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

CHAPTER SIX: CAPABILITY, CAPACITY AND EFFECTIVENESSIntroductionSince its establishment in 1994 the ACT Public Service (ACTPS) has experienced waves ofrestructuring, privatisation, reorganisation, outsourcing and modernisation. Underpinning allof these changes is the strong desire from the Government of the day for an efficient, modernand agile public service that provides robust policy advice and delivers high quality services.Structural reform is only part of the answer to improving capability, performance, operationsand service delivery. Critical to the future success of the ACTPS is a suite of initiatives thatbuild a Service which embraces learning, adopts leading practice, harnesses the capability ofits workforce and genuinely engages with internal and external stakeholders. These initiativesmust include cultural change, creation of institutional imperatives, and improvements tosystems and ways of working.The Chief Minister’s Department is currently responsible for strategic direction across theACTPS on public sector governance frameworks, and people and performance. Thisincorporates workforce culture and capability, industrial relations, and the machinery andadministration of government. It will remain so in the Review’s preferred structure.Sustaining and building the skills and knowledge of ACTPS people is essential to deliveringthe necessary mix of innovative policy and program solutions to the issues confronting theACT. To deliver high quality services in an increasingly complex and constrained fiscalenvironment, the leadership and managerial capacity of ACTPS must be developed andprovided with the right operational tools and systems to delivery high quality services andadvice.Recent efforts by the ACT Government have gone some way to strengthening the capabilityof its public service, through increased investment in the policy framework, training andleadership development, improved recruitment processes and a range of attraction andretention initiatives.Feedback to the Review suggests more needs to be done. Officials strongly advocated forimproved competence and dexterity of the ACTPS, expressed by one as follows:The ACT public sector needs to dramatically improve its capacity. Recruitment of theright people is a starting point but much more needs to be done around the retentionof talented staff; training and professional growth (including opportunities forsecondments to the private sector; academic institutions; and other public services);career paths (especially challenging for the ACT); developing and adopting anACTPS leadership model (the Victorian approach may be appropriate); and dealingwith under-performers. I believe our Service has too many under-performers at themiddle and junior executive levels including those who have been in positions for farCapability, Capacity and Effectiveness: 241