Premier David Crisafulli said his government promised to “deliver a government that works for Queenslanders and the first step is empowering the public sector”. Photo: Facebook.
The independence of Queensland’s Public Sector Commissioner has been locked in, with amendments removing the option of terminating those who hold the role without grounds.
Part of the new LNP State Government’s electoral platform was a commitment to establish an independent Public Sector Commission (PSC) under the Public Sector Act 2022 within its first 100 days of taking office.
With the legislation’s passing, Premier David Crisafulli said his government had fulfilled its first step on the way to empowering the state’s public sector.
“The head of the public sector should be independent of the government of the day, able to deliver continuity to the public service and focused on accountability and transparency,” he said.
“This government values public sector workers and expects nothing less than frank and fearless advice to support good government decision-making.
“We want to boost the independence of the PSC to restore a culture of integrity, accountability and respect right across government and the public sector.”
These amendments mark the beginning of the new government’s seven-point plan for the Queensland Public Service (QPS), which is focused on accountability, integrity, independence, putting an end to outsourcing the core work of the public service, capacity-building/professional development and no forced redundancies.
However, these improvements to the QPS have been evolving over the past few years since the landmark review of its culture and accountability in Professor Peter Coaldrake’s ‘Let the sunshine in‘ report.
Published in mid-2022, the review laid down a number of recommendations to better the sunshine state’s public sector.
The last government managed to commit an initial $6.22 million towards a key point in the review, being a complaints clearinghouse. In July the funds were directed to a project team in charge of its creation, with the expectation it will streamline the QPS accountability process in a manner inspired by other jurisdictions’ approaches.
According to the last State of the Sector report, Queensland’s PSC had 82.73 full-time equivalent workers as of March. Photo: Scotto72.
However there’s much more to be done for Queensland’s PSC according to Professor Coaldrake’s review, who asserted that any renewal of the public service workforce will depend on strengthening it.
While the functions of the PSC have changed a great deal since its establishment in 2008, Professor Coaldrake said its improvement should include “its capacity to enable the focus on human capital development and leadership, robust data systems and more effective agency human resource functions”.
“The position of PSC has a significant role to play in oversight of director-general appointment processes, in monitoring performance systems for the highest levels of staff, and in contributing to the development of leadership across these service,” he wrote in the review. “However, its role does not presently ‘cut through’.
“To be effective the PSC needs to model, for agencies and the sector as a whole, what excellence in HR practice and leadership is:
- Efficiency in carrying out its transactional functions
- Skill at working with agencies to identify training gaps and priorities, and developing quality training to meet those needs
- A commitment to a performance culture, and openness to self-scrutiny and review
- An awareness of operating conditions in setting system-wide employment standards, and in promoting ethical behaviour.”
Professor Coaldrake said in submissions and extensive consultations (including with the PSC CEO) undertaken, he found “a workforce that has been weakened over many years by a history of structural change, turnover of chief executives, loss of expertise, impermeable vertical hierarchies and a focus on rules rather than performance, and an increasingly unpleasant and disabling operating culture”.
A great deal of that concern revolved around complaints against senior public sector employees, which the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) devolves.
He noted in one recommendation that such a function “must include ongoing oversight by the PSC and an independent director-general”.
“This review encourages the CCC to give priority to the matters that it is best positioned to handle (serious and systemic corruption), acknowledging that other bodies have the capacity to refer serious matters they identify to it,” read the review.
“The CCC needs to protect itself against suggestions that it embarks on speculative and trivial inquiries at the expense of more serious cases.”
