Secretary’s Review

Page index

• Sustaining capability
• Assuring quality
• Improving efficiency
• Maintaining flexibility
• Measuring our performance
• Secretary’s snapshot: One National Circuit
• Secretary’s snapshot: Reconciliation Action Plan

Our work in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) is varied and, each day, presents diverse challenges. The one I am going to address in my review this year is maintaining the quality of what we do.

By serving the Prime Minister, PM&C holds a strategic position within the structures of governance. Less grandly, we are a medium-sized policy advising and coordination department. Our aim is to ensure that the quality of our advice and services is continually improved. This can happen only through deliberate intention, focused effort and periodic evaluation.

During 2006–07 we have pursued the goal of maintaining and lifting quality in a number of ways. Some of these relate to our policy advising capacity. Others relate more to our systems and procedures. All rely on the skills and commitment of our staff. I will address what we have achieved in four areas:

• sustaining capability
• assuring quality
• improving efficiency, and
• maintaining flexibility.

At the end I also consider the question of how we measure our performance.

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Sustaining capability

The key to our capability is our staff. We need to ensure our people feel valued and have opportunities to improve, learn and develop their careers. The new people we bring in need to be of a high calibre. Those with longer experience need to be appreciated. Everyone deserves to feel that what they do can make a difference.

I am very encouraged by the findings of the State of the Service Report 2005–2006 which was tabled by the Public Service Commissioner on 30 November 2006.  In comparison to the wider Australian Public Service, PM&C employees were particularly satisfied with their current job, their work group and the performance of their senior leaders.  Relative to others, our staff had a good understanding of their roles, felt valued, and perceived that the department operated with a high level of integrity and respect.    

The story was not all positive. Not unexpectedly, PM&C employees were less satisfied than their colleagues elsewhere in the APS that they had an opportunity to achieve a work-life balance.  While we can—and do—promote ways to work smarter and more flexibly, workplace pressure is an inherent part of working in PM&C. That has not stopped nine out of 10 of our staff saying they enjoy their job and are proud to work in the department.

In order to maintain engagement and commitment a broad range of learning and development opportunities are offered to staff. We provide on-the-job training, general policy briefings and sessions, job-specific short seminars, workshops and other professional training opportunities.

We offer staff assistance with the costs of formal study. In 2006–07, 61 staff received studies assistance, including 26 staff working on masters degrees. We also provide one full-time study award each year and offer staff the chance to take time out without pay from the workplace to undertake studies.

The training and experience we provide within the workplace is one of the reasons there is so much interest in coming to PM&C. We offer public service with purpose. Our two bulk recruitment rounds this year attracted more than 1000 applicants. The October and May rounds resulted in 95 positions being filled and a further 90 applicants being placed on a merit list for future vacancies. The benefits of this process are that it enables us to ensure our vacancies are filled quickly and that we are able to efficiently use the senior resources needed for interview panels.

In January 2007, 14 graduates joined the department after a highly competitive recruitment process which attracted 527 applicants. These graduates are taken through a year-long programme which includes professional development opportunities, tailored training and the opportunity to rotate through the department’s policy and corporate areas. We have recently decided to increase the number of graduates for 2008 to 20, reflecting the value we place on bringing in high quality young people to our organisation. A couple of places will be set aside for indigenous graduates.

While we can always do better, performance management is effective. We require managers to provide formal feedback to all staff twice a year on how well they are doing their jobs and identify training to help them do better. Manager-once-removed discussions are offered to all staff once a year. A confidential career advisory service is also available to them. There is of course a down side to the fact that people come to PM&C to gain experience as part of their career paths—they tend to leave us after a few years for other departments, often as the result of promotion. Consequently, I think that our turnover rate is too high.

There is always a danger that our employees become too focused on their immediate responsibilities. I do not want staff to become too narrow. To counter this we have two seminar series that are open to all staff and provide insights across the broad ambit of public policy. In 2006–07 I invited the following guests to speak at the Secretary’s speaker series:

• the Honourable Jeffrey Kennett AC, Chairman of beyondblue
• the Right Honourable Helen Liddell, British High Commissioner to Australia
• Her Excellency Madame Fu Ying, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China
• the Reverend Tim Costello AO, Chief Executive of World Vision Australia, and
• Virginia Haussegger, ABC TV News presenter, journalist and author.

Around 80 members of staff attended each of these lunchtime presentations.

In a companion series, ‘About PM&C’, senior staff in PM&C and its portfolio agencies share their experience, interests and working philosophy with staff. In 2006–07 we had presentations from the Commonwealth Ombudsman (the Ombudsman is in our portfolio), four of our division heads and the Deputy Secretary who is head of the APEC 2007 Taskforce. In addition, staff are encouraged to invite external speakers to visit the department to share their expertise. As a result, twelve speakers gave their time to speak to us.

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Assuring quality

This is perhaps the most difficult of all challenges. Providing timely, accurate, comprehensive but succinct briefing to the Prime Minister is highly skilled work. It requires ability, experience and training.

We provide a range of learning packages for staff relating directly to the quality of our briefs. These include workshops on fundamental and advanced writing skills, presentations on writing with influence and sessions focused on strategy, futures thinking, critical analysis and decision making.

While we can provide formal training and learning opportunities, there is no substitute for document-by-document quality guidance and control. I clear all briefings for the Prime Minister as chair of Cabinet and the National Security Committee (412 in 2006–07). The deputies clear all our department’s coordination comments on Cabinet submissions. The 7,500-odd briefings we provided to the Prime Minister and ministerial team in 2006–07 were all signed off at Senior Executive level. When more junior members of staff have taken the responsibility for drafting the brief they are always recognised as ‘contact officers’. The vast amount of correspondence we handle (around 185,000 items in 2006–07) is generally signed off at Executive Officer level.

Staff sometimes find these clearance processes onerous and we may not always make the processes as instructive as they should be, but we consider that this is the only way to guarantee the quality and consistency of the advice we provide. It provides learning-by-doing and is one area in which traditional hierarchy plays a beneficial role.

We pay particular attention to assuring quality in Cabinet processes. This is undertaken by the Cabinet Division. We work with other agencies and within PM&C with the aim that each Cabinet submission or memorandum is developed with a whole-of-government focus, and addresses the risk inherent in programme delivery. High standards are important, which is why submissions must comply with the requirements of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Handbook. Our Cabinet Implementation Unit advises the Prime Minister and Cabinet each quarter about how decisions made by Cabinet are being implemented. Our Ministerial Correspondence Unit manages the ministerial correspondence workload of the department within strict quality and timeliness standards, including reporting on progress and achievements. In 2006–07, 94 per cent of ministerial correspondence was processed on time. This is a three per cent improvement on last year. The Ministerial Correspondence Unit works closely with Departmental Liaison Officers, who are located in Parliament House, to manage the workflow of the correspondence.

Security is an issue that we take seriously at PM&C. An effective protective security environment is essential for the department to function successfully. The Prime Minister needs to be assured that the advice we provide remains confidential. Our security procedures are designed to protect our people, our physical working environment, and the Commonwealth’s official information. In recent years, many changes have taken place in the public sector. New applications of information technology, the introduction of outsourcing and contracting and the opportunities for home-based work all have additional and different risks that need to be managed with vigilance. Our new working environment at One National Circuit was designed, constructed and fitted out to meet a ‘Secure’ building rating, as defined in the Australian Protective Security Manual. Within our building some areas have more restricted access because of the sensitivity of the documents they hold.

We also need to be confident of the department’s corporate and financial health. The Audit Committee plays an important role in this regard. In 2006–07 it appointed an external member, reviewed the department’s Certificate of Compliance preparations and completed five internal audits. It finalised a strategic internal audit program for 2007–08 and beyond, targeting key compliance and performance risks identified through the Audit Committee’s consultation with internal stakeholders and the Australian National Audit Office.  The committee also provided assurance to me on the department’s financial statements.

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Improving efficiency

In order to use our resources to best effect we are constantly looking to improve our processes and work practices. This year has seen a number of major developments in our IT systems which have underpinned these improvements.

A new ministerial and parliamentary business system implemented during the year, known as Slipstream, has brought our workflow systems up-to-date. It has superseded several older systems that did not adequately support us, particularly when—almost inevitably—we were working to tight deadlines.

As well as reducing manual processes and duplication, Slipstream has enhanced visibility and accountability for the parliamentary and ministerial documents processed within the department. The system enables the department to make greater use of electronic processing and has resulted in a reduction in paper usage.

All areas within the department use Slipstream and over 9,370 items have been processed in the system since March 2007. The second stage of Slipstream will be implemented in the latter part of 2007.

A staff survey was undertaken in May 2007 to test staff satisfaction with our IT services and the quality of our IT products. I was very pleased to see that the outcome of that survey showed a significant increase in staff satisfaction compared with a survey carried out in early 2004. We now enjoy high levels of satisfaction with service desk and incident management, desktop platform (hardware and software) and the network.

On 16 February 2007 we moved to our new building at One National Circuit, which will contribute significantly to improving our efficiency. The building was built to accommodate our specific business needs. It has more conference rooms, a variety of break-out areas, facilities for nursing mothers and an in-house cafeteria open to the public from early morning. The new building was also designed with sufficient space to accommodate a number of temporary taskforces operating simultaneously. In 2007 this included approximately 50 staff from the APEC Taskforce as well as other staff engaged in taskforce activity.

One National Circuit has five floors of flexible office space and a car park with a capacity for 326 cars. The car park has been a major improvement for staff. Since not everyone can fit in the car park, our consultative committee guided a process in which it was decided to give people access to car parking based on their length of service in PM&C. After 5pm, any staff member can move their car into an empty space. This makes leaving work later much safer.

We take pride in being green. One National Circuit has high thermal efficiency features. It has double-glazing, rain water recycling for irrigation and toilet flushing, and recyclable carpets. Landscaping features plants that are both indigenous to our local area and drought resistant. We have a strong regime to maximise recycling of varieties of office waste.

We are increasingly using websites to communicate efficiently with the Australian community. I think we must be doing something right: we had over 500,000 hits on our It’s An Honour website and almost 400,000 hits on the main PM&C website in 2006–07.

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Maintaining flexibility

Once again this year has seen us demonstrate a high capacity to meet government requirements as they emerge. As always, the main requirement has been to provide timely advice or services as the Prime Minister needs them. Some of this preparedness comes from the flexibility of our own internal arrangements. We have staff able to work easily across organisational demarcations. Often, however, we have to bring in people from other agencies to meet unexpected exigencies.

Taskforces are an ever-more-important component of how we work. They are temporary groups working on a nominated cross-government priority on which key resources are focused. They are usually short-term in nature and provide a mechanism for delivering wide-ranging policy advice to the Prime Minister in an expeditious manner.

There are two important ways in which our department is designed to accommodate taskforces. First, built into our baseline funding are appropriations that are to be used for their initial establishment and corporate costs. Second, our new building provides us with the space to host these taskforces within the department. The work areas for taskforces are configured differently from areas for our ongoing staff. They can be set up—with all the necessary IT and communications facilities—within 24 hours of a taskforce being commissioned by
the government.

The APEC Taskforce has been our most changing area in 2006–07 with staff numbers growing from 109 to 212. Most are located in Sydney but we have been able to accommodate a Canberra contingent of 50 in One National Circuit. We have also designed retention incentives to retain staff in the APEC Taskforce when we most need them and a reintegration plan for the staff who will be returning to the mainstream department.

We have also accommodated over the year another five taskforces and working groups working on major policy issues:

• the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading (which I chaired)
• the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review Taskforce
• the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security Taskforce
• the COAG Human Capital Working Group, and
• the COAG Pandemic Influenza Team.

We have also undergone organisational change. The Office of Water Resources, which was established in the department on 26 September 2006, was transferred to the newly created Environment and Water Resources portfolio
as part of the machinery of government
changes announced by the Prime Minister
on 23 January 2007. 

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Measuring our performance

PM&C is required to report on its performance, including against the performance indicators set
out in our Portfolio Budget Statements.

It is relatively easy for us to report on process. Our main products are our briefs to the Prime Minister and draft responses to his correspondence. We can readily produce volume indicators: for example, on how many submissions are subject to our Cabinet processes, the number of papers that go through our Council of Australian Governments secretariat and the extent to which we meet externally imposed or internally determined timelines.

However, none of these go to the quality of our work.

In our 2006–07 Portfolio Budget Statements we said that the quality of our work would be measured by the ‘degree of satisfaction of the Prime Minister, the Minister assisting and the Parliamentary Secretary, their offices and the departmental executive as expressed through formal and informal feedback mechanisms, with the quality and timeliness of advice and the achievement of key tasks’[1].

In general the department meets the requirements of our ministerial team in a manner that is satisfactory to them. We receive positive feedback when large and difficult tasks are completed successfully. The quality of our advice is appreciated even when, as is entirely appropriate, our recommended course of action is not accepted wholly or in part. Of course I—and my staff—take pride in the extent to which our advice on matters large or small is able to influence decision-making.

The Prime Minister has spoken to the department as a whole twice in the 2006–07 year. Members of the executive receive informal feedback from the ministerial team and their offices. Many division heads and members of the executive have regular scheduled meetings with advisers. In an important sense these scheduled meetings between the department and the Prime Minister’s office are designed to elicit feedback on the quality and timeliness standards we set ourselves and where there are perceived to be difficulties. It is, of course, a two-way process.

Another important source of feedback is the written comments we receive on our briefs. A Senior Adviser in the office conveys written comments to us very quickly and also provides regular feedback on any changes to requirements or timing issues. When we fail to meet the expectations of the ministerial team, it is as often as a consequence of the inadequate timeliness of responses to correspondence or the quality of its drafting or the clarity or creativity of our policy advice or errors or omissions in information provided. Usually standards are high. There is, of course, always room for improvement.

The department has a number of mechanisms for conveying feedback within the organisation. As noted earlier, we have a formal Performance Management and Development Scheme which includes upwards appraisal and twice-yearly performance feedback sessions. There are regular meetings within the department at Executive, Division head, division and branch levels. We hold staff surveys every two years.

We seek feedback from other agencies on how they feel we are performing, including through the Management Advisory Committee and Portfolio Secretaries meetings. This year we have held an SES meeting specifically to seek feedback from other agencies on how we are perceived and how we can improve our working relationships with other agencies.

Performance is the watchword of PM&C. The organisational structures and workplace systems are integral to corporate and individual achievement. But at its heart lies the culture of can-do and won’t-fail that is the hallmark of our departmental ethos. It is what an Australian Prime Minister has a right to expect.

Dr Peter Shergold

[1] This commentary takes the place of reporting on the general quality indicator quoted here, output by output, throughout this report.

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Secretary’s snapshot: One National Circuit

The department moved into its new premises at One National Circuit on 16 February 2007. The new building is leased from the Industry Superannuation Property Trust for 15 years with an option for a five-year extension.

One National Circuit was designed to achieve a 4.5 star energy rating in accordance with the Australian Building Greenhouse Rating scheme. We are using a green lease schedule to improve and manage our energy efficiency and make us accountable for our energy consumption.

One National Circuit incorporates many environmental initiatives, such as the use of building materials produced by energy efficient means. It was designed to reduce greenhouse emissions. Its energy saving features include:

• building orientation and a narrow footprint to maximise the penetration of natural daylight and to minimise the use of artificial light
• thermal mass for heat retention and cold reduction
• intelligent lighting and air-conditioning technology to minimise energy consumption and operating costs
• double glazing and tinted glass, and
• a Building Management System that controls, monitors and manages equipment in the building, including lighting and air-conditioning, to minimise energy consumption.

During the construction of the building, staff were consulted extensively on the fit-out and design of the work spaces and were kept informed of progress with the construction through our intranet, staff emails and a dedicated notice board. Staff were also given the opportunity to inspect the building during the final stages of construction.

The building has 21 formal meeting spaces which are very important both to our internal coordination and meetings. In addition, there is a large amenities area on the ground floor with standing room sufficient for an all-staff meeting. The department’s new café, Bellaccino’s at One National, opened on 18 July 2007.

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Secretary’s snapshot: Reconciliation Action Plan

In May 2007, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum was commemorated. This referendum saw more than 90 per cent of eligible Australians vote to count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in the national census of the population and to give the Commonwealth Government power to make laws regarding indigenous people.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, Reconciliation Australia invited all Australian Government agencies, businesses, peak bodies, non-government and community organisations to develop and implement an individual Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) to coincide with Reconciliation Week.

RAPs are designed to help organisations contribute to the wellbeing and quality of life of indigenous Australians. Each plan is registered with Reconciliation Australia as part of a ‘National Programme of Action’, intended to ’turn good intentions into actions’.

The department’s RAP was developed by representatives from each of the divisions. Our plan sets out how we will conduct our activities so as to promote the interests of indigenous Australians in practical ways.

Our RAP identifies five key objectives:

• leading whole-of-government and cross-jurisdictional policy development for indigenous Australians
• monitoring the delivery of government programmes and services to indigenous Australians
• consulting on a regular basis with indigenous organisations, including the National Indigenous Council
• building an organisation that is alert to the particular policy challenges facing indigenous Australians, and
• continuing to provide indigenous staff with an opportunity to work in all areas of PM&C.

Together with Shane Hoffman, who heads our Indigenous Policy Branch, I launched our RAP on 30 May 2007 at an all-staff meeting.

Our plan makes it clear that responsibility for considering the implications of policy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is distributed across all areas of our department. It is not just a matter that can sit with staff of the Indigenous Policy Branch, however their expertise is harnessed in considering what implications policies might have for indigenous Australians in areas relating to education, health, employment, industry support, workplace relations or protection of our northern borders.

Our RAP can be found on Reconciliation Australia’s webpage at www.reconciliation.org.au.

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