Public Sector Informant: We're still waiting on someone to tackle the real problems of the Australian Public Service

Thodey recommended that the Public Service Commission and the Secretaries Board "build pro-integrity culture and practices in the APS." To provide sinew Thodey said that the Public Service Act should be amended to give the PSC investigating powers, to require agencies to provide information to the PSC and for the Act to include provisions to regulate post-separation employment by officials. The Secretaries Board then advised the government refuse these recommendations. That is to say, the body Thodey saw as key to promoting a "pro-integrity culture", gutted his recommendation that would help to do exactly that. In a field where the example of "leaders" is said to be important, the Secretaries Board has set the bar low. That's not so funny.

So it has been left to the Public Service Commissioner to pick up the pieces. He engaged a former commissioner, Mr Stephen Sedgwick, to consult parties who might be helpful about what to do now and to report.

Sedgwick's report arrived at the end of last year. It contains some useful suggestions in so far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough. With one news organ describing 2020 as a "year of sleaze" with the Commonwealth not exempt, Sedgwick might have been expected to tackle his task with the ferocity of a caged rodent. His report brings more to mind the reassuring image of a half-hungry koala.

Consultation on the report was confined to serving and former Commonwealth officials. It's an insider's view with consequent limitations. There's been no apparent attempt to get a sense of community expectations about how it thinks public servants should behave. Nor have any ministers, not even the Minister for the Public Service, been involved. That is, those with the ultimate responsibility for the operations and methods of departments, have been left out. The report doesn't reflect government aspirations nor does it take into account how ministerial "standards" affect the behaviour of public servants.

The report also shows little historical sensitivity. For example, the gradual change in the modern history of the APS from regulation by the prohibition of various activities to a permissive system where cases are treated on their merits via codes of conduct and guidelines is not analysed. The key Commonwealth document on conflicts of interest, the Bowen Committee report, doesn't get a mention.

Sedgwick's report mostly consists of views of those consulted organised around several themes; perhaps that's all he was asked to do. Opinions are all very well but the report contains little factual data and when it gets to points when that could be useful, it says that "in the time available" it has not been possible to get hold of any. As a result, the report's analysis is more about juggling opinions rather than analysing problems on the basis of facts.

And so the report's 10 recommendations, while useful if adopted, don't go far enough. Here's a summary:

The report says that "there isn't agreement about whether the APS currently has an integrity 'problem'". That may be so in the sense of a generalised problem; indeed, its record may well be as good as most public services. But it would be hard to raffle the report's conclusion that "the compliance framework to support APS institutional integrity does not currently require radical additional changes, noting the government's decision to consider the establishment of a Commonwealth Integrity Commission."

The APS does suffer from several major integrity problems the fixing of which will require drastic action. Some of these are alluded to in attachments to Sedgwick's report but perhaps because he doesn't see "an integrity problem", his suggestions essentially revolve around better process - common language, clarification of expectations, a "stocktake of metrics" and improved training and awareness.

The most serious integrity problem in the APS at the moment is the use of tens of thousands of contractors and labour hire to perform line jobs in departments and agencies with duties indistinguishable from those of public servants. This abuses the policy intent of provisions in the Constitution and legislation requiring jobs in the service to be filled via the merit recruitment provisions of the Public Service Act. It's likely many current such engagements outside of the Act are illegal. Moreover, they reduce the chances of citizens to openly compete for public service jobs, compromise the accepted notion of a career service and open the door to nepotism and corruption. It's a problem the PSC has ignored. It's a disgrace. It should be a major public scandal.

Needless to say, the senior service staff consulted by Mr Sedgwick are sliding around the employment provisions of the Constitution and the Public Service Act and engaging labour hire and contractors on vast scales. While some say they want these people to behave according to the dictates of that Act, that's a mug's game; they cannot legally be covered by any of the Act's provisions, including its code of conduct and discipline laws. Moreover, rationalisations from senior staff reported in the press about how "utilising a blended workforce with the ability to call on contract or non-APS when needed is critical" display scant regard for legal obligations.

The PSC, which has not so far issued any relevant guidance, should tell departments that contractors and labour hire should not be used to do the work of line positions in the public service and that the non-ongoing provisions of the Public Service Act are the best, most efficient and proper way to cover temporary increases in workload.

Another point: The use of the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) to conduct investigations into allegations of ministerial misbehaviour is a major procedural failure affecting integrity. It is bad enough that so many ministers set poor examples whether it be the rorting of community grants, Robo-debt or refusing to account. The PM&C Secretary, an officer subordinate to the Prime Minister and dependent on him for his job, should not be required to investigate ministerial indiscretions where the Prime Minister has a clear interest in getting "clean bills of health" reports. This imports a conflict of interest into the system.

Finally, when the secretary of a major department resigns on Friday and joins the board of a company in the finance industry when his department had been providing advice about financial regulations, without going through administrative procedures for post separation employment, something is badly wrong. Therefore, Thodey's recommendation for legislation for post separation employment should be adopted.

There are more such procedural changes that should be made. They should have been kicked along by Mr Sedgwick's report; they were not. Integrity will be primarily and most effectively promoted by quietly fixing manifest inadequacies in the current regulatory framework. For the moment, advances in good governance and the public interest are apparently to be left with whatever benefit can be ground from exhortations about common language, clearer expectations, more training, a metrics "stocktake", etc. Good luck with that.