[Kharon]

The quiet, but persistent beating of distant drums.  The Mandarin is a superb publication which just as quietly and persistently keeps presenting top quality reporting of important matters.  I don’t even begin to understand ‘politics’ and apart from the antics of our ‘aviation agencies’ have little interest in the machinations of the governmental departments; but reading the Mandarin is becoming a habit.  It simply gives you a clear window into the ‘the way things are’. 

Anyway, FWIW I thought it worth it’s own thread.

For example – HERE.  Now to my simple mind, this is a warning of clear and present danger for the ASA.

Federal agencies are still falling short of full compliance with a Senate Standing Order introduced in 2001 to improve the public transparency of government contracting, according to the auditor general Grant Hehir.

The order requires ministers to table lists of all significant contracts and agreements in their respective portfolio areas, highlighting those that contain confidentiality clauses of any sort and outlining the justifications for them.

Then, there’s this:-

“It’s all led by the tone at the top. When we started we had wonderful support at senior levels of government, so you got a real culture change. But after about a year or so it became clear – and this is during Labor – that government doesn’t like FOI and it’s acceptable, it’s culturally, acceptable to thwart FOI requests.

“Except in the early days, when the initiative was being led by John Faulkner and Joe Ludwig, the tone was as antagonistic to FOI as it has been under the present government.”

“There’s a lot of political horse-playing around who is the most secretive government. In my experience there was a lack of enthusiasm from both sides of politics. Senior people in government just don’t like FOI."

One of the greatest bug-bears and most complained about features of dealing with ‘the agencies’ is obtaining essential information under the FOI act.  

Are the winds of change actually starting, under Turnbull to blow about the ‘corridors of power’; or is it just more meaningless rhetoric?  

Time will tell, but thank you Mandarin for keeping us well informed.  Cyber Tim Tams for morning tea; delivered...

[Peetwo]

The quiet, but persistent beating of distant drums.  The Mandarin is a superb publication which just as quietly and persistently keeps presenting top quality reporting of important matters.  I don’t even begin to understand ‘politics’ and apart from the antics of our ‘aviation agencies’ have little interest in the machinations of the governmental departments; but reading the Mandarin is becoming a habit.  It simply gives you a clear window into the ‘the way things are’. 

Anyway, FWIW I thought it worth it’s own thread.

For example – HERE.  Now to my simple mind, this is a warning of clear and present danger for the ASA.

Federal agencies are still falling short of full compliance with a Senate Standing Order introduced in 2001 to improve the public transparency of government contracting, according to the auditor general Grant Hehir.

The order requires ministers to table lists of all significant contracts and agreements in their respective portfolio areas, highlighting those that contain confidentiality clauses of any sort and outlining the justifications for them.

Then, there’s this:-

“It’s all led by the tone at the top. When we started we had wonderful support at senior levels of government, so you got a real culture change. But after about a year or so it became clear – and this is during Labor – that government doesn’t like FOI and it’s acceptable, it’s culturally, acceptable to thwart FOI requests.

“Except in the early days, when the initiative was being led by John Faulkner and Joe Ludwig, the tone was as antagonistic to FOI as it has been under the present government.”

“There’s a lot of political horse-playing around who is the most secretive government. In my experience there was a lack of enthusiasm from both sides of politics. Senior people in government just don’t like FOI."

One of the greatest bug-bears and most complained about features of dealing with ‘the agencies’ is obtaining essential information under the FOI act.  

Are the winds of change actually starting, under Turnbull to blow about the ‘corridors of power’; or is it just more meaningless rhetoric?  

Time will tell, but thank you Mandarin for keeping us well informed.  Cyber Tim Tams for morning tea; delivered...

From Stevie E today...

Ethics in program evaluation, from Nuremberg to the NHMRC

---

by
Stephen Easton
06.10.2015



Ethics, as it applies to any research involving humans, cannot be ignored by public servants running policy and program evaluations. But if the slow process of going through an ethics committee can be avoided, perhaps it should be.

All research using human subjects or information about specific people must respect the enduring ethical principles famously enshrined in the 1947 Nuremberg Code, and that includes policy and program evaluations.

In the Australian Public Service, the PGPA reforms have triggered a need for agencies to brush up on evaluation and quality assurance activities. With that in mind, Canberra Evaluation Forum participants discussed human research ethics in the context of evaluation at their most recent get-together, and heard from two public servants who are knee-deep in the subject.

“Examples of human research include interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, chat rooms, testing,” explained Gary Kent, who heads up the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s governance unit. Kent gave the CEF a general overview of the subject and the work of the AIHW ethics committee.

“You can also talk about obtaining specimens from people, like DNA or blood or something else. All of that is human research. It doesn’t have to involve the physical body. It can even be interviewing someone, because there are ethical issues even in talking to someone. Even in a focus group, issues arise.”

Of course, there are no ethical problems with using aggregate data which genuinely cannot be linked back to individuals.

The current Australian version of the principles set out in Nuremberg is contained in a National Health and Medical Research Council statement, last updated in May. The four key values are: respect, research merit and integrity, justice, and beneficence.

At the same time, other laws like the Privacy Act and those that define and govern public services also demand high standards of ethics and respect for the rights of the individual. Such concepts are pretty clear and well established, but what about the rights of whole communities, wondered Australian National Audit Office senior audit director Richard Lansdowne.

“The one that comes quickly to mind is indigenous communities, and there’s about eight or nine sets of rules and regulations governing how you relate with those communities,” Kent explained.

“[Some regulations] are about how you engage with the indigenous people as a whole. They require, for example, that you have an indigenous expert as a consultant or on your committee [and] you’re encouraged to have a relationship with the local indigenous community structure of some sort. There is an indigenous human research committee of South Australia, for example.”

A practical example

Kyleigh Heggie from the Department of Veterans Affairs Human Research Ethics Committee presented an overview of a recent telehealth trial. The DVA committee, which has been around since 1993 and will merge with the broader Defence committee (ADHREC) in 2017, had to decide if the trial would do more harm than good for its elderly participants.

Ethical reviews are no a tick-and-flick process, Heggie explained.

“A lot of proposals that come by us are probably under par, and our ethics committee has a definite interest in robust, rigorous research; that means it must be ethical,” she said, adding that in a past job, she saw lots of proposals for “pretty cowboy” research that involved criminals in custody and victims of crime.

Telehealth equipment allows health professionals to remotely monitor certain vital signs of patients, and has been shown to assist with the management of certain chronic conditions. But the DVA trial would also involve risks of harm: significant intrusion into the homes and lives of veterans with chronic diseases, as well as digital collection, transmission and storage of their medical information.

One of the key questions the committee looked at was how much merit there was in the proposal. Telehealth has its success stories, but as with most emergent technology, it also has its cheer squad of companies that make money from it whether it works or not.

“Were we being sucked in to this new wave of technology? Was it worth it? This was something the ethics committee were very keen to address,” said Heggie.

The trial has apparently been successful for at least some of the participants, and has been extended by 18 months. The forum heard DVA has had complaints from the participants or their families. Heggie also confirmed that the evaluation of the telehealth trial and the trial itself needed separate ethics approvals.

“We don’t allow any programs [involving veterans] to operate without ethics approval,” she said. “The evaluation … may have very different approaches to dealing with the participants, so any evaluation has to have independent ethics approval as well.”

When to worry about ethics, and how much to worry

As one CEF participant pointed out, the NHMRC offers guidance on ethics in evaluation and recognises a difference between quality assurance activities and more complex human research. But makes no clear distinction between the two:

In some circumstances, attempts to clearly separate QA from research are unhelpful. Moreover, QA, evaluation and research exist on a continuum of activity, and work that begins as one form of activity can evolve into another over time.
Importantly, QA and evaluation commonly involve minimal risk, burden or inconvenience to participants, and, while some level of oversight is necessary, Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) review processes are often not the optimal pathway for review of these activities.
What really matters is that:

• participants in QA/evaluation are afforded appropriate protections and respect;
  
• QA and/or evaluation is undertaken to generate outcomes that are used to assess and/or improve service provision;
  
• those who undertake QA and/or evaluation adhere to relevant ethical principles and state, territory and Commonwealth legislation;
  
• organisations provide guidance and oversight to ensure activities are conducted ethically including a pathway to address concerns.
  

DVA “doesn’t see the difference” between the two, according to Heggie.

“This is my opinion, not DVA’s: there’s a fine line between research and evaluation and a lot of companies skirt around it, saying it’s evaluation when it’s possibly research; actually, mainly research,” she said. “And there’s much more structure around ethical research than ethical evaluation.”

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection doesn’t have an ethics committee, explained one delegate, but relies on the ethical guidelines for Australasian Evaluation Society members. DIBP has also availed itself of private firms that can be employed to provide independent ethical oversight for “a large international project” that involved identifiable individuals, the forum heard.

The AIHW does not link evaluation and ethics and if it does undertake evaluation, it’s a separate process the ethics committee isn’t involved in, according to Kent. “We don’t have any concept of ethically approved evaluation at the Institute,” he said.

Former senior public servant Stephen Bartos, fresh from a stint as parliamentary budget officer in New South Wales, suggested ethical approvals could be avoided altogether for some quality assurance work.

“Almost every evaluation involves some research of some sort, but it in many cases requires no ethical clearance at all, even if it involves human subjects,” Bartos contended.

“As Gary knows, I did some work for AIHW that involves human subjects and I never got ethical clearance, mainly because the subjects were the members of the AIHW board, so we considered they were big and bold enough to make informed consent for themselves.”

The public administration pundit reminded the forum that ethics committee processes have a downside: they slow everything down. He said that as a university professor, he avoided going through the process whenever he could because it could have delayed the work by about six months.

“Committees are a wonderful mechanism for taking good evaluation ideas down a long corridor and slowly smothering them to death under paperwork,” said Bartos. “It’s absolutely needed in the areas like health research that our speakers have been talking about, but there’s a range of others where probably the more appropriate mechanism is independent advice or assurance.”

CASA & ethics?- Yeah right!   

As usual very insightful from Stevie E but I am afraid ethics & CASA in the same sentence is laughable, especially when you consider who Chairs the Ethics and Conduct Committee:

2. Composition

2.1 The E&CC is comprised of six (6) permanent members and one or more non-permanent members.

2.2 The permanent members are:

2.2.1 the Associate Director of Aviation Safety (Chair of the E&CC);

2.2.2 the Deputy Director of Aviation Safety

2.2.3 the Manager, Governance Systems Branch

2.2.4 the Head, People and Performance

2.2.5 the General Counsel; and

2.2.6 the Industry Complaints Commissioner

Maybe the veracity & integrity of this committee could be severely tested with the introduction of OST's ten commandments, especially 8-10?

However given the dodgy past history of the ECC - & with the Doc still in charge - it is hard to see the 9th principle being given much oxygen, especially with Hoodoo's weasel words laced throughout - FFS!

9. CASA demonstrates proportionality and discretion in regulatory decision-making and exercises its powers in accordance with the principles of procedural fairness and natural justice

CASA will seek optimal safety outcomes in the exercise of its regulatory powers. On that basis and to that end, CASA will ensure that its actions and responses are appropriate and proportional to the circumstances.

In the first instance, and in the absence of demonstrable safety-related reasons for doing otherwise:

• CASA will adopt an approach to regulatory compliance based on the encouragement of training and education, with a view to remedying identified shortcomings and correcting specified deficiencies.
  
• Where the interests of safety require that a person's aviation-related privileges need to be limited, curtailed or suspended pending the rectification of identified shortcomings or specified deficiencies (including the satisfactory demonstration of requisite levels of skill or competence), voluntary mechanisms to achieve those objectives will be developed and employed.
  
• Where it is necessary in the demonstrable interests of safety for CASA to exercise discretionary powers in order to achieve a specified safety-related outcome, CASA will employ the least intrusive and least disruptive means consistent with the achievement of that outcome.
  
• CASA will not utilise its discretionary powers to vary or suspend a civil aviation authorisation for punitive or disciplinary purposes, but only for purposes reasonably calculated to achieve specified safety-related objectives, including the protection of persons and property pending the satisfactory demonstration by the person whose privileges have been, or are to be, varied or suspended, that the shortcomings or deficiencies giving rise to CASA's action have been effectively addressed.
  
  

In determining whether and how to exercise its regulatory discretion in a particular matter, CASA will have regard to:

• the seriousness of the safety-related implications of the instance of noncompliance under scrutiny;
  
• mitigating or aggravating circumstances impacting on the appropriateness of the responsive regulatory action(s) contemplated;
  
• the history and background of the person whose acts or omissions are under scrutiny, in relation to that person's demonstrated ability and willingness to comply with regulatory requirements;
  
• the passage of time since the acts or omissions under scrutiny occurred, and when they were discovered by, or otherwise came to the attention of, CASA;
  
• the degree of responsibility of the individual(s) whose acts or omissions are under scrutiny;
  
• the effect on the wider aviation community (including the general public) and confidence in CASA’s administration of the civil aviation legislation in the interests of safety;
  
• the obsolescence or obscurity of the law;
  
• whether the a contemplated regulatory response would be perceived as counter-productive, for example, by bringing the civil aviation legislation or CASA into disrepute;
  
• the availability and efficacy of appropriate alternatives to a particular regulatory response;
  
• whether the consequences of the regulatory action contemplated would be unduly harsh or oppressive;
  
• whether the matter is one of considerable public concern;
  
• the actual or potential harm occasioned to an individual or the damage to property; and
  
• whether the person whose acts or omissions are under regulatory scrutiny is (or has been) willing to co-operate with CASA in the efforts to address the particular matter to hand and/or to address relevant safety-related issues more generally.
  
  

The applicability of and weight to be given to these and other factors will depend on the particular circumstances of each case.

Beyond its legal obligation to do so in most cases, in all cases in which CASA exercises discretion in determining whether, and if so to what extent, a requirement will be imposed on a person, except where the interests of safety prevent it or it is otherwise demonstrably impracticable to do so, CASA will afford persons affected, or likely to be affected, by a decision with an appropriate measure of procedural fairness and natural justice.

To highlight the confusion in definition the 9th C is already creating, here is an email from Sandy to various parties posing perfectly valid QONs:

Dear (??????),


In light of the fact that much of CASA's regulation is now part of the criminal code and codified as strict liability.

Quote (in part) from no. 9 of the new CASA code of conduct.

• In determining whether and how to exercise its regulatory discretion in a particular matter, CASA will have regard to:
  
•  the history and background of the person whose acts or omissions are under scrutiny, in relation  that person's demonstrated ability and willingness to comply with regulatory requirements;
  

Is this procedural fairness? By my understanding previous history is not taken into account in criminal proceedings until sentencing. I expect the reasoning is to avoid prejudice. 

Should CASA have "regulatory discretion" as opposed to "discretion"? 

What does this mean? When the law is so complex, harsh in penalties, intolerably lengthy, prescriptive and ever changing then we definitely have rule by discretionary interpretation, not the rule of law. The practical limits of law making have been well and truly exceeded, at enormous cost to General Aviation.

Sandy

In addition to Sandy's excellent QON?? If industry is to believe there is now a fundamental change - in the previous Sociopathic persecution culture - within CASA (with OST's 10C), then there needs to be an amnesty on all obvious past & current cases of embuggerance, i.e. a clearing of the decks.

If this doesn't occur then I would suggest that Oliver's 10C will be seen as yet another cynical attempt to placate the IOS until such time as resistance is eroded through attrition...
 
 
MTF...P2

[P7_TOM]

Oh dear – a decade and a relapse.

FWIW from the ABC, who do (bless ‘em) keep trying.   The Miniscule for Pink Bats has an epiphany (or flash back). 

How deep will any investigation dig; not too deep at all.   Too many tales, told too often to make the news?  No doubt it will fizzle out, no great surprise and just another non sequitur story from the gutter press.   Do flash cakes made to look like aircraft count? or are they just a perk?

Wouldn't rate a mention if MKR was on 'telly'.

[Peetwo]

Here you go P7 this might help, a summary of the 7:30 report segment, courtesy the Oz:

Peter Garrett rethinks claims of ‘welcome’ money from Clubs NSW

• The Australian
  
• October 7, 2015 12:00AM
  
• 
  Journalist
  Sydney
  Gina Rushton is a Journalist at The Australian. She has previously worked as a publicist and media assistant.
  
  

Former Labor minister and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett has backflipped over his revelations that he was offered “hundreds, if not thousands of dollars” by Clubs NSW soon after entering federal politics in 2004.

Mr Garrett told the makers of an upcoming ABC documentary, Kaching! Pokie Nation, that he was handed an envelope by a “representative” at a function hosted by clubs and hotels.

“It was hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to accept money from them or from anyone in that way.”

The event was “put on to welcome” him into federal politics, he said. He then claimed, in the interview and in his upcoming autobiography, he rejected the bribe and returned the envelope.

But after he was contacted by the ABC’s 7.30 program yesterday, the former member for the Sydney seat of Kingsford-Smith retracted his comments and changed his story after allegedly speaking with his former staffer Kate Pasterfield.

In his new version of events, the envelope contained a cheque addressed to his electoral council rather and the incident was before his political career.

The new recollection, which publisher Allen & Unwin and documentary makers will use to update their respective book and film, would mean the offence of bribery or attempted bribery of a public official would not apply.

“If somebody gives a newly appointed politician an envelope with a large amount of cash in it, that strikes you immediately as highly suspicious and possibly an attempt to bribe,” Robert Wyld from the International Bar Association told the ABC.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said the incident was a “blatant attempt” to curry favour with a politician. “If we end up back at where this all started, that someone in the poker machine industry offered him what a reasonable person would see as a bribe, then there needs to be an investigation by an appro­priate authority,” Mr Wilkie said.

Clubs NSW told ABC it did not make any payment in any form to Mr Garrett. Mr Garrett could not be contacted.

This story has now developed on AP due to the recent interest in 'conflict of interest', perceived or otherwise, of some of our senior execs within the aviation safety bureaucracy..

From off Shame 4 @warrentrussmp the opening in a mini-series called - Troughfeeders & Spin-doctors  

The captured man test.


Last night I was watching the 7:30 report on the tin foil fairy denying being captured by the pokie Clubs (careful has a PG rating... ): From 09:30 minutes - 07:30 Report 06 Oct 2015

Airservices partners with RAeS
11 Sep 2015

Airservices' Rob Walker (left) with RAeS Australian president John Vincent

Can’t see what the Wilkie fuss is about  This fellow isn’t captive, or beholding...

Skidmore said it was an honour to have been recognised by the Royal Aeronautical Society as a Fellow.

“I look forward to being able to support the ideals of the society and further aviation safety in this great nation of ours,” Skidmore said.



RAeS Australia division president John Vincent presents CASA director of aviation safety Mark Skidmore with his certificate of Fellowship of the Royal Aeronautical Society. (RAeS)

Nope - Neither is this one, no conflict there.

 These guys are just sharing afternoon tea made by the CWA, no possible conflict there.




And here we have an airline executive simply showing concern for his passenger's well being and OHS rules.



Nothing to see here P7 aviation is as clean as a whistle

Move along nothing to see here!


MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

Oh boys, c'mon now, firstly don't forget that Politicians have the word 'honourable' in front of their title and name, so it can't be true. Secondly, envelopes filled with cash and free hand cranks at the local 'rub n tug' is so 1980's! Today's more savvy crooked Pollie prefers a directors role with a favoured company once he leaves office, or a plum consultant role worth a cool Million bucks for a few months work, or a house extension on their Potts Point mansion, jobs for families and friends, insider trading knowledge, or a directors role with a construction and development company that has inherited some airport land dirt cheap, or similar tasty trough morsels, that's the way it is done today! Not envelopes filled with cash you silly boys.

Today's crooked Pollie isn't a dribbling sloth or grubby buffoon like Russ Hinze or a stuttering retarded peanut farmer from Kingaroy, no today's crooked Pollie has silver hair, wears Armani suits and speaks articulately while holding an MBA or PHD.

Aagh yes, times have changed, but the greed and corruption remains. Same gift, just wrapped in a different parcel.

"Overflowing troughs for some"

[Peetwo]

Oh boys, c'mon now, firstly don't forget that Politicians have the word 'honourable' in front of their title and name, so it can't be true. Secondly, envelopes filled with cash and free hand cranks at the local 'rub n tug' is so 1980's! Today's more savvy crooked Pollie prefers a directors role with a favoured company once he leaves office, or a plum consultant role worth a cool Million bucks for a few months work, or a house extension on their Potts Point mansion, jobs for families and friends, insider trading knowledge, or a directors role with a construction and development company that has inherited some airport land dirt cheap, or similar tasty trough morsels, that's the way it is done today! Not envelopes filled with cash you silly boys.

Today's crooked Pollie isn't a dribbling sloth or grubby buffoon like Russ Hinze or a stuttering retarded peanut farmer from Kingaroy, no today's crooked Pollie has silver hair, wears Armani suits and speaks articulately while holding an MBA or PHD.

Aagh yes, times have changed, but the greed and corruption remains. Same gift, just wrapped in a different parcel.

"Overflowing troughs for some"

Perfect example here Gobbles (check out the bits in bold)

Wendy Craik appointed Climate Change Authority chair

---

Wendy Craik

Former National Farmers Federation head Wendy Craik has been named chair of the Climate Change Authority board, following the resignation of Bernie Fraser last month.
The federal government has appointed four others, including Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Kate Carnell, Howard government transport minister John Sharp and Frontier Economics energy expert Danny Price and BidEnergy chief executive Stuart Allinson.

Quorum has been restored to the board, which was lost after the departure of Fraser and the failure of the government to replace other members who had left over the previous 18 months.

Craik was commissioner of the Productivity Commission from 2009 to 2014, and is currently deputy chancellor for the University of South Australia, chair of the NSW Marine Estate Management Authority and a member of the advisory board for the Centre for Strategy and Governance.

Allinson will sit as acting chair until Craik assumes the role, expected in the next few weeks. Allinson and Price were involved in the creation of the government’s Direct Action policy.

The decision was made under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott and adopted by Malcolm Turnbull after a cabinet discussion, reports The Australian newspaper.

Relations between the CCA under Fraser and the Abbott government were uneasy. The government had promised to abolish the CCA until it reached a deal with the Palmer United Party in October last year to save the organisation by funding an 18-month inquiry into whether Australia should have an emissions trading scheme, despite the government remaining opposed to carbon pricing. This work is to continue.

The CCA is charged with undertaking reviews and making recommendations to government on emissions reduction targets and other climate change-related policy areas.

Perhaps the Sharpie appointment may come home to bite 'Malcolm in the middle'? Or maybe not when you consider that the former Howard Miniscule for Transport apparently plays on both sides of the political fence...

While we are on AK from the Oz and on a somewhat related topic - remember this?

Rex airline freebies ‘so MPs better informed’  

• by: ANTHONY KLAN
  
• From: The Australian
  
• February 25, 2015 12:00AM
  

Journalist
Sydney


REGIONAL airline Rex yesterday claimed to have given federal ALP and National Party politicians hundreds of free flights — worth more than $130,000 — in a bid to explain why it made $385,000 in disclosed political ­donations in 2012.  

Convening the listed airline’s half-year results yesterday, Rex deputy chairman John Sharp said that the donated flights were for ­“politicians to get out into regional Australia” in order to be “better ­informed”.

“We made these donations ­because we felt the elections were coming in 2013 and we felt it was very important that the federal leaders get out to the bush and ­explain themselves to the bush,” Mr Sharp said.

Separately, Mr Sharp is the ­federal treasurer of the National Party and was a federal transport minister under John Howard before resigning in 1997 after a travel rorts affair, which saw fellow ­ministers David Jull and Peter ­McGauran also forced to resign.

Political donations made by Rex have raised questions after it emerged the relatively small listed company declared $385,700 in political donations in 2012, making it one of the nation’s biggest ­donors that year.

The declared donations inclu­ded gifts of $250,000 to the federal ALP, $95,700 to the federal National Party and $40,000 to the federal Liberal Party.

(The only other political donations the company had ever made was $3486 to the ALP in the year to June 2004.)

Rex reported an after-tax profit of $14.01m for the 2012-13 financial year, and paid no dividends to shareholders. At the time Rex was making those 2012 donations — between July and November — the company was subject to an ­investigation by the ATSB into the 2009 crash of an aircraft operated under its Pel-Air brand off Norfolk Island.

That investigation attracted controversy after it emerged, in August 2012, that the ATSB report had failed to mention 57 breaches or “serious deficiencies” at Pel-Air, which had been identified in a ­separate report by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

That revelation sparked a parli­amentary inquiry that reported in December, leading the federal government to call on the ATSB to launch a new probe into the ­accident.

Mr Sharp and Rex chief executive Lim Kim Hai both strenuously denied the donations had been made with the view to seek influence in any way.

“We had no dealings other than proper dealings,” Mr Sharp said.

Mr Sharp said the second draft of the ATSB report into the Norfolk Island crash had been submitted in the first half of 2012, before Rex had made the donations.

When asked why Rex had made the donations, Mr Lim said: “It’s a big country, Australia, and there are a lot of Labor politicians.

“Many didn’t understand the issues that were happening in the industry.”

However, the ultimate recipients of the flights remained unclear, with ALP national secretary George Wright yesterday telling The Australian the flights had been used by party campaigners.

“It’s a contribution to the federal office of the ALP and used for campaigning,” Mr Wright said.

“It is not a contribution to MPs.”

Under parliamentary disclosure rules, MPs must disclose any travel or hospitality received where the value exceeds $300.

Rex has repeatedly declined to comment when asked by The Australian why the donations were made.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon — who was part of a Senate inquiry into the Pel-Air crash — has previously described the Rex donations as “incredibly baffling”.

Mr Sharp said yesterday that the donations had been in-kind to the political parties in the form of free flights.

Mr Li said the ALP had used about $40,000 of the $250,000 in free flights offered, which was “about 100” flights.

Mr Sharp said he believed that the federal National Party had redeemed the full $95,700 worth of flights offered, while the federal Liberal Party had not used any of the $40,000 worth of flights it was offered.

Mr Li said Rex flights typically were about 55 per cent full, which meant the cost to shareholders of the donations was minimal.

Rex shares closed down 10 per cent yesterday at 98c.

Do you know more? klana@theaustralian.com.au

Ahh what a murky mess Bronny's Choppergate scandal may have lifted the lid on.
Take a look at this story on Minister Truss from the Daily Telegraph yesterday... :

Warren Truss private charter will cost taxpayers thousands  

• by: EXCLUSIVE Geoff Chambers and Daniel Meers
  
• From: The Daily Telegraph
  
• August 03, 2015 12:00AM
  

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss boards a private charter plane at Port Macquarie airport/ Picture: Nathan Edwards Source: News Corp Australia

TAXPAYERS will be slugged thousands of dollars for a private charter flight Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss took after a sod-turning ceremony last week as NSW MPs at the same event boarded a commercial flight.  

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Mr Truss took the private plane from Port Macquarie to Sydney while other politicians flew with Qantas.

Mr Truss, accompanied by an adviser, boarded a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 last Thursday afternoon at the peak of the charter flight scandal that triggered Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation.

The MP had been one of Mrs Bishop’s strongest supporters, describing some critics’ views as “exaggerated”.

“There are some who would take the view that if a member took a bus he was wasting money and should be walking,” he said last week.

Mr Truss was driven to a special charter plane entrance at Port Macquarie airport by local federal MP David Gillespie. Shortly after he left on the charter plane, Baird government ministers Duncan Gay and Niall Blair were seen boarding a Qantas flight.

BRONWYN BISHOP RESIGNS AS SPEAKER

The Daily Telegraph understands there were no delays on Qantas flights leaving Port Macquarie on Thursday.

Mr Truss had travelled to the state’s mid-north coast — a 385km trip — despite responsibilities as Transport Minister overseeing the MH370 search.

A spokesman for Mr Truss said the Nationals leader “had a series of commitments in the Port Macquarie area”.

“The Hastings River Bridge event was a joint announcement with the NSW government and so its timing needed to be co-ordinated with Mr Gay who also had other engagements on the day,” he said.



Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss boards a private charter plane at Port Macquarie airport / Picture: Nathan Edwards Source: News Corp Australia

“The Deputy PM had an evening commitment at the Boao Forum for Asia in Sydney. This would have been extremely tight for his Boao commitment and the high risk that the Hastings River media conference would go overtime given the high level of interest on that day surrounding both the bridge event and debris found on Reunion Island.

“Accordingly, the DPM’s office booked a charter for the ­return flight.”

The Wide Bay MP has been attacked by Queensland media for using a $21,000 charter flight from Canberra and ­Brisbane to give a post-budget speech at the Conservative Breakfast Club last May.

Sydney-based charter operators can charge up to $3500 per flight hour to hire the propeller planes.

Like the Speaker’s office, Mr Truss is entitled to use charter travel under current parliamentary provisions.

MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

"Like the Speaker’s office, Mr Truss is entitled to use charter travel under current parliamentary provisions".

Yes indeed. A nice provision in which taxpayers are robbed of thousands of dollars because some poor possum had a tight schedule! That is a bullshit provision. How about the same provision be built into the tax system so that us common folk can commandeer a plane when we have too many engagements to attend?
F#ck him, he spent thousands instead of $40 in fuel?? Tough. Sit in your shitty infrastructure Truss like the rest of us do wasting hours of our valuable time. Your 'appointment' wasn't urgent enough to spend that kind of money.

OINK OINK

[Peetwo]

Fear of failure & admitting failure? -

Excellent article fresh off the Mandarin today...

Halton: get over the fear of failure or drown in red tape

---

A report on internal red tape commissioned by federal mandarins has been completed and is being considered for public release, as federal public servants try to tackle the intense fear of failure that permeates government.

According to Department of Finance secretary Jane Halton, the “zero tolerance” attitude to risk cannot continue otherwise internal red tape will keep piling up as fast as bureaucrats can cut it back, particularly in the emerging paradigm of digital disruption.

The Australian Public Service Secretaries Board has received the report from an internal red tape review by Barbara Belcher, an official held in high regard on both sides of the aisle who retired in 2009 after 44 years serving mainly in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Belcher’s observations could well be valuable to state and territory public service heads, and its public release would also allow input from independent experts and, as a Department of Finance official pointed out in Senate Estimates on Tuesday, promote public understanding of what’s happening inside the APS.

Opposition Senator Katy Gallagher remarked in Tuesday’s Finance and Public Administration hearing that cutting red tape is one of those “never-ending” jobs for public servants. “Totally,” agreed Halton.

“It is going to be [a] challenge for public sector agencies … in this world of disruption, to balance sensible deregulation and reform against accountability, transparency, efficiency and the effective use of taxpayers’ funds,” remarked Gallagher, to Halton’s enthusiastic agreement.

“If you overlay disruption on a culture that says you have to manage risk to zero on absolutely everything, you will end up with more red tape than you can poke a stick at,” said the Finance boss.

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That is where the new approach to risk, also a feature of internal reforms, comes into play.

“Part of the problem is that the public sector is never allowed to fail at anything,” observed Gallagher, who was ACT chief minister from mid-2011 to the end of last year.

Both agreed there needs to be more up-front acknowledgement that government programs have a risk of failure just like other endeavours, rather than typical government communications that over-promise when new projects are introduced and try to avoid shining a light on failures.

“It is going to require a big cultural change,” said Gallagher. “For example, if you look at all the annual reports that have recently been tabled, it is pretty hard to find an example in those of where something went wrong.

“But, knowing what I know, there definitely would have been something that went wrong in your department, Ms Halton, last financial year.

“The culture we have is not one that embraces that sort of thing — and I know that people would put those sorts of things in headlights if you did report them more openly.”
Renee Leon, secretary of the Department of Employment, made similar comments at a recent public administration conference. But Leon went further, suggesting departments should “remind ministers that things will go wrong” sometimes and support them to “lay the groundwork” for a greater acceptance of failure in their public speeches rather over-promising at the outset.

The Secretaries Board is “minded to pick up” Belcher’s recommendations, according to Halton’s first assistant secretary for accountability projects, Stephen Clively. He said Finance is still deciding how to deal with the report, and allocating responsibilities for parts of its advice that lie beyond the department’s purview.

He also said its public release was “under consideration” by the Secretaries Board via its subcommittee focused on transforming the APS, but suggested Finance had requested its release for “transparency [and] more importantly, for public understanding”.

A lot of internal red tape is imaginary in a sense, according to Halton, consisting of needlessly thorough processes that have been developed to ensure compliance with rules, but are not in fact mandatory.

Clively said public servants need to stop thinking of regulation as “the first way of meeting an objective” and explained that internal red tape reduction was part of the wider internal management reforms the department is leading.

I wonder if you could include 20 odd years, & $300+million reg reform failure by CASA as a classic example in point - maybe Murky could make a historical presentation of the CASA regulatory reform program to the Australian Public Service Secretaries Board  when next they meet...

MTF..P2

[Kharon]

Cheers P2 - Another nicely done piece from the Mandarin – reflecting a mature, balanced, considered opinion and a way forward which will be to everyone’s advantage. From the big picture of global economics to the micro management of daily, routine matters.

“It is going to be [a] challenge for public sector agencies … in this world of disruption, to balance sensible deregulation and reform against accountability, transparency, efficiency and the effective use of taxpayers’ funds,” remarked Gallagher, to Halton’s enthusiastic agreement.

Much like the Rev. Forsyth’s report to the minister: it has the same chances of survival as a snowflake in hell, unless the PM waves his magic wand and makes it happen.  But will he; and, can he get some of the lazy ministers to actually get off their collective beam ends and actually do something positive rather than neutral?  Those boys and girls are the big questions.

[Kharon]

David Donaldson.  The Mandarin.

“There needs to be a strong message from all levels of government that policymakers are expected to find and use evidence to inform policy,” he told The Mandarin. “You never go to cabinet without a legal and communications input, and you shouldn’t be going to cabinet without an evidence workout.”

Not a bad idea. 

[Peetwo]

David Donaldson.  The Mandarin.

“There needs to be a strong message from all levels of government that policymakers are expected to find and use evidence to inform policy,” he told The Mandarin. “You never go to cabinet without a legal and communications input, and you shouldn’t be going to cabinet without an evidence workout.”

Not a bad idea. 

The one page pitch; Silos/Forts & a secret squirrel Mandarin?

Very interesting "K", though like most things in the rarefied atmosphere of the Mandarins it all seems surreal, unattached from reality when compared to the methodical, Mephistophelian way in which Murky Mandarin controls the Aviation Safety portfolio & agencies  - e.g Nick Xenophon - The surrogate Minister for Aviation??

This bit pricked my interest:

The problem is not so much that the evidence isn’t there, it’s that governments don’t tend to use it systematically or transparently. Even expert review panels can end up making decisions based on their own values, rather than the latest evidence, if processes are not in place, he argues.

The solution is to give such reviews support, ensuring a synthesis of the research is included as an input to the decision-making process, that the panel includes an expert on research methods and that decisions are transparently backed up with the evidence that was used.

Think Forsyth review panel?? Which was very much evidence based with over 269 industry submissions reviewed, plus many hours of receiving oral evidence from various industry witnesses.

Ironically the industry & government, with one or two suggested variances, accepted pretty much all recommendations in principle. However it is the bureaucracy that is putting the brakes on implementing the review report. With Skidmore having the audacity to suggest that the review report was just one view on the regulatory review process and that he would continue to consult with stakeholders ('read' divide & conquer) with an implementation date of 2030. By which time the GA industry will be dead, buried & cremated and there will be no need to implement any of the Forsyth review recommendations...  

Moving on an if we accept that Murky's mob are the exception rather than the rule, then the aviation industry is being seriously disadvantaged when compared to other areas of the bureaucracy. Especially since Abbott got turfed for Turnbull.

Harley D drew attention to an excellent Oz article - see here - that Turnbull's newly appointed head Mandarin wrote:

Federal public service opens doors to let in fresh ideas  

• by: Michael Thawley
  
• From: The Australian
  
• October 30, 2015 12:00AM
  

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: Supplied

Doors are important. I wasn’t expecting to find quite so many closed ones when I returned to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet after a gap of nearly 20 years. Every work group seemed hermetically sealed behind its own door. To reach any colleagues — even to get out of my own door — I had to swipe my access card.  

What signal, I wondered, are we sending about the value we place on sharing ideas in an interconnected world? If I wanted some ferment and accidental exchanges, would I be better off in the Hideout coffee shop across the road? I doubt they could cope, so we have now opened all our internal doors except in the national security areas.

The public service more widely must open its doors to the outside world. We must reach out more to the private sector, universities, think tanks, not-for-profits, state governments and other countries. We must invite into our ranks colleagues from outside who have expertise and useful experience.

Likewise, public servants can gain a lot from working in the private sector. Short secondments are useful, but even better may be a company stint of five to 10 years or even longer. We should value people with careers that span different environments and expose them to life’s complexities. We will welcome back public servants who leave to gain a first-hand understanding of how business works. We may not want a revolving door, but we do want a door that revolves more readily.

PM&C therefore is making it easier for outsiders to take on jobs. We are advertising jobs not by hard-to-understand public service classifications but by the expertise and outcomes we want.

We are abandoning stilted selection criteria and asking for a one-page pitch explaining what you can achieve. If you need more, communicating with a time-constrained prime minister will come hard to you.

Public servants are fortunate to have more doors into government decision-making than anyone else. That imposes on us an obligation to put forward good ideas — and as persuasively as possible. A government rightly will draw on many sources of advice, but the public service has the advantage of being there every day.

Most of us join the public service not because we want a job for life. We aspire to make our country more successful and make a difference in the lives of Australians. This is why I often tell my colleagues not to give up on a good idea if it is rejected the first time. Just make sure the evidence and the argument are better next time.

Especially with reform, one has to keep pushing on all available doors. You never know which door may open or exactly when. You may sense a bit of give in one and find a spray of WD-40 will be enough to ease its opening. Other times you may need to amass overwhelming force and push through like a Wallabies scrum.

There is no point in hiring capable people if they can’t even get to the doors of their ministers.

Many would not expect, on joining the public service, to find so many barriers in their way — notably layers of hierarchy and unnecessarily complicated promotion systems.
No prime minister I’ve served has asked about the level of his briefer; prime ministers just want to hear from the person who knows the answer.

And what about the next generation of public servants? PM&C’s 2016 graduate intake comes from a wide range of backgrounds. We have purposefully looked for people who are open to new ventures.

As part of their first two years working with us, graduate recruits agree to two three-month rotations. One will be in a regional PM&C office working on programs with indigenous Australians and the other will be in the private sector — it could be a bank or a mining company, a pharmaceutical or insurance business, or a not-for-profit.

By the way, we would be interested to hear from philosophers, mathematicians, engineers or physicists with an interest in ­policy.

We want to work with people who have ideas, bring the broadest range of experience and are open to expanding their horizons and ours. That is how we will get the best results for Australia.

Our door is open!
Michael Thawley is secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

{Hmm..."K" (the bits in bold) I reckon we could get it down to a one page pitch for Boyd, that Malcolm could understand - what say you??  }

There is a common theme here , just can't relate it to our 'three stooges' & the supporting bunch of trough feeding bureaucrats  

Next was this excellent contribution from Stevie E last week

Collaboration is king, but ‘healthy silos’ may still have their place

---

by
Stephen Easton
26.10.2015



Employment secretary Renee Leon is embracing collaboration within and beyond government with “a bold new experiment” in collaborative, outcomes-focused outsourcing.

There is a keen awareness in the public sector that agencies can no longer exist as islands, but significant groundwork must be laid down before bridges of collaboration can be built. And it must be remembered that while silos get a bad rap, there remains value in demarcation.

Building the bridges of collaboration stronger and wider means building trust and sharing power through inclusive governance structures, as well as developing mutual commitment to shared purposes. But mandarins find it hard to share power and it takes time and effort to build trust and a shared language with other tribes. It’s much easier to just pull your own exclusive levers.

Mark Evans

Mark Evans, head of the University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, summarised for the IPAA ACT Division’s recent conference what senior public service executives said when asked why silos are still prominent:

“Because we are successful and powerful, and we have the capacity to act. Because it’s easier than working across boundaries. Because we all speak the same language and they don’t speak like us. Because we don’t trust the others.”

Collaborative governance means partnerships between public, private and civic organisations that achieve otherwise-impossible outcomes for the public, Evans says, quoting one of the top experts on the subject, Kirk Emerson. Contrary to the zealous pursuit of silo-breaking reforms, Evans says the research indicates collaborative governance is as much about “how you build healthy silos” as building trust and increasing opportunities for collaboration.

“The key is how we can get them to share that expertise and resources with other parties and governments,” Evans says.

The ACT’s top public servant, Kathy Leigh, has made the point that inter-agency teams are only valuable because their members bring different skills and experience together from different organisations. Too much time spent in an amorphous cross-agency space can mean those specialist skills atrophy.

“Whether you’re collaborating within government or outside it, we all have to remember to leave our egos outside the room.”

“Whether you’re collaborating within government or outside it, we all have to remember to leave our egos outside the room.”

At federal level, the increasing frequency of machinery-of-government (MoG) changes means seasoned public servants have a better understanding of the tribal cultures on their neighbouring islands than in the past, says Department of Employment secretary Renee Leon.

While MoGs can be stressful, Leon allows herself to joke about their upside: “I think we’re actually quite well placed these days for that kind of cross-departmental work, because we’ve all been MoG’d in and out of each other so many times that the people in the other department used to be our colleagues a month ago or a year ago, and we all do understand the pieces that we’re jointly working on.”

Leon shares the view that mutual trust and shared objectives are the foundations of collaboration. Her department is trying to break out of the old public service paradigm, she says:

“Whether you’re collaborating within government or outside it, we all have to remember to leave our egos outside the room. Recognise that those other people, whether we call them stakeholders or partners or competitors, they actually probably know a lot of stuff that we don’t.”

Jobactive: case-study in public-private collaboration

The outsourced employment services model established in the Howard government — which resulted in the department “micro-managing” providers — has recently undergone a renovation. Through its new jobactive contracts, the department is now less focused on making providers jump through hoops and follow specific processes, says Leon. It now takes more of a partnership approach and pays for results, rewarding the best performers by sending more business their way.

Renee Leon

Leon says the laissez-faire approach is “a bold new experiment” in service delivery which leaves providers to get on with it “pretty well in any way they like” within “broad parameters about integrity and accountability”.

“There’s a joint charter that’s about maintaining reputation and integrity, and making sure that we’re working together, so that their industry’s viable and that taxpayers’ money is well spent.”

It’s early days in this attempt to put the focus on outcomes, take a market stewardship approach and encourage innovative, collaborative service delivery.

“We encourage the providers to innovate, because that is how they’ll be able to do better in terms of producing outcomes,” says Leon. “We encourage them to collaborate with each other; this is a more tricky thing to do because obviously they’re competitors in their own region.”

The department rates providers against each other using a points system with incentives for collaboration built into it, she says. Providers might work together to funnel unemployed people towards big job generators like major construction projects.
Leon says they’re trying to overcome the lack of commercial instinct for collaboration partly by being the neutral party, “auspicing the conversations between them and potential employers through our own state network.”

In the youth employment space, the department is offering more money but also expecting 25% better results, and pushing providers to innovate and collaborate on “innovative youth trials” — a new grants program that encourages organisations to team up with other local youth support services and help young people overcome barriers to work, focused on disadvantaged students.

“We’re collaborating with the sector by giving them access to our data, letting them know how they’re performing, giving them access to the labour market analysis that we do as a department, and giving them the freedom to go and get the outcomes that we want,” says Leon.

She is confident the incentives are now aligned to discourage providers from abusing of the system, as a Four Corners report in February found happening to Job Services Australia. If something similar came out about the new system, she commented, ministers would be likely to clamp down on the freewheeling approach and demand a return to strict micro-management.

Technology and data sharing also helps reduce the risk of providers rorting the system.
“We share data with Centrelink, and we’re working on sharing it with the [Australian Taxation Office], so that in the background we can tell whether someone’s got a job or not without having to go through a whole lot of prescriptive checking via the providers,” the Employment secretary explains.

Permission to fail, Minister?
In a sign that risk appetite discussions within the public administration profession are having an impact, Leon admitted it might not all go according to plan. She hopes the current push in public administration circles towards a greater acceptance of risk will keep her bold experiment bubbling away:

“It’s kind of implicit in what I’ve said that we’re taking some risks around this, and often risk is what gets in the way of these types of freer collaboration being permitted to continue.

“I think the public service is often criticised as being risk averse and I’m sure you all know where a lot of the risk aversion comes from in the system, and that is how bad it looks for the minister when there’s some critical story on the front page.”

“We’re giving it a go, and we’ll learn from it and report on it in a transparent way, and put the learnings to use in what we do deliver.”

“We’re giving it a go, and we’ll learn from it and report on it in a transparent way, and put the learnings to use in what we do deliver.”

She also took a gentle swing at ministers who “overpromise” and then scramble to keep everything looking good, even when it isn’t. Public servants should remind ministers that sometimes things will go wrong and “you only get success by being prepared to take risks” to get less cumbersome, restrictive programs off the ground.

Departments could also help their political masters craft speeches that will “lay the groundwork” for them to explain later that some experiments have negative results, she suggested.

The Employment secretary explains the innovative youth trials are just that — trials — with the freedom for grant recipients to try new things and even if 50% don’t work, the learnings will have value.

“And that’s one of the features of government decision-making that would enable us to collaborate outside of government much more … if we were prepared, and if ministers were prepared, to say: ‘We don’t know how many jobs this will create; we’re giving it a go, and we’ll learn from it and report on it in a transparent way, and put the learnings to use in what we do deliver.”

“New Zealand is ahead of us in this space,” said Leon, explaining that the NZ social services department has a block of money it can spend with no policy proposal or special budgetary fiddling, just to trial new initiatives that aim to cut the nation’s welfare liability.

Having also embarked on a new round of stakeholder consultation — communication being the bedrock of any productive relationship — she says the challenge is not in asking the questions but listening to the answers.

“They may well tell us things that we find uncomfortable, that don’t mesh with our paradigm, that are going to cost more money, and I think that willingness of the public service to hear what really happens on the ground from private sector and community sector providers is one of the barriers that we can all overcome in order to get better at this, at the same time as convincing our political masters that it’s worth trying things and failing fast if you need to, in order to learn and improve.”

Finally from political 'commentariat' veteran Michelle Grattan, who also references the Michael Thawley Oz article:

Michelle Grattan: why won’t you talk to the media, mandarins?

---

by
Michelle Grattan
02.11.2015



Allowing the media into the policy process is not as scary as some mandarins think, the veteran political correspondent writes. When journalists had access to bureaucrats the public had more understanding.

Michael Thawley, surprised at finding so many closed doors — requiring swipe cards — when he became secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, has now opened most of the internal ones, so people can better communicate with each other.
That’s the physical doors. Now Thawley wants to see the public service “more widely … open its doors to the outside world”. He writes in The Australian:

“We must reach out more to the private sector, universities, think tanks, not-for-profits, state governments and other countries. We must invite into our ranks colleagues from outside who have expertise and useful experience.”

Anything missing here? Ah, the media. Either they are not worth reaching out to or, more likely, it is thought too dangerous to do so.

Indeed what does “reaching out” mean? It needs to go beyond cross-recruitment and even the importation of more ideas to also include greater transparency and accountability and the wider understanding of policy.

If we are talking about improving and enhancing public policy and the debate around that, the media has a significant role to play. They provide prime routes by which information about policy is disseminated; they are also conduits for the ideas being thrown up from these other players.

Yet the public service is much more closed these days to the media than it used to be.

When I came to Canberra in the 1970s, there was a readily available government directory with the names, positions and numbers of senior public servants. It was updated regularly and everyone in our newspaper office had a copy. Even a junior reporter could easily contact officials. Once they got to know and trust you, they would provide background about policy.

These days you can find the Australian government directory online but most calls by reporters to officials will be referred to the department’s media section. Once upon a time a newish reporter could contact John Stone, then a senior Treasury officer, about the meaning of economic figures; nowadays that reporter would be re-routed.

“We are talking context and detail on which officials have expertise that their political masters often lack.”

“We are talking context and detail on which officials have expertise that their political masters often lack.”

Let me be clear: we are not talking “leaking” here — that is a different matter. We are talking context and detail on which officials have expertise that their political masters often lack.

A few decades ago, most departments did not have substantial media sections. One exception was Foreign Affairs. Its public information group was staffed by officials who were not trained in journalism but in policy. Many of these people went on to have very senior careers (Dick Woolcott, John McCarthy, Kim Jones). They were knowledgeable, savvy and confident, and always worth talking with.

These days quantity has replaced quality, and fear has supplanted frankness.
Often a department’s media people will send the journalist to the minister’s media people. Ministers typically have two media advisers, many of whom have little knowledge of the ins and outs of complicated policy.

They can and do call on department officials to help them out but this can end up with the semi-blind leading the nearly blind — an ex-journalist trying to absorb and explain a complex matter to a current journalist who is on a deadline. There’s a lot to be said for cutting out the middle man (or woman) and letting the bureaucrat do the briefing.

There are exceptions to these generalisations. There is the odd formal briefing by bureaucrats, arranged by the government. Some senior public servants do choose to engage with some journalists and in doing so they usually serve the policy process well. News reports, features and analysis pieces are more informed and accurate as a result.
But this is not the norm across the public service and certainly not the practice routinely expected and followed in the bureaucracy.

The lockdown has come from governments (and not just this Coalition one) who want to control the messaging and also do not particularly trust the bureaucracy. But the public servants feel protected by the approach. To be able to shunt off the potentially tricky business of dealing with the media to someone who is supposed to understand that particular jungle reduces risks for them.

The faster media cycle and the diminished specialisation in media outlets, due to cost factors and a preoccupation with maximising digital “hits” which are not attracted by heavy policy articles, are also relevant. There are relatively fewer policy experts in the media to match the experts in the public service.

Bureaucrats these days are less confident than they used to be and the dangers of navigating a tough media world are greater than they once were.

But, to channel Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, it should not be that hard for agile public servants to cope, if a government were brave and public-spirited enough to encourage that particular door to be opened.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.

Again well done the Mandarin - CF x 3  -  & one for Michael Thawley  


MTF...P2


             

  

[Peetwo]

Fresh off the Mandarin - The Belcher report released 

Belcher quote: “There is, similarly, a need to identify and remove the many unnecessary requirements entities place upon themselves either to avoid risk or because, over time, myths have replaced facts.”

Red tape sale: agencies agree on sweeping regulatory reform

---

Departments and agencies across the federal government will implement sweeping reporting reforms to cut red tape in a regulatory environment described in a new report as inefficient, inaccessible and risk averse.

The Department of Finance has publicly released its Review of Whole-of-Government Internal Regulation, conducted by respected former public servant Barbara Belcher. Agency heads received the report in September and October and have already agreed to implement all 134 recommendations they have the power to do.

The changes focus on reducing excessive regulation by streamlining security vetting processes, removing duplication of reporting, improving accessibility of information, clarifying guidance, introducing electronic tabling in Parliament and improving annual reports.

Finance secretary Jane Halton (pictured) says central regulating agencies — the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Attorney-General’s Department, Australian Public Service Commission and Finance — have already “made a good start on progressing some of these”. In a statement, she said future regulation will be “better targeted, more effective and, ultimately, uses less of our scarce resources”:

“This will allow us to be better focussed on delivering services for the community. The review will help us to test future regulation against a set of principles, to avoid the future occurrence of red tape …

“The review found many regulatory requirements are appropriately and efficiently administered, but others are not. Some regulation was put in place when entity capability was significantly lower than today, and before the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013‘s focus on risk, performance and duties.

“The Secretaries Board is committed to progressing the review’s recommendations.”

The key issues identified in the Belcher report: rules and guidance that is either inaccessible or hard to interpret, over-regulation, inefficient regulation, and the famous “culture of risk-aversion” that is regularly criticised.

Portfolio secretaries have agreed to move towards a “collect once, use many times” approach to data collection and maximise the ability of senior executives to make the big strategic decisions, while pushing as much responsibility down to middle managers and below as possible.

Each will also determine their agency’s risk appetite to encourage innovation, and review their freedom-of-information practices to find the “least burdensome mechanism”. The secretaries agreed to “consider” actively publishing information to decrease FOI requests as well.

Belcher articulates five principles which say all new internal regulations should be:

• The minimum needed to achieve whole-of-government or entity outcomes;
  
• Proportional to the risks to be managed and supportive of a risk-based approach;
  
• Coherent across government and not duplicative;
  
• Designed in consultation with stakeholders for clarity and simplicity in application; and
  
• Reviewed periodically to test relevance and impact.
  

The recommendations sit well with the management reforms catalysed by the PGPA Act, particularly what Belcher describes as:

“The push towards removing prescriptive legislative controls and moving to principles and duties-based accountability arrangements … with corresponding strengthening of mechanisms for risk management and public accountability for performance.”

It will be especially important, she writes, that the five principles are kept in mind as the APS also continues with:

“… the increasing centralisation of some functions through shared and common services, the digital transformation agenda, low risk procurement contracts and whole-of-government purchasing arrangements, new reporting requirements such as monthly reporting to the Australian Public Service Commission of unscheduled absences and consolidation of Enterprise Resource Management systems.”

The mandarins told her that some of these whole-of-government requirements and procedures have “constrained their ability to realise benefits” from the PGPA reforms.
Belcher’s impression is that, by and large, APS entities “aspire to, and are prepared to work for, a public sector freed of excessive regulation and risk aversion” and she credits them for starting to push decision-making back down to lower classification levels. She comments:

“There is a continuing role for senior management in identifying a way of managing risk that encourages innovation and gives responsibility and experience in decision-making to future leaders in the public sector.

“There is, similarly, a need to identify and remove the many unnecessary requirements entities place upon themselves either to avoid risk or because, over time, myths have replaced facts.”

More to come, including an interview with Finance secretary Jane Halton …

Here is the Belcher report webpage link - The independent Review of Whole-of-Government Internal Regulation (Belcher Red Tape Review)
And this is a summary of the key findings:

The independent Review of Whole-of-Government Internal Regulation (Belcher Red Tape Review) - Key findings


The review identified opportunities to remove internal red tape across whole-of-government and entities, to facilitate public sector agility and enhance collaboration and innovation.

Ms Belcher noted four whole-of-government themes, which emerged in the course of the Review, including:

• over regulation
  
• inefficient regulation
  
• unclear and inaccessible regulations and guidance, and
  
• a culture of risk aversion.
  
  

Addressing these areas provides the opportunity to improve public sector agility and culture. To ensure these benefits are maintained the Review’s primary recommendation is to develop all regulation, within and across entities, against five Principles for Internal Regulation.

These require regulation to be:

• the minimum needed to achieve whole-of-government or entity outcomes
  
• proportional to the risks to be managed and supportive of a risk-based approach
  
• coherent across government and not duplicative
  
• designed in consultation with stakeholders for clarity and simplicity in application, and
  
• reviewed periodically to test relevance and impact.
  
  

Greatest reductions in regulation
The Review noted that recommendations likely to yield the greatest reduction in regulation are those that propose:

• removing requirements for baseline security clearances for ongoing staff, relying instead on basic employment screening (21.5)
  
• reducing unnecessary and duplicated information collection processes, compliance certification, evaluations of external law firms under the Legal Services Directions and the Harradine motion for reporting on file titles (4.4, 8.4, 8.5, 13.1)
  
• reducing duplicated work by moving to online, continuously updated reporting on contracts, grants, consultancies and appointments, and enabling users to analyse the data and generate reports (8.5, 8.6)
  
• reducing printing and design costs by moving to electronic tabling in Parliament, and reducing requirements for government documents that continue to be tabled in Parliament in hard copy (12.2)
  
• streamlining investment and assurance processes to focus on higher risk projects and removing processes that encourage a ‘check-a-box’ mentality (3.1-3.9)
  
• streamlining and reducing property, fraud and financial reporting requirements, with particular emphasis on benefits to small entities (2.3, 2.6, 6.2, 10.2)
  
• better targeting of ICT benchmarking to focus on heavy users of ICT, and gathering minimal data from lighter ICT users (7.8)
  
• clarifying mandatory requirements and better practice suggestions in guidance (1.5-1.9, 2.5, 22), and
  
• encouraging the creation of sample templates, processes, contracts and guidelines for lower and higher risk activities and functions, particularly for internal processes for procurement and human resources (1.5, 5 generally,11.2, 22).
  
  

Actions for entities
Portfolio secretaries agreed to a set of actions to be implemented within entities in response to the review. These are to:

• assess current and future internal regulation with the Principles for Internal Regulation (1.1)
  
• review data collection exercises, and planning and reporting requirements to consolidate duplicate data collection and ‘collect once, use many times’ (1.3)
  
• actively assist portfolio entities to meet regulatory requirements (for portfolio departments)  (1.13)
  
• maximise responsibility of SES Band 1 and 2s to make strategic corporate decisions (1.14)
  
• review delegations and give greater responsibility to junior levels where possible, including to EL and APS officers (1.15)
  
• establish an acceptable level of risk to encourage innovation (1.16)
  
• reduce internal systems and processes for Austender notification (5.5)
  
• provide portfolio departments with access to the Central Budget Management System to reduce duplication in monthly expenditure reporting (10.1)
  
• support the implementation of electronic tabling (12.2)
  
• introduce electronic distribution systems for Cabinet documents as a priority (14.3)
  
• examine FOI practices to ensure they impose the least burdensome mechanism and consider actively publishing information to decrease FOI requests (17.1)
  
• implementing fit-for-purpose HR policies and practices in consultation with the APSC (22.2)
  
• review internal performance management systems (22.5)
  
• promote informal consultation as the first step in dispute resolution processes (22.7)
  
• review recruitment processes to ensure they are not unnecessarily burdensome, (22.9) building on new guidance to be produced by the APSC (22.8).
  

Last updated: 05 November 2015

Great initiative but with the recent 'up yours' from Murky Mandarin & Doc Aleck to the CASA Board - see here - and past history (some 20 odd years of avoiding real reform)...

..Identification of problem – 101 for the student pilot, second nature to the experienced.  When there is a problem a process of elimination will identify the cause.  Within CASA there exists a serious objection to being reformed.  When you add up the past two decades worth of inquiry, commissions etc. you find a staggering number of ‘reforms’ which have been stepped around, diluted, manipulated or blatantly ignored.  Those ‘reforms’ have been generated by Senators, Ministers, Commissioners and Coroners; none based on whimsy, but cold hard facts...

..But, prima facie, the CASA resistance to reform must be lead, the reasoning for change must be manipulated, diffused, diverted and delayed.  There are only two men left standing; one of whom could be dealt with by the CASA board.  In isolation would the hapless Skidmore follow his leader?  Then perhaps we could, as the ASA must do; open the doors to real talent, select a reform DAS and deputy, then get this bloody reform show on the road; before we run out of juice, sitting frustrated at the holding point...

...it is quite obvious that they have absolutely no intention of warmly embracing any of the Belcher recommendations - FFS why can't we have a Thawley or a Halton running the show??
MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

That man Thawley again??  

I'm liking Turnbull's Head Mandarin more & more - still actions speak much louder than words.. :

Apolitical vs nonpartisan: APS boss has a mind and is going to speak it

---

The bureaucracy must advocate for reform, says Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Michael Thawley as some political leaders demand less passive public servants. On Friday, he offered his thoughts on issues facing the public service, including its technology skills shortage.

The Australian Public Service’s skills base is underprepared for the digital future, says Thawley on the heels of a report that says most public servants agree.

“It’s very clear that in the [Australian] public service we simply don’t have the digital skills and data analytical skills that will be essential for deciding whether we’re on the right track or not in any of the reform policies that we undertake.”

Speaking at the Economic and Social Outlook Conference in Melbourne on Friday, Thawley added that despite the introduction of the government’s Digital Transformation Office and a new data management program, the Commonwealth’s capability has not yet caught up with the political vision.

In his own department, Thawley has talked about wanting science and technology experts to apply for policy positions.

Canberra’s top public servant has been much more vocal than his predecessors, not just speaking about recruitment matters, he’s also praised the Australian Public Service as “one of the best in the world“. Last week he waxed further on some of his favourite topics:

1. The bureaucracy must advocate for reform. “The public service act says it’s apolitical — that’s true, but really what’s more important is that it’s nonpartisan,” he argued. “The public service has to be the source of ideas. It has to be very persistent in pushing them. It’s got to be an advocate in many ways, because if it does not advocate reform measures, they’re very unlikely to happen.”
   
2. The public service has to be politically realistic. The bureaucracy “can’t afford just to talk like an economics professor to a government,” Thawley says. “Economics professors won’t succeed in getting reforms through. In my view the public service is absolutely essential. It has to be sure its voice is heard, at least within government, and it has to push very hard and keep persisting to the extent that it can.”
   
3. Governments are not very good at responding quickly to problems. “We fail to recognise problems early on or we try to ignore them,” he says. “No private company would have gone on with the NBN in the state that it has been. It was clear that it was heading off the rails very early, but we left it for a long time before we started to think about it.”
   
4. We still struggle with state and Commonwealth integration of data. Data is of “crucial importance” to checking the success of programs and making informed comparisons between states and with other countries, he added.
   
5. Governments need to think about how much regulation we need. “It seems that every day there are more calls for the government to introduce another regulation, and we seem to feel that we need to respond to that,” he argued. “My own view is that we’re tying ourselves up in knots and we do need to think about it.”
   
6. Responses to societal problems are too media-driven and inconsistent. “We lurch from one silver bullet to another without really thinking how does it connect to everything else and what are the other ways of dealing with a perceived problem.”
   
7. Australia has a high-quality, malleable bureaucracy. The APS is one of the best public services in the world thanks to its people, he says. We also “have an advantage in that we don’t have the problems say that some countries do with organising the public service and getting it to focus on results. For example, we can quickly change the structure of the public service. The government can do that from day to the next — whereas in the United States every congressional committee would fight over each part of the public service.”
   
8. We want reform but don’t want to pay for it. “We’re inclined to want results without looking at what the necessary ingredients are. For example we want a lot more infrastructure but we’re very scared to talk about user pays,” he argues.
   
9. GST reform is good. “It’s hard to see how else one collects the revenue one needs and one would think that moving to indirect tax from direct tax is a good thing because it incentivises people work more if income tax is reduced,” Thawley says.
   

Could someone please FWD to DPM Truss because he seems to have mislaid the original Thawley MEMO...  

MTF..P2

[P7_TOM]

P2 – “Could someone please FWD to DPM Truss because he seems to have mislaid the original Thawley MEMO.”

Could someone please FWD to DPM Truss the Forsyth ASRR Review - because he seems to have mislaid the original report.  Perhaps the CASA top deck have got it – tucked away in a group leverage account.  

Back Boyd Minister, save a lot of trouble in the long run to the elections.  It will, honest....

[P7_TOM]

The more I read the articles presented in the Mandarin; the more I like the publication.  HERE - is a complex, international, legal development, explained so a man can understand it - I can't wait for the Skidmore epistle; perhaps he too can understand 'regulatory coherence' as David Donaldson explains it.  Now that would be nice.   

The US is pushing for increased “regulatory coherence” between the parties to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with implications for domestic regulators. But what is regulatory coherence?

Occupying only six of the 6000 pages of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, chapter 25 is a good place to start if you’re a regulator planning to read the text of the TPP.

While you probably won’t be reading any outraged opinion pieces about this section, covering what is called “regulatory coherence”, any time soon, it sits behind an important push by the United States to facilitate what might be called “new globalisation” — a world in which goods are not merely made in one country and exported to another, but come together through complex supply chains spanning several different countries, each with its own legal and regulatory systems.

This is the first time Australia has signed an agreement featuring regulatory coherence provisions. But what is regulatory coherence?

“It’s targeting services regulation … by seeing harmonisation of measures across jurisdictions, but also just improving domestic decision making.”
The idea is that all government regulatory processes are improved by the application of this concept, explained Elizabeth Sheargold, a research fellow at Melbourne Law School, at a seminar on the TPP on Friday.

“It’s designed to promote open, fair and predictable regulatory environments for business to operate in,” she said. “It’s targeting non-tariff barriers to trade, it’s targeting services regulation, it’s meant to be making it easier for global value chains to operate by seeing harmonisation of measures across jurisdictions, but also just improving domestic decision making.”

Like much of the rest of the TPP, regulatory coherence goes beyond the traditional concerns of free trade agreements — tariffs are already fairly low — and into the realms of ensuring similar business environments for globalising corporations across jurisdictions.

While maintaining the right of states to determine their own regulatory priorities, the chapter talks about the importance of transparency, impartiality, due process and coordination in regulation, while suggesting governments take “into account input from interested persons in the development of regulatory measures”.

New regulatory measures should be written in clear, understandable language that is made publicly available, says the document, and governments should also regularly review the ongoing appropriateness of current regulations and “provide annual public notice of any covered regulatory measure that it reasonably expects its regulatory agencies to issue within the following 12-month period.”

“It’s a long process. This document of just six pages is not going to do it [all], but it is just a start.”
Donald Robertson of law firm Herbert Smith Freehills said that the move to codifying — albeit unenforceable — regulatory coherence measures in the agreement was “making sure that people are living by some sort of rational philosophy of why you intervene in markets and how”.

“So concepts of proportionality, justification of regulations, what are the alternatives to those regulations, least constrictive alternatives and then reviews and focusing on how that is actually rational are central to a global value chain and globalising world. It’s a long process. This document of just six pages is not going to do it, but it is just a start.”

The TPP also recommends that to achieve good outcomes governments should make sure they are in the habit of using regulatory impact assessments (also known as regulatory impact statements or RIS), but leaving open the door on what kind of formal approach is best. Overly quantitative RISs have led to litigation in the United States, though in some situations they are more appropriate.

“What you don’t want though is the sort of regulatory impact statement you often see which is they start at the other end and they work backwards,” Robertson argued.

One possible way of improving regulation is giving someone oversight of regulatory system reform. Australia and the US are already making progress on this. In the United States the job of coordinating efforts to improve regulation lies with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; in Australia the Office of Best Practice Regulation sits within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The agreement also facilitates the opportunity for Australia to learn from its neighbours. It establishes a committee on regulatory coherence that will help implement parts of the chapter and identify future priorities, including potential sectoral initiatives and cooperative activities.

If the cap fits - etc. (P1).

[Peetwo]

Another excellent piece from Finance Department Chief Jane Halton, with the continued theme of disconnection (parts in bold) with the 'Three Stooges' & our resident Mandarin Murky...

Jane Halton: achieving the goal of ‘collect once, use many times’

---

by
Jane Halton
16.11.2015


To be more agile, we need to invest fewer resources in old, cumbersome ways of doing things and put more energy in the ways of the future, argues Finance secretary Jane Halton.

Information is a vital government asset, and while we progress more and more into the digital world, we need to ensure this asset is managed and managed well.

The Australian government is committed to effectively managing information and transitioning to entirely digital work processes and service delivery – with interoperable digital systems and processes enabling the delivery of efficient services to all Australians.

The broader challenge for all of us is to also transition and transform the APS so that we are faster, more agile, innovative and collaborative. We need to be ready to embrace the opportunities and challenges the future will present.

We are creating an environment where we continually question what we are doing and how we are doing it, whether we can do it with others or others can do it better.
We are doing away with the old ways of working and building something new in their stead. We need every public servant to contribute their unique skills, abilities, knowledge and professionalism to successfully reform the APS.

The Digital Continuity Policy 2020 is about helping agencies do just that through its principles based focus on digital information governance.

The benefits of integrating digital information governance into our business are many — but three stand out to me as Finance secretary:

1. it optimises the delivery of government programs and services;
   
2. it enables information reuse for economic and social benefits with better informed public policy and debate; and
   
3. it promotes accountability and protects of the rights and entitlements of Australians.
   

So how will this policy help?
By setting an interoperability target for government information by 2020, this policy will assist in all manner of government activity, so we can more easily manage, find and migrate data and information to better advise government, and to manage such things as machinery of government changes, legal discovery and freedom of information requests, just to name a few.
It will also support a more joined-up approach to the delivery of government services. This is something that the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 places a positive duty on accountable authorities to support.
I am happy to note that while the policy has broad application, aimed at promoting a consistent approach to information governance across the Australian government, and within individual agencies, it is not a prescriptive framework.

..Portfolio secretaries have been looking closely at regulation that applies to the public sector, a lot of which is unhelpfully prescriptive, to see how much of it is really required, and how much is getting in the way of transforming the public sector in support of government’s agenda of innovation and productivity.


The current state of regulation imposed on Commonwealth entities is an obstacle to the public sector making the transformation to a more agile body able to respond quickly and expertly to the increasingly complex and dynamic issues facing this country.

We’ve found evidence across the public sector of over-regulation, inefficient regulation, unclear and inaccessible guidance and a culture of risk aversion.

Some regulation appears to have been put in place to respond to perceived issues of governance, transparency and capability that arose from single or few instances of failure, but resulted in system-wide red tape, even for well-functioning and appropriately governed entities.

While some regulation and process is required in order to meet the government’s objectives or the needs of Parliament, a lot of the current stock of regulation is no longer useful, and most of it could be done a lot better.

To be more agile, we need to invest fewer resources in old, cumbersome ways of doing things and put more energy in the ways of the future. This includes being smarter about the demands for information we place on agencies – we need to work across the public sector to turn the “collect once, use many times” philosophy into action...

Consistent with good regulatory practice, this policy’s principles based approach allows agencies to respond in a way that reflects their purposes and maturity levels. I know the Archives intends to work with you to help improve digital capability with supporting pathways, guidelines, advice and training. It is also proposed that the policy will be implemented over time as part of your normal business review and renewal. This is refreshing.

The Digital Continuity 2020 policy is an important step in the right direction for information governance.

It has, at its core, three key principles to guide agencies:

1. that information is valued. That ultimately agencies are able to manage their information assets for as long as they are required – this requires good governance and people who have the skills and expertise to manage that information.
   
2. that information is managed digitally. So by 2020, rather than the inefficient digital replication of analogue or paper-based processes, we have truly digital interactions, processes and authorisations in place.
   
3. that information, systems and processes are interoperable, so that by 2020 we have a consistent approach across government, based on format and metadata standards for information governance and interoperability.
   
   

The policy encourages a major cultural change for entities in treating information as an asset to be actively invested in and managed for optimum re-use, key to improving efficiency and avoiding waste.

It seeks to respond to the digital era by helping agencies to think smarter about the use of their staff time and resources, to plan for integrated solutions and sound governance as part of investment decision-making, and stop using duplicative manual, hard copy processes.

Many agencies are working in this space already.

The Federal Court’s electronic court files and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s ImmiAccount were recognised in this year’s Awards for Digital Excellence run by the Archives to acknowledge the great work being done in the digital delivery and work area.

Finance is examining how we can better manage our record keeping function across government, working in partnership with the Archives and a cross-section of agencies to determine whether there is a business case to move agencies to a single, or reduced number, of digital records management solutions.

In conclusion, we need to continue to work together, assisted by the Archives, to develop and refine approaches to information governance that support efficient and effective delivery of government business. The Digital Continuity 2020 policy is an important step towards achieving that objective.

This is an edited version of the presentation Jane Halton delivered at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra for the launch of the Digital Continuity 2020 policy.

Next from Alistair Maclean, CEO of Victoria's IBAC:

Corruption vulnerabilities in public sector procurement

---

by
Alistair Maclean
16.11.2015


As part of Fraud Awareness Week 2015, IBAC has developed a resource kit for agencies on procurement risks and red flags. IBAC chief executive Alistair Maclean says it’s in everyone’s interest to build corruption resistant processes and cultures.

Each year, state government agencies and councils spend billions of dollars on goods and services for Victorians. However, recent IBAC investigations and reviews have shown that public funds can be misappropriated through compromised procurement processes for private gain.

From IBAC’s experience and insights, we are able to share the common warning signs that can show procurement processes are being exploited, or simply ignored. With knowledge of these red flags, public sector agencies can better assess and mitigate corruption risks and ensure funds are being spent as intended — delivering important government services and outcomes to the community.

Major IBAC investigations such as Operations Fitzroy and Ord have exposed how procurement processes can be vulnerable to corruption, and the impacts this can have on the public sector, individuals and the community.

Our research has also repeatedly highlighted procurement as a major corruption risk. In November 2014, we reported that Victorian public sector bodies rated procurement as one of the most common corruption issues they have dealt with over the past five years.
Procurement is vulnerable to corruption because it can involve large sums of money, often spent in small parcels, in highly devolved decision-making structures, with limited central oversight. Additionally, employees involved in procurement may have varying capability due to inadequate training in procurement processes. There may be pressure to get the job done quickly to meet deadlines, where probity takes a backseat to productivity. These are just some of the red flags IBAC has identified throughout the procurement process that may be indicators of corrupt practices.

As part of Fraud Awareness Week 2015, IBAC has developed a resource kit to support public sector agencies in communicating procurement risks and red flags to their staff. Our resource kit also provides practical information about the control measures public sector agencies may consider as useful to help mitigate these corruption risks in their workplace.

While more detailed information on the red flags is available at www.ibac.vic.gov.au, in general public sector agencies should ensure:

• there are clear policies and procedures in place that govern procurement of goods and services;
  
• those policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and communicated to staff and external suppliers;
  
• employees who are involved in procurement receive appropriate training in their accountabilities, including how to identify possible corrupt conduct;
  
• procurement is identified as a corruption risk and is addressed through risk management processes, as well as planned and random auditing;
  
• there are clear mechanisms for reporting suspected corrupt conduct;
  
• their protected disclosure procedures are clearly communicated to all staff.
  
  

All public sector employees need to be aware of the risks and take responsibility for ensuring integrity and value-for-money in procurement. Employees are best placed to identify risks in their workplace and to take steps to address those risks. By being vigilant, all public sector employees can help build a corruption-resistant culture.

Suppliers also have a part to play, and should be encouraged to report uncompetitive tender and selection processes to the agencies to which they are bidding for projects.

Corruption impacts individuals, public sector agencies, suppliers and the community.

Corruption in relation to procurement can undermine the best value for money principle, can lead to financial loss, reputational costs, damage to private businesses, and poor-quality goods, services and infrastructure. It’s in everyone’s interest for the public sector to ensure fair procurement and to build corruption-resistant processes and cultures.

Alistair Maclean is the Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC). IBAC is Victoria’s anti-corruption agency responsible for identifying and preventing serious corrupt conduct across the whole public sector, including Members of Parliament, the judiciary and state and local government.

  
Shirley it is high time we had a similar body as IBAC at a Federal Government/bureaucracy level...


MTF...P2

[Kharon]

Sometimes the quality of people in public office makes you smile – it so very, very refreshing to see, read and hear of dynamic people, involved in ‘government’ who actually care.   The contrast is self evident, writ large and the article should be sent tp Skidmore, Dolan and ‘what’s his face’ from ASA.

Choc frog to Mr. E, thank you.

Chris Eccles.

This is an edited version of the speech delivered by Chris Eccles to the IPAA Victoria Annual Fellows Dinner on November 18 in Melbourne.

Back in the day when sovereignty rested more with the monarch, all public servants were loyal first and foremost to the Crown, as the expression of executive government. As time moved on, and the powers of the sovereign waned and the powers of the Parliament grew, public servants needed to be more than just servants of the Crown; they became servants of the public as embodied by their elected representatives.

The doctrine of ministerial responsibility requires that public servants are responsible to their minister, and ministers, as elected officials are responsible to the Parliament, and through Parliament, to the people.

Their observation remains true to this day that:
“…Government of the country could not be carried on without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that of the Ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability, and experience to be able to advise, assist, and to some extent, influence, those who are from time to time set over them.

[Peetwo]

New head Mandarin Parkinson  - Crouching Tiger or hidden Dragon? 

On the confirmation last week from 'Malcolm in the middle' that Martin Parkinson will be replacing the outgoing Thawley as the new head sherang:

New chief mandarin Parkinson warns of complacency

---

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson will succeed Michael Thawley as head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. His appointment comes as Parkinson warned Australia has largely frittered away away the gains of the mining boom and that complacency meant Australia could no longer claim world best in policy design or economic performance.

He begins the job on January 23, returning to the public service after being informed his services were no longer required early in Tony Abbott’s time as PM.

Dr Parkinson also led the former Department of Climate Change between 2007 and 2011.
Turnbull’s statement said:

“He has had an extensive and distinguished career as an economist at the national and international level as well as making a significant contribution to public administration in Australia at the highest levels.
“I look forward to working with Dr Parkinson in his new role.”

The Mandarin publisher Tom Burton sees several key challenges ahead for Parkinson, who has been widely expected to take over the role since the recent announcement that Thawley would step down early next year.

Yesterday, the respected economist gave the 5th Warren Hogan Memorial Lecture, discussing Australia’s place in a region where the primacy of the United States is waning.
In the speech he called on the US to be more strategic in its economic policy for the fast developing Asian region, arguing this is what the US had done when it promoted the Marshall plan for Europe and a similar approach to the rapid reconstruction of Japan, post WWII. The speech was based on a paper Parkinson has recently written for publication by his alma mater Princeton University.

He also penned a paper The Lucky Country: Has it Run out of Luck?. In this paper he argued the opportunity offered by the terms of trade shock and resulting revenue boom was frittered away:

“Rarely do developed economies experience such dramatic terms of trade booms. And while Australia is not unique in frittering away the benefits, this is something more typically associated with developing economies than developed,” Parkinson wrote.
” … a quarter century of uninterrupted economic growth means that many of the leaders of our firms, unions, and even political organisations, have never experienced an economic downturn in the adult lives. Indeed, half of the population of working age population (15-64) had not even entered the workforce in 1990-91, the time of our last recession!”

“The result is that complacency became endemic during the 2000s — the urgency of needing to compete to sustain growth in living standards ebbed away as we experienced the biggest, and longest, terms of trade boom in our history. As a result of that complacency, Australia can no longer claim to be world-best in our policy design, and we are far from world best in our economic performance, notwithstanding that we avoided much of the impact of the GFC,” Parkinson wrote

 
And from Tom Burton.. :

Give us respect, and no more gotcha games: Parkinson’s plea

---

by
Tom Burton
04.12.2015



Incoming public service chief Martin Parkinson opens up about his approach to reform, the need for political leadership, more risk taking and innovation from public servants, and a bipartisan policy on Asia.

Achieving real policy reform will take strong political leaders — like New South Wales Premier Mike Baird, New Zealand leader John Key and British Prime Minister David Cameron — who “don’t play short-term political gotcha games” and treat citizens with intelligence, according to Canberra’s new top mandarin.

Speaking this week after giving the Warren Hogan lecture at Sydney’s UTS Business School — but before his formal appointment yesterday — incoming Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson (pictured) warned against damaging trust in public institutions. He endorsed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s call for the public sector to take more risks and be innovative, but he said the broader public sector — political and bureaucracy — had not done large-scale reform well in recent years.

He called for universities and TAFEs to be given more freedom to specialise and to find their own way. And he said while Australia did the “R” in R&D well, we don’t do the “D” part well.

Parkinson also asked for long-term bipartisanship over our economic and strategic relationship with China and the region. He said it was a nonsense to think of Australia as a bridge between United States and China interests and that Australia needs to recognise the emergence of China and other new power centres.

Parkinson said much of the success of previous reforms had come from the quality of people attracted to the civil service, and the respect people had for public institutions because they have been successful:

“Each of these things are quite fragile. Let’s be frank about it — it is very very easy to damage an institution, it is very very hard and takes a long, long time to rebuild an institution or to give an institution credibility from the outset. It is almost impossible so that is really important for us in thinking about how do we approach public institutions.”

Citing comments from the Prime Minister, Parkinson said “the public service is an incredibly valuable and important institution and we have to nurture it”. But, “we have got to demand more of it”:

“We have to encourage it to be more innovative and risk taking, but we have got to respect it. That doesn’t mean you automatically get good all-of-government approaches, you have got to consciously have a government that demands whole-of-government approaches, a citizenry that demands and a bureaucracy that is capable of responding to those.

“I actually think we have those things. I don’t think we have done it very well in recent years and I think it is going to be quite a challenge for the senior ranks of the public sector — political and bureaucratic — to deliver that in the years ahead. But I detect there is a lot more optimism about our ability to achieve that now than there may been in recent years.”

[/url]
Martin Parkinson: US economic diplomacy – a view from afar

Read More
 



New chief mandarin Parkinson warns of complacency
[url=http://www.themandarin.com.au/57722-parkinson-confirmed-top-federal-mandarin/]
Read More
 

Parkinson said productivity reform is urgently needed and this will take real leadership from politicians:

“Who are the leaders of recent years who are the standouts in terms of getting their citizenry to accept policies that they may initially not be enamoured with? I think of three people: I think of David Cameron, but perhaps even more markedly Mike Baird and John Key.
“I think if you look at the style of the three of them, and particularly Key and Baird who I have seem more of up close, they treat the public with respect, they recognise the intelligence of the citizen, they don’t play short-term political gotcha games.
“They have always got to play politics, they are politicians and they have to be re-elected. But they don’t play short-term gotcha games. What they do, they say we have got an issue, we have got a challenge, here is the challenge. I am not going to scare you into trying to do something about it. I am actually going to engage you. I want to hear your views and this is how I think we can go forward. They take the public with them by engaging them, by having a proper dialogue with the community.
“In Australia, who in recent history who have been the leaders who can do that? It has been the Paul Keatings, the Bob Hawkes, the John Howards — and who do we stop and think about being the successful prime ministers it is the Hawke, Keating, Howard era as that great era of success.
“I suspect the voters of NZ will probably put Key in that sort of category in the years ahead, and the voters of NSW may do that with Mike Baird. They are basically bringing the public along with the conversation. It is only where the public begins to really understand where the challenges are and the opportunities — because you can’t have something that is totally negative all the time.
“You have got to be open and honest with the public but O think if you do that you actually educate the public and you hear back from them what their issues are and from that you can construct the sort of strategic agenda. It does require leadership, real leadership.”

Asked about what role Australia can play in the relationship with China, Parkinson said the critical issue for Australia is to recognise that “we are allies of the United States and friends of China”:

“That give us a unique role to play. The idea that Australia is somehow a bridge between the two is nonsense. My response to that is bridges get walked on. Both the US and China have deep deep interconnecting relationships in all sort of different ways, far deeper than ours with China for example.
“So what does Australia need to do? Basically it needs to have a policy approach that is  strategic about what our national interests are, and is not subject to being thrown out at the change of government with every move of the electoral cycle.
“The Australia in the Asia Century white paper was only a first step, a good first step. Yet it disappeared from the debate. That is something we need to become more mature about. In the same way we have bi-partisanship about the alliance with the United States we need to develop bi-partisanship amongst the major parties about what are our key strategic issues and how we pursue them in terms of Asia’s rise.”

On higher education and the development part of R&D, Parkinson wondered if there are ways for universities and key institutions like the CSIRO to bridge the gap. “I know that is quite controversial. Some people say universities are about scholars,” he said:

“It is not about being judged by how much you can help business, but clearly there has to be mix in there and I think one of the priorities that would be good for the nation would be to give universities more freedom in fact to sort out where they want to be on that spectrum.

“For too long our regulation of our higher education sector has led to every university to try and look like every other university. You do want your group of Ivy League universities, but you do want your Carnegie Mellon types too. And your MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] types. And you do want basically universities that are more focussed on things in their region. And I think that providing that capacity for higher education institutions — I have just talked about universities, but I believe the same applies in the case of TAFE — giving them more freedom is incredibly important.”

"Give us respect, and no more gotcha games" - Hey Parko, I know it is difficult to do when the guy has no neck, but could you please get Murky Mandarin in a head lock & get him to pass on that message to his 'Three Stooges' - the industry is drowning here in Horse-pooh rhetoric & unnecessary red tape bollocks...


MTF..P2  

[Kharon]

P2 - "Give us respect, and no more gotcha games" - Hey Parko, I know it is difficult to do when the guy has no neck, but could you please get Murky Mandarin in a head lock & get him to pass on that message to his 'Three Stooges' - the industry is drowning here in Horse-pooh rhetoric & unnecessary red tape bollocks..

While you are at it - FOI - could stand an overhaul.  
More kudos for the Mandarin - another excellent article, keep them coming.

[Peetwo]

The following article discusses the public service aspiration to be apolitical in advice given to Governments, of either persuasion. It also discusses where public trust is very much reliant on the independence of certain agencies - the satisfactory function/performance of the ATSB very much comes to mind...       

How political appointments tip the scales of fearless advice

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by
Chris Aulich
14.12.2015

Chris Eccles sparked a worthwhile discussion on “frank and fearless” advice from departments, but what of agencies where public trust is founded on independence?

Simple tweaks could help, writes ANZSOG’s Chris Aulich.

Some regard the Westminster tradition of a politically neutral public service as a self-serving fiction. Others see it as an ideal to which governments and their civil services should aspire, though may never quite attain.

There are few hard and fast conventions involved in cultivating an independent government administrative system. Yet there are traditions or principles that many see as fundamental to good governance, or even to an effective democracy.

Straying from these leads to accusations that the government is politicising the public service. But what that means isn’t exactly clear. It might suggest the appointment of party-political representatives to public positions; the appointment of known government sympathisers to public positions; or some other way of preventing professional civil servants from providing “frank and fearless” advice to ministers.

Despite the lack of agreement about what politicisation means — and its significance — there’s almost universal criticism of governments that stray from the principles that underpin neutrality.

In practice, the accusation of “politicisation” often accompanies appointments made by an incoming government. These may be to departments; to government agencies, such as the ABC; to integrity agencies, such as the ombudsman; and, more often, the appointment of former politicians to diplomatic postings.

Obedience and integrity
The Australian Public Service operates near to the model of a professional public service where it serves successive governments without fear or favour. Changes of government typically mean that experienced, professional secretaries have remained to pilot their new ministers through.

There have been aberrations, such as the 1996 “night of the long knives” that dispatched six departmental heads. But most governments in past decades have relied on a cadre of professional civil servants to head departments and agencies even after power changes hands.

It is this cadre that enables the public service to remain as neutral as possible, especially when incoming governments are determined to implement their “mandates”. This reflects a fundamental principle that governments need to be “responsive” to their electors.
But problems can arise when appointees pay little attention to “frank and fearless” and see their role largely as doing the minister’s bidding. That’s stretching the notion of responsiveness too far.

The civil service is traditionally required to act in an impartial manner — that is, not to privilege particular interests over others and to behave in a politically neutral way. This is especially significant in relation to government agencies that investigate and adjudicate on complaints about and mistakes made by government.

Simple improvements
Integrity agencies, such as the Office of the Information Commissioner or the Australian Human Rights Commission, are required to investigate citizen complaints about government behaviour. They need to be seen to be at arm’s length from government.
Other agencies, such as the Australian Electoral Commission, the Auditor-General or research bodies such as CSIRO or the Productivity Commission, also need to be at arm’s length so they can operate credibly in providing balanced advice.

Much more can be done to promote the independence of these agencies. A fundamental problem is that they rely on funding through the budget process. Some governments, at both Commonwealth and state levels, have used this as a lever to constrain agencies from following their remit when governments are unhappy with their activities. The Human Rights Commission is a recent example.

Making these agencies responsible to parliament, rather than to the government of the day, would mean that funding, and accountability, would be delivered through bipartisan bodies, such as the Public Accounts Committee. This would protect integrity agencies from direct government interference.

Governments are expected to represent a diversity of interests. That becomes less likely with a politicised public service.

Public agencies with responsibilities to consider the impact of policy on broad community groups, for instance, or to manage grants programs, need to have appointments that reflect community diversity. These appointments need to be treated with care to ensure they remain free of accusations of favouritism, cronyism, nepotism or vote-buying.

Avoiding cynicism
Cynical observers may be concerned about the politicisation of policy advice, especially that provided by public inquiries. When chaired by appointees with known views on the subject they rightly engender public cynicism about the likely outcomes of these ostensibly independent inquiries.

This was the case when noted climate sceptic Dick Warburton handed down a report on the Renewable Energy Target, and when education conservative Kevin Donnelly reviewed Australia’s national curriculum. These reports usually find their way to the rubbish bin once governments of a different hue assume office.

In contrast, more broad-based and less politicised inquiries — such as the Gonski review of school funding — may well retain their currency for longer.

There are arrangements in place that may dull the excesses of political appointments — such as the Public Accounts Committee, the Senate estimates process, codes of ministerial conduct and independent audits.

But unlike the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, Australia hasn’t appointed an independent commissioner for public appointments. An independent appointments body may help ensure that the government of the day cannot directly influence appointments to agencies and programs that specifically require diversity of interests and arm’s length from government.

The public service has gradually become more politicised in recent years. But this is a bigger problem for agencies broadly described as integrity agencies and for bodies where public perception of neutrality are important to their operations, such as the ABC or the Electoral Commission. - or the ATSB...

Institutional change, along the lines of what’s already operating in other democratic systems, might produce independent appointments and reduce the public angst each time a “political” appointment is made to such boards or commissions. In these cases, governments might finally accept that arm’s-length governance is preferable to public cynicism and diminution of the standing of important agencies that serve to uphold democratic standards. - certainly rings a bell..

As usual CF Mandarin...P2