Finally Public Administration in NSW Under the Gun

Finally there is some mainstream media discussion of the public administration policies of the NSW Government! An excerpt from Beverley Kingston's essay in Sydney Ideas Quarterly has been published in today's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Kingston refers to the problem as the "rotting core". She quite rightly points out that once upon a time the management of departments involved people who stood up to ministers and who could plan long term regardless of who was running Macquarie Street. Now the senior bureaucrats are mere puppets and political animals who do their masters' bidding. They fulfil stupid contracts and write up reports of their performance indicators and claim that they "led" the department in doing x, y, and z.

Usually the executive bureaucrat does nothing at all in working out the details of x, y and z because the schemes are delegated to employees who do the grunt work. Employees are rarely thanked but are expected to deliver results irrespective of whether scheme was feasible in the first place.

When a scheme goes belly up the senior executive bureaucrat reacts like a pit-bull attacking employees. Executive bureaucrats like to take credit but never the responsibility for orchestrating things that may be plain stupid, unworkable or even implausible. These days there seems to be no regard for deep intelligence, skill, and acquired knowledge needed to run departments.

Kingston says:
"The instructions coming from the top are not necessarily informed or relevant, but frequently overwhelm the ability of individuals with expert on-the-spot knowledge to take an initiative or defy a direction."

How true! I've seen senior bureaucrats react with sandpit temper tantrums when someone with intelligence tells the boss the facts of life run contrary to the proposed policy or scheme.

That's why a colonic irrigation clean-out is needed: Directors-General of departments and their deputy subordinate sycophants must go from the NSW public service. The places to start the clean-up are the departments of Health, Attorney General, and Transport.

More Significant Jobs To Go From Probate Registry

I've heard before that the Probate registry at the NSW Supreme Court has been under-resourced. Now I hear that some senior jobs will be abolished. I'm hearing that private legal practitioners are aghast about the sword of Damocles falling on the registrars.

It seems that there are several Sooty-like glove-puppets that have been posted in various parts of the Attorney General's Department and agencies. They do their master's bidding, boss the employees around, all in the name of efficiency. The chanting about "efficiency" sounds like some codeword for a KGB covert operation: target and eliminate!

Meanwhile several other government departments are cash-starved and under-staffed, and that is what is supposed to pass for saving money and improving services. Some departments cannot even afford to brief out for fully outsourced legal opinions because it costs too much. So half-baked requests are made as if "near enough is good enough".

Makes a mockery of Nathan Rees' claim that his government is all about creating "jobs, jobs, jobs."

The cut-slash-burn approach to the public sector is disastrous for the people who lose employment, disastrous for those left who have to carry more tasks, and of course ensures that there can never be "better value" and "better service" to the public. Why is it that talentless individuals rise to the top of bureaucracy, and are rarely made to walk the plank for idiotic decisions? Won't be very long now until the mega-earthquake hits and everything in the public sector crashes in a heap.

Joe Tripodi -- the last part of the umbilical cord??

Perhaps the last splice on the umbilical cord needed to cut Nathan Rees loose is found in which way the wind blows for Joe Tripodi. It is a pity that Ian Macdonald is not removed simultaneously!

And need we be surprised that the NSW Police attrition rates are rising? All part and parcel of the defunct and dysfunctional policies and practices implemented by the moguls at the top of the public sector --- Police officers completing performance indicator sheets, and other such tripe! The NSW public sector is awash with superfluous paperwork dreamed up by consultants who are handsomely paid for artificial and needless advice.

NSW Public Sector Reforms (Shipwrecked Again)

It's reassuring to know that we are receiving better value and better services under the Super Department scheme. Oh, what's that you say? You mean there are state government ministers squabbling over who has which department reporting?

Alexandra Smith dishes up the latest episode of the government soap-opera "the bland and the boring".

Daily Telegraph on Case Chaos at New Trustee and Guardian

Gemma Jones serves up a concise piece on funds mismanagement and clumsy ham-fisted handling of protected estates clients by the Protective Commisisoner's successor the NSW Trustee and Guardian. While that kind of work is always fraught with problems, the snap shot in the article just emphasises what a mess is the entire Attorney General's Department. Both the minister Mr John Hatzistergos and the department's Director General Mr Laurie Glanfield need to be hauled before an inquiry to justify why they should be allowed to continue in their jobs.

And don't overlook the farcical handling of the current Parliamentary Inquiry into substitute decision making as it affects the NSW Trustee and Guardian (see here). Both the Minister and Director General should be cross-examined on several critical concerns particularly why they dragged their feet since 2004 in introducing any reforms to the Protected Estates Act.

Super Department Inferno

The NSW Labor Government continues to have excellent form as it lurches from one ridiculous proposal and crisis and onto the next proposal/crisis.

The pixels had barely settled on John Lee's electronic announcement assuring better service and value via 13 Super Departments than the wheels began falling off.

This plan to amalgamate is touted as a huge reform in the public sector. All it really is something akin to a Cecil De Mille epic scene of a grand disaster: simultaneously rearranging deck chairs on many sinking ships.

One more sign of serious dissent comes from the Rural Fire Service's revolt at being merged after seeking reassurances that they would be left untouched. The Sun Herald's Lisa Carty indicates that Phil Koperberg has fired a shot across Nathan Rees' bow, and that three other ministers are disgruntled at the lack of consultation over this "super-reform": Paul Lynch, David Borger, and Graham West. Read Lisa's article (here).

The restructure simply creates more red-tape, increases a top-heavy bureaucracy, and contrary to all rhetoric does not release employees from tedious and irrelevant tasks to serve the public.

The Government and its minders are beholden to a scavanger culture of advisors who speak the dialect of management-speak, and spawn spin doctor propaganda. This is truly a clueless government, and its senior executive service corps is riddled with sycophants and power-hungry self-serving political creatures.

NSW Better Service and Value!

Eleven years ago The Onion reported that a new tenth circle of hell had been opened in the nether regions. The new level was to be known as the circle of total bastards and caters for many different people including demographers and advertising executives.

That seems like a place where tom-foolery deserves perpetual punishment. In fact, it would be sweet justice for the people of NSW if they could simply send the current NSW Labor Government to this circle of total bastards. They should be joined by several of the grand pooh-bars who have scrambled to the top of bureaucracy in the public sector.

On 27 July 2009 the brave new world was announced:

NSW Government Agency Amalgamation Administrative Order (read it)

The 13 super departments with powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary governments will improve "services to the people of NSW by ensuring a greater client focus, delivering integrated services and reducing internal red tape and barriers between agencies. Resources that are freed up by the reforms will be directed to frontline services."

Gee that is breath-taking!

But wait there's more:

"The Directors General, who have met each week as the new Directors General Executive Committee (DGEC), will continue to meet on a regular basis to drive the practical implementation of these reforms and ensure the Government's commitments are delivered. DPC [i.e. Department of Premier and Cabinet] and Treasury will be liasing directly with Departments on staffing, financial, legal and other governance issues ... The Better Service and Value Taskforce and the Cabinet Standing Committee on Service Delivery will oversight [sic] the achievement of service delivery outcomes and ensure corporate efficiencies are optimised."

Wow! I am so relieved to know that the Cabinet Standing Committee on Service Delivery will oversight -- could somebody please assist John Lee the Director General of DPC in learning some basic English grammar? Either that committee "will have oversight" or it "will oversee".

After all we would like our bureaucrats to optimise the efficiencies of the English language (assuming they are semi-literate) in making such announcements.

How reassuring to know we have 13 Super Departments. I can sleep better at night now. I wonder if the Super-Departments have come to NSW from the planet Krypton to save us!