Paddy Gourley | Secretaries leadership charter has some glaring omissions

The charter was launched, in a manner of speaking, at an Institute of Public Administration function on September 6. It was addressed, inter alia, by the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Glyn Davis, and Mr David Fredericks, secretary of the Department of Climate Change who is apparently one of the charter's principal architects.

In an echo of the 1956 Broadway musical hit Mutual Admiration Society, there was much reciprocated back-slapping at the IPAA function with the speakers commenting on each others' "sharp minds", "deep commitment to service", "ethical" behaviour" and "the extraordinary personal commitment of all secretaries in the development of the charter".

In like spirit, the public service commissioner said the charter was part of a "cultural renaissance" in administration book-ended by the Thodey inquiry and a hierarchy and classification review, a dangerous beast whose fabulously costly recommendations he has wisely put on the shelf where they should remain.

In his roles as PM&C secretary and chair of the secretaries board, Dr Davis urged staff to get behind the charter while at the same time saying that "if you have to rely on an organisation chart to command attention, then you're not a leader."

That irony might have been mollified by wide-ranging consultation with staff in the preparation of the charter, after all it says leaders should "actively seek out views".

As that's not apparent nor has it been claimed, consistent with the charter's urging to "find ways to hold them [leaders] to account", Mr Fredericks was asked per email if staff, especially in the regions, and their unions had been engaged in the charter's development. At the time of writing he had not responded. As ever, accountability can take a little time to work its magic.

Glib? Yes, the charter's two brief pages are full of it - "have an inquiring mind", "practice new ways of deploying yourself", "treat people with decency and respect", "grow others", "understand people", "expect people to deliver" and so on and on.

Can the secretaries board believe staff can see this as helpful and not mere annoyingly trite expressions of the bleeding obvious? To put it in the negative, should "leaders" not try to understand their staff and treat them with decency.

As Ayres, Jarvie and Mercer say, managers should "get beyond the glib rhetoric that can be so demoralising ...".

Then the charter has more than its fair share of the wrong-headed and the enigmatic.

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"Innovate and change" it says without a sense, as pointedly remarked by the Harvard history professor, Jill Lepore, that such adjurations are recipes for change for change's sake, a distraction from the prioritised consideration of improvements and the too ready abandonment of what is working very well and unlikely to be made better by alteration.

"Collaborate not compete to succeed as a team" - of course people should be able to work well together but the current enthusiasm for teamwork shows little sense that its over-emphasis can lead to work being ruled by peer pressure in which staff are trapped, in the words of the sociologist Richard Sennett, in "the bonds of group conformity" in which leaders become mere facilitators.

"Embrace risks" - what can that mean in practical terms?

And finally "enjoy your work and have a positive attitude", surely a variation on the personnel policy requiring the flogging to continue until morale improves. Can people reasonably be instructed to enjoy their work and have positive attitudes?

But perhaps the charter's most serious defect is that it does not fairly and honestly reflect the law about official conduct, that is the code of conduct in the Public Service Act.

Sure it says that the Charter "focuses on behaviours ... within the construct of the APS Values and Code of Conduct" and it mentions aspects like honesty, respect, courtesy and accountability.

However, it does not mention crucial expectations of leaders set out in the law specifying the needs for care and diligence, compliance with laws and lawful instructions, maintaining confidentiality in dealings with ministers, using resources in a proper manner and for proper purposes, not providing false information or using information improperly and upholding the reputation of the public service.

These sharper edged requirements have been avoided in the charter and replaced by softer virtues like building relationships and networks and helping staff to "bounce back" when they make mistakes.

The charter is constructed around an acronym DRIVE signifying Dynamic, Respectful, Integrity, Value and Empowering. It's as if the secretaries board has used the acronym to force in what is sees as desirable behaviour. It looks like reverse engineering.

Secretaries and leaders at all levels might be better off concentrating on the law and prosecuting the cause of the Public Service Act code of conduct with their staff and discussing it with them. It would be interesting to know how many leaders have done that in the last 12 months. Could we have a hands up please?

Email us at ps@canberratimes.com.au