Public Eye: The APVMA's cultural review uncovered (no, not that one)

In early 2022, the APVMA executive commissioned Organisation Dynamics to prepare the 60-page "Culture Pulse Check Report" after the agency's poor 2021 APS census results and increased employee turnover.

The small regulator has received heightened media attention since it was moved out of Canberra to Armidale by former Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce in 2016, as part of a broader Coalition focus on decentralising the APS.

The "culture pulse check" was completed and handed back to the agency just after allegations surfaced in a Senate estimates hearing in November 2022 that a senior public servant at the agency had urinated on his colleagues following a staff Christmas party.

The "private urination incident" allegations ultimately triggered three other reviews. The first of which, undertaken by Mary Brennan, was discontinued and referred to police and the Public Service Commission after an interim report uncovered further serious allegations in February.

Clayton Utz was then asked to conduct another review, released in July, and now Agriculture Minister Murray Watt is leafing through an evaluation of that review by former senior public servant Ken Matthews.

The Matthews review could be the one to trigger the agency's relocation back to Canberra, though Senator Watt has been fairly vague about it all, so far.

The "culture pulse check" is the earliest of all of them, and was never released publicly. It wasn't even shown to the Minister.

The APVMA initially weren't so keen on releasing the full report, redacting sections they considered harmful to staff's privacy or the agency's reputation. But when Public Eye asked for a review, we got full access.

The reviewers took an interesting approach to collating the information received, with one particularly egregious example catching our eye.

On a page which summarised findings from the focus groups which informed the review, feedback was categorised under the headings: "the rose", "the bud" and "the thorn".

What does that mean, you ask? Rosy feedback was "what's blooming at the APVMA that is supporting us to excel". That which was budding, was where the agency was "showing early signs of promise and just starting to grow".

Thorny topics, were the things everyone was thinking but not saying. "What is preventing us from being our best," as the report puts it. Public Eye has no further comment on this editorial decision.

We will note that the "thorn" column spills onto an entirely new page, and that these slides were originally redacted in full.

The report highlighted positive (or, "rosy") aspects of the agency's culture, including an overwhelming sense of purpose held by employees as well as "strong working relationships and high levels of professional respect" for colleagues.

But there was also plenty to improve upon, reviewers were told. There was a vibe (an "implicit but shared sense") within the APVMA that there were those who were "in" and those who were "out".

"Being in the 'out group' is not necessarily correlated with being a poor or inadequate performer - it is attributed to the degree to which one is in favour or not with Senior Leaders or decision makers."

The review also heard that senior leaders made comments on the performance of those who were no longer working at APVMA, and people felt they needed "to stay on the 'good side' of those leaders to avoid being spoken of in this way".

This feeling that leaders wanted to be around people they liked contributed to a feeling that promotion or advancement in the organisation was not fair.

This is not the APVMA of today, the agency wants you to know. "A Project Lead was employed to support the APVMA to address the recommendations," an agency spokesperson said.

"Following additional staff consultation, a roadmap was endorsed by the APVMA Board in December 2022 and implementation commenced in January 2023. It is important to note the recommendations from the Culture Pulse Check reflect the APVMA at a point in time.

"Significant changes have been made within the APVMA by the Board and Interim Executive since February 2023." They added that "supporting staff health and wellbeing remain the highest priority for the APVMA".

The APVMA had successfully overcome many of its challenges in the years leading up to 2022, reviewers were told, but this "significant effort" had cost staff. "People are caught in the ongoing cycle of intense effort, that is now leading to resentment and contributing to fragmentation between people and teams," the review found.

This pursuit of "perfectionism" in their work manifested in various problematic ways. An "unwillingness to share information along the way (until it is done/right/correct)" left "voids of communication and a breeding ground for misinformation and rumouring".

There was also a habit of setting goals without planning, preparation or resources. A recipe for success.

And "a strong sense that those who keep quiet and don't complain are loaded with the work to compensate for poor performers (do the work, no matter what the cost)."

There was also a lack of consistency around people leaving the agency, with some celebrated and some leaving without any communications. And all of this fed into a culture where the rumour mill was "rife", the review found.

Though "the vast majority" of people reported positive working relationships within the agency, the review identified a number of divides.

There was a sense that the environment could be one in which "people are pitted against each other", with the review identifying instances of this between the Senior Executive Service and the Executive Level, between high and low performers and between scientific and non-scientific staff.

There seemed to be "a strong disconnect" between the key executive leadership levels, while other feedback referred to "groups of people (usually within teams) who do all the work and a small group who are not held to the same standard of performance".

And between Armidale and Canberra: "the descriptor of the culture at Armidale was generally more significantly negative to the descriptors of culture by those from Canberra," the review states.