Embedding Australian Public Service management reforms: The Secretary could not make it so

Abstract

Public sector leaders in the Australian Public Service (APS) can learn from the demise of programme evaluation introduced as part of managing for results reforms, as they implement the evaluation of agency performance outcomes under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act (2013) (PGPA). This paper demonstrates that public sector management reforms require more than top‐down initiation by agency heads and that implementation needs to occur over an extended time frame. Although there has been increased communication of APS agencies’ purpose in annual reports, as required by the PGPA Act (2013), ambiguity continues in relation to how planned performance aligns with performance outcomes. The potential for inertia and resistance to management reforms from middle managers and employees may also re‐emerge where there is insufficient training to develop their skills to conduct performance evaluations; skills shortages and inertia from middle managers and employees may also be more evident in geographically dispersed APS offices. To increase the potential for performance reporting and evaluation reforms to be embedded, central agency and agency public sector leaders need to work together to reinforce the value of these reforms, particularly where government ministers or governments change.

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“…• The discretion secretaries have in choosing whether to evaluate programs or not (Gruen 2018;Graves 2020), and departments' preference for using other performance measures such as case studies and quantitative information, which are less troublesome. • The high turnover of secretaries in the APS, which undermines the embedding of public administration reforms, added to the lack of evaluation skills (Graves et al 2021). • The lack of systematic learning in the APS.…”

Management of Innovations by Increasing the Efficiency of Innovation Activity of the Enterprise

“…Depending on variables including firm size, geographic location, and performance levels, businesses may view barriers in the business environment differently Furthermore, managers may use strategies like management accounting procedures to subtly oppose changes, especially when neoliberal reforms are involved [11]. Employees and middle managers may also be resistant to management reforms, particularly if they have not had enough training to acquire the skills required for performance reviews [12]. These difficulties draw attention to the difficulties in implementing organizational change and the necessity of using calculated methods to get past opposition and promote a reform-friendly culture.…”