;• Education;• Health;• Sustainable Development; and• Territory and Municipal Services.This formulation maps rather well with what is understood to be the outcome of the April2010 COAG Review of Ministerial Councils which accepted the need to effect fundamentalreform to the Ministerial Council system. This will focus Councils on national strategicGoverning the City State: 84