Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

The public sector
whole-of-client service delivery; and the generation of greater productivity through
digitisation. 42
Public value governance (PVG), the third dominant model of public sector
organisation and development, is less about the means by which governments
govern.Rather,itfocusesmoreonthepoliticalandinstitutionalprocessesbywhich
public values are identified and inform strategy making, performance management
and innovation. 43 One of PVG’s most notable advocates argues that the public
sector creates public value in two ways: first, by producing goods and services
that have been prioritised by the political system, and second, by establishing
and operating institutions that are ‘fair, efficient and accountable’, meeting the
expectations of citizens (and their representatives). 44
PVG requires public sector managers to do three things: help to identify and
define the public interest; secure support for the creation of new public goods
and services from political and other stakeholders (such as interest groups, clients,
businesses and the general community); and obtain the operational and
administrative resources required for the task. 45
Public sector values
No discussion of the public sector is complete without examining the distinctive set
of values and norms that guide its work. It may be useful to think of such public
sector values in terms of why the public sector exists, what it does and how it does
this. Longstanding political and cultural conventions and traditions (derived from
both the Westminster model and the federal system) provide the public sector with
a purpose and justification for its services to the community.
The values that inform what thepublicsectorshoulddoorproduceatanytime
reflect culturally embedded ‘outcomes values’, 46 such as ‘growth’ or ‘diversity’, that
dominate political debate over long periods but do change from time to time. For
example, NPM valued private-sector delivery, while cutbacks to welfare programs
reflected higher values being attributed to private, as opposed to collective,
solutions to income inequality. These values inform the immediate policy priorities
of incumbent governments and serve as evaluation standards or design guides for
particular policies. 47
42 Dunleavy et al. 2006, 480; Greve 2015, 51.
43 Rainey 2014, 64; Greve 2015, 50.
44 Moore 2014; Moore 1995, 53. See also Mazzucato’s work on the state’s contribution to public
value through its role in creating and supporting private markets and innovation (Mazzucato
2016; Mazzucato 2013).
45 Alford and O’Flynn 2009, 173. You may be interested in the debate between Rhodes and Wanna
(2007) and Alford (2008) on whether this role is compatible with the Westminster tradition of
ministerial responsibility.
46 Stewart 2009, 27.
47 Bozeman and Johnson 2015, 63.
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