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

The Review recommends establishment of a series of communities of practice to build andmaintain core technical expertise in people and performance, policy development, projectmanagement and service delivery.The Policy Council should bring to fruition proposals under consideration for some time toconvene a community of practice for policy officers – the primary purpose being to developcapability of non-executive policy officials through a combination of mentoring and practicalproblem solving for difficult and complex policy issues.Current and aspiring policy officers would do well to read the article by Behm, A.,Bennington, L., & Cummane, J. “A value creating model for effective policy services” in theJournal of Management Development 19(3), 2000, pp.162 – 178.The People and Performance Council should take a lead role in developing theprofessionalism and competency of “Human Resource” professionals in the Service. A viewreflected in the Unions ACT Submission:The lack of these people at the Agency level since the Costello Review has resulted insome serious deficits in performance and outcomes for all stakeholders. It also makesit very hard to recruit new people into these roles because the workloads areexcessive and the reputation is poor. My members are constantly involved in disputesand misconduct issues of a low order because they have not been tackled effectivelyat an agency level. Many of these matters are referred to Shared Services who areclearly under-resourced and not sufficiently skilled to deal with them. This is wellevidenced by the constant delays to resolution which seriously affect both mymembers and their respective members plus the staff in Shared Services. It also aidsin creating a culture of indecision, shifting blame and poor outcomes to these matterswhich in turn creates job dissatisfaction for all concerned. There is a very strongculture or risk aversion and “punting the problem” in the ACT Public sector…Notwithstanding this the new Respect and Diversity Strategy will go some way toaddressing some of these problems and we applaud this initiative. 336Recommendation: Leadership and Workforce Capability• articulate the strategic role of the Strategic Board to drive ACTPS performance;• undertake regular and systematic Strategic Board appraisals within the Board’s terms ofreference;• commit to ongoing funding for leadership and development programs offered under the Attractionand Retention Framework;• consider refining the leadership training program to incorporate assessment of participants against336 Submission No.3.Capability, Capacity and Effectiveness: 258