Michael Wintringham
State Services CommissionerThere are many familiar faces among the participants here today. Many of you have been to previous conferences. This is my seventh – my fifth as State Services Commissioner. These conferences have changed over the years. There is more change today.
First, a lot of today is about ourselves, by ourselves. There is less of the international expert coming to Wellington for a day to tell us how to do it better.
Second, boundaries are more blurred. You will see less distinction between the Public Service, the State sector, the Public sector and citizens either as individuals or groups.
Third, Ministers are involved in the substance of the day more than in the past.
And the State Services Commissioner has been asked to speak first rather than last. This carries it own costs and benefits. I miss out on the adrenalin rush (or at least some of my staff do) of preparing a speech an hour before delivery explaining the day and drawing the themes into a few major messages. On the other hand, I have to generate the momentum to keep us going on this journey over the rest of the day. So for the next 20 minutes I want to give you the Michelin Guide to PSSM 2001, place it in a larger context, and give you some personal views about the response needed from a Public Service in a crowded age.
During the course of the day you won’t hear much about our "Public Management System". That doesn’t mean it is not important. Rather, it is an implicit acknowledgement that there are diminishing returns from constant refinement or tinkering at the margins of performance agreements, purchase agreements, and the raft of compliance reporting that takes up much of your own quality time.
In fact, two years ago, at this same event, Graham Scott said that we suffered from an almost irresistible temptation to over-specify beyond the point of usefulness and to over-refine to a point beyond sense.
In response to a question "what is the next big idea in public management?" he responded" making the last big idea work". That is what we are on about today.
That is why we have sought the more active participation of Ministers in today’s programme. Since the 1980s we have explicitly drawn a distinction between the big goals the Government is trying to achieve and outputs, the things down by State sector organisations. This distinction was applied in an environment where the main concern was to be clear about accountabilities. That is a legitimate concern but one that ended up in a highly simplified proposition – that managers in the State sector could be held accountable only for things they could control (or largely control), and not for outcomes. In this way, the distinction between outcomes and outputs became a dichotomy. Outcomes were to be the exclusive domain of Ministers. Outputs were to be the equally exclusive of State sector managers.
In my view, when applied in this way, the distinction between outcomes and outputs can be unhelpful to, or even destructive of, the creative and supportive relationship that should exist between Ministers and the organisations through which they work. Ministers should look for help in articulating and refining outcomes, for help in identifying the best possible ways of pursuing them, for help in delivering the programmes that give effect to them, and for help in assessing progress made in achieving those outcomes.
To the extent that there is a contract that underpins this relationship it should be the result of a productive and open engagement between Minister and chief executive, based on trust and a shared view of the end results to be achieved for our citizens.
And, I am convinced that departments, and other State sector organisations, must be much more connected with what the Government of the day is trying to achieve that is possible to achieve with a contract for outputs.
It is two years since one of the most difficult election years and process of engagement with a new Government for a decade or more. You have, individually, developed productive working relationships with your Ministers. (That is more than an unsubstantiated generalisation. I meet every Minister at this time of the year and ask them as part of my collection of information for the performance review of Public Service chief executives.)
Given that what I have described is more in the nature of a shared accountability, than two accountabilities for two separate things, the nature and the boundaries of innovation cannot be prescribed unilaterally by the Public Service. Let’s hear what Ministers have to say about those boundaries, and about the priorities and the pressures that drive them.
Technology, like the jungle is neutral. It can be harnessed as a force for innovation. It can be a source of alienation. It provides enormous scope for major gains in the quality of the services we provide to our citizens. We have plenty of examples of where it can frustrate the user, reinforce perceptions of a continued decline in the quality of government service, and be seen as something for the convenience of the public servant rather than for the benefit of the user.
e-Government has become one of those phrases, like globalisation and joined up government, that provokes enthusiasm among the true believers, and scepticism, indifference or boredom among the other 90%.
I am sorry, this one is real. Have you heard the advertisements on National Radio for a programme about an isolated Maori community electronically accessing the 19th century written record of their people from sources that would otherwise be closed to them. This is a microcosm of a story about a shift in power relationships. Throughout history those who have the information have the power. I think the challenge for us in dealing with this suite of things called "e-government" is that there is no way of predicting the potential of the technology, the further demands that will be created when individuals and communities are empowered by technology, and the speed with which their ingenuity will create new pressures and challenges for us. This has the potential to make our views about structure outdated, (and even modes of government dated) and bring more crowding to a crowded age.
I think there is a risk of a digital divide, not only out there in communities between those who are technology literate and those who are not, but in here, in this room. The digital divide in the senior public service can be between those who see e-matters as a techo-rush, and those who think more in terms of business process and service delivery. Its in your hands to use this as a tool for better government in the broadest sense.
Back to the themes of the day.
In the next seven hours or so, we have a very difficult job. We are aiming to achieve multiple objectives. (That, by itself, is a dodgy proposition in terms of our theories of public management.)
We are going to celebrate and uplift. We, and more particularly you, do good and important things that are fundamental to an effective society. They touch the lives of all New Zealanders. It is sometimes hard and thankless. It is often innovative and ground breaking. Never let anybody tell you that there is no innovation in the Public Service. More of that later.
This is the one day of the year when the senior managers of the New Zealand Public Service get together to hear, see and discuss the same things. It is a day to unify. We hear a lot about silos, often in critical terms. In my view, the biggest risks are in silos of the mind. What do I mean?
I am particularly privileged in my position. I freely acknowledge that I know less than I ought about the good things that you and your staff are achieving daily at the front line. But I do see the international, political, demographic and economic context in which we do our work. I am increasingly concerned that, in a crowded age, not enough senior public servants have the time, space and opportunity to place their responsibilities in that wider context, to make connections, ad come to share a world view. This is as much a barrier to developing our human capital effectively as is the failure of the Senior Executive Service to live up to its promise, and the lack of systematic service-wide investment in the leadership and management skills of our senior people. I will come back to this as well.
So today, we are going to do some celebration and uplifting, and we are going to look at some things together to help us form a shared view of the world in which we operate.
And finally, today is about a challenge. A challenge to be a stable force for good in New Zealand at the same time improving our performance through innovation.
Let me address something head on. We want to be innovative. Innovation means risk of failure. Failure means political consequences. Political consequences mean blame. Therefore we are risk averse.
We have two Ministers speaking to us this morning. Some of you might like to put that proposition to them. But before you do, I want to put some propositions back to you. Innovation is not about running with an ill-thought-through bright idea. It is not about "old is bad, new is good". Risk aware and risk averse are two different things. We are better at policy development than we are at policy implementation. Big picture strategy is important but the devil is in the detail. Stakeholder management of the environment in which the project takes place cannot be separated from project management itself. Only when all these and more have been squared away tell me that the risks of innovation are too high, and the consequences inevitable.
That brings me to the map of the day.
We have a macro morning and a micro afternoon.
This morning the Honourable Trevor Mallard and Pete Hodgson will talk about their views of innovation and their expectations of public servants.
Hardin Tibbs will talk about the world, the future, the way this is crowding in on to us and, by implication, the way the New Zealand Public Service needs to respond and relate to that world.
Vicki Buck will talk about innovation – she will ask questions like "What would happen if we (the Public Service) didn’t innovate". She understands well that public service is a hard job and we do it to make a difference – so let’s make one. And she will give us some practical examples of innovation in the Public Service context.
This afternoon we look at six case studies - blurred boundaries - Public Service, Public sector, community, single agency, joined up, bottom up, top down. Ian Fraser will interview those directly involved in each case. He will also, on your behalf, interview seven of your chief executives from widely differing departments on their views on the themes, insights and lessons from those case studies.
Don’t expect unanimity of view. Don’t expect nicely packaged answers. Expect strong views, disagreement, and challenge for you.
Remember, today is about uplift and unity, but it is also about challenge.
And finally, a view from the regions. Katrina Ings, Regional Commissioner Waikato, Ministry of Social Development, will wrap up the day, taking the spot jealously preserved by me and my predecessor since these Conferences first began. There is both substance and symbolism in that decision. Katrina is a senior manager, (as are most of you participating in this Conference); she is not from a central agency (nor are most of you at this Conference, and she is from the regions (a big change from final the view from Wellington).
I said earlier that you will hear little today about further refinement about our system of public management. In the four and a half years I have been privileged to hold this office, my awareness and concerns about the performance of the Public Service have shifted from structures and systems towards values and people. Of course both are important. But as I have said often, good people with the right values can make imperfect systems and structures work. The reverse is not the case.
You will see more visible and more active leadership from me as State Services Commissioner and from chief executives in reinforcing and celebrating Public Service Values and Public Service Standards. You will see these more uniformly and more systematically promulgated and embedded. That began with the re-launch of our Code of Conduct, and associated training and development material three weeks ago. Its importance was emphasised by the presence of the Prime Minister and Minister of State Services. We will be out in the regions giving the same messages and supporting you in your responsibilities to demonstrate our Code of Conduct in action.
This programme almost exactly mirrors the themes of this Conference:
- To unify – we have shared Values, understanding and reinforcing those will be important glue to bind us together;
- To uplift and celebrate – the Code is important because of the importance of these jobs that we do, and the importance of a trusted Public Service to an effective society; and
- To challenge – the standards are high, but we have to meet them.
So that is Values. We are on the road, figuratively and literally.
But what of people? The hardest, indeed the most intractable problem that I and my predecessor have faced, is to ensure that investment is made in you, as the senior public service, in ways that meet the needs of your Department, meet the needs of the Public Service as a whole, develop a shared view about what it means to be a public servant and our constitutional history (our whakapapa) to replace the failed SES. For the first time I think we are on the ‘yellow brick’ road . Much of the credit must go to chief executives themselves. They have committed to joint action with the Commissioner, through the Management Development Centre to:
- define a system-wide approach and standards for development;
- provide support and best practice, particularly for those agencies without the money or critical mass of their own; and
- put in place institutional arrangements, virtual and real, for the leadership and management development of our people, for the reinforcement of a shared view of what it means to be a senior public servant, for deepening our understanding of the international and domestic context of what we do.
Why has this proved so difficult? Let me try to answer that by giving you a real example of a multinational, private sector approach to the development of its people. The company has a clear view of the skills it requires of its senior people in different lines of its business – production management, sales and marketing, research and development, and so on. There are both requirements laid upon, and support provided for, regional managers in developing people against this standard.
The international head office is involved, not only in setting standards, but in providing development which often takes the form of a benign corporate enculturation. For example, worldwide regional production managers may meet for three days once a year where they are exposed to three things:
- to international developments and best practice in production, ie in their specific responsibilities so they can learn from one another;
- briefings on business strategy, direction and performance of the company as a whole, ie they understand the context of their jobs and get a keen sense of belonging to a larger organisation; and
- they will have a guest speaker or two who will talk to them about related but separate matters such as new theories in organisational development, recent geo-political events and so on. In this case there is active encouragement to open one’s mind to a wider world, and to make connections.
I am not advocating that this model be lifted, in total, and placed upon the New Zealand Public Service. But I find it extraordinary that we have, for so long, clung to a belief that a decentralised system, with wide autonomy, different standards and approaches applying across 38 departments, with minimum rewards and sanctions, with a focus on annual delivery at the expense of long run investment generally, will deliver people with strong, shared values, with a keen sense of belonging to the Public Service and with the skills and attributes needed to lead the Public Service for another decade. I don’t think it makes sense.
That is why these recent developments are so exciting and provide the best chance we have of cracking this intractable problem without reverting to an over-centralised, dead-handed approach to this important matter.
And chief executives themselves, personally, have been working on our own "industry standard" – what is the ideal New Zealand official. This shared view will inform all the actions in senior management development that I intend be rolled out next year. In the same way that we launched the Code of Conduct, I would like to see us launch, at last, the successor the Senior Executive Service.
I referred to the privilege of holding the office of State Services Commissioner. It can be fraught from time to time, but the one thing that reassures me and keeps me going are the people to whom I am joined in the Public Service.
I am a public servant. That is how I think of myself and describe myself where the box on the form says "occupation". As a public servant I am one of 29,000 people making a really important contribution to the success of this country. That’s not such a bad thing to take home every night.
