Home Alone: The non-implementation of the APS Hierarchy and Classification Review

On 26 August 2022, the APSC released the APS Hierarchy and Classification Review. The Review arose from a recommendation in the earlier Independent Review of the APS that “…the APS should streamline management and adopt best-practice ways of working to reduce hierarchy, improve decision making and bring together the right expertise and resources”.

The Review Panel provided 8 recommendations, with Recommendations 1, 5, 6 and 8 in particular stating:

• Recommendation 1: Modernise and simplify the Public Service Classification Rules 2000 from 13 to 8 classifications, with Secretaries retaining flexibility to structure their organisations to optimise business needs.

• Recommendation 5: The Secretaries Board to implement spans of control for senior management roles generally within the range of 8-10 direct reports, consistent with contemporary organisational design.

• Recommendation 6: Invest urgently in the capability of future leaders, particularly the EL2/Manager cohort, and mandate management and leadership training for all staff with supervisory responsibility.

• Recommendation 8: The Secretaries Board to adopt and model a Charter of Leadership Behaviours for APS leaders to promote collaborative and team-based behaviours.

The APSC’s Response to the Review was, in its words, ‘measured’. Using a Home Alone analogy, one recommendation made it all the way to their destination, most were stuck in traffic and one was left at home alone.

The one that made it all the way was Recommendation 8 – the DRIVE Charter of Leadership Behaviours (Dynamic, Respectful, Integrity, Value and Empower). However, the Charter has to share space with many other APS artefacts including the APS Values and Code of Conduct, the APS Leadership and Capability Framework, the Integrated Leadership System and a plethora of Values laden documents within each and every APS agency/entity.

In other words, more words..

Most of the other recommendations were stuck in a bureaucratic traffic jam, or in the words of the APSC involved less than inspiring further actions such as: ‘further exploration’, ‘asking for input’, ‘co-designing’, ‘looking at the Review’s findings’ and ‘updating guidance’.

Cracking stuff..

The BIG issues of hierarchy and structure (Recommendations 1 & 5) stayed home alone in the naughty corner. The APSC’s reasoning for this was as follows:   

“The panel makes a good case for its ambitious proposals around classification reform, but the timing and viability of such complex reform needs to be carefully weighed. We are not looking to make changes to classifications at this stage”.

That’s bureaucratese for “Yeah, but Nah..”

So apart from a new APS Behaviours fridge magnet, there is little to show for an interesting and potentially useful Review. Yes it’s a complex, even ‘wicked’ problem, with multiple stakeholders, vested interests and a vortex of historical, cultural and political entanglements..

It’s not as though the Review Panel were naïve private sector consultants who didn’t understand this context. As they noted on page 3[1]:

“While our task was to look at the APS classification framework, we found the culture underpinning classification is critical. Consistent with the Independent Review of the APS, we found a deeply ingrained identification with rank. This flows through into rigid, hierarchical behaviour that dampens employee motivation and engagement, and impedes mobility, development and access to new skills”

And at page 36[2], the Panel had this to say about APS risk culture:

“A distinctive feature of the APS is its perceptions of and engagement with risk. APS leaders operate within a complex authorising and stakeholder environment that increases the sense of exposure to risk. This in turn fosters mindsets that are inherently risk-sensitive and therefore prone to trigger cautious and defensive or protective behaviour. ...

…A different approach to engaging with risk is therefore a critical element of APS cultural reform and leadership development. APS employees need assurance and evidence that they will be both trusted to exercise their responsibilities without undue interference or ‘micro-management’. Change must be led from the top, with those at the most senior levels demonstrating trust in their staff, being clear when the stakes are high and when they are not and providing an environment where responses to mistakes are reasonable and proportionate.

The review understands that such changes are not easy and require support from Ministers’ offices and others. Nevertheless, they are worth pursuing if the APS is to counter the trend of work and decision-making continually being ‘pushed upwards’ and employees feeling their roles are being hollowed-out.”

Concerns about APS ‘culture’ surface time and again in the various reviews, reports and Royal Commissions about programs / policies (badly) implemented by the APS. Take your pick of any of the following:

• Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program (2014)

• Learning from failure - Peter Shergold’s report into the Home Insulation Progam (2015)

• The ANAO Report into AEC’s ‘lost’ WA Senate ballot papers (2014)

• Review of ABS’ implementation of the 2016 eCensus (2016)

• The Thodey / Alexander PGPA Act Review Report (2018)

• The Thodey et al APS Review Report (2019)

The Robodebt Royal Commission will only add to this pile..

While plenty of reports/reviews already have pointed out the cultural iceberg, apparently because it is ‘complex’ it should be ‘carefully weighed’ and left in the too hard basket at home.

As the Review Panel also pointed out, our COVID-related world has forced change upon our communities and workplaces whether we (and our employers) wanted it or not. The appetite for change that has since emerged should be stoked and embraced, and tough discussions commenced.

Otherwise the APS remains locked in cognitive dissonance between the sort of APS that multiple reviews and APS chiefs say we need versus the lack of real interest in taking steps to get the APS there..

[1] Message from the Panel, p.3.

[2] Related observations and considerations: A contemporary approach to risk management.