IPAA National Conference 2015 Overview

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT

AN OVERVIEW IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

The IPAA National Conference was an opportunity for public sector leaders and others to synthesise the disruptions currently taking place in the public sector and look to the challenges ahead.

IPAA National President Terry Moran’s opening comments set the tone for the Conference. His message was clear: “It’s time to gear up”.

“Our position gives us a unique view into the development and implementation of public policy in Australia. But we are not just observers, we’re also players in what happens,” he said.

With the change in Federal leadership there was much talk of reform and while there are some indicators of where this may focus, there are a number of megatrends already leading to a radically different kind of public sector in Australia.

These include, but are not limited to, the impact of digital technologies and different structures for delivery of services.

Both are having an impact on labour markets, on crossportfolio collaboration, on innovation and a user-centric approach to policy design and delivery.

The two key reform agendas on the table at the IPAA 2015 Conference were those of Federation and taxation. These are likely to receive continued support from the Government, and there is renewed hope for improved CommonwealthState relations under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who is committed to cities, integrated transport and connectivity.

In September, he appointed Jamie Briggs to be the Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. He will work with Greg Hunt, the Environment Minister, to develop a new Australian Government agenda for cities in cooperation with State and Local Governments and urban communities.

Federation and taxation reform notwithstanding, there is momentum to move away from the one-stop-shop to a model where a broader range of services are commissioned and the government takes the role of steward; and increased input by citizens and communities into how services are designed and delivered.

STRUCTURAL CHANGE “I think we now have political leaders with a genuine belief in the potential of innovation and creativity. There’s also evidence that they are interested in having a genuine discussion with the community about policy ideas,” said Moran.

He believes it will help drive many of the reforms in the sector that have been underway for a while: “The speed of a digital age, rising community expectations about the way services are delivered and the expansion of non-traditional media are all going to make many old government processes redundant”.

For example - the centralisation of public services which have grown up in part around the need to physically put Departments and Ministers in the same city – is going to seem increasingly irrelevant, according to Moran.

“As will be the theological belief that big omnibus departments are by definition more efficient than smaller ones,” said Moran.

This is backed up by the experience of digital transformation in the UK. The Executive Director of Digital and Chief Data Officer for the UK Government, Mike Bracken told delegates that not only has the transformation attracted a whole new group of people who had “essentially been left out of government roles in the previous 15 years”, but that many government’s institutions were just not fit-for-purpose:

“We don’t need very large buildings… to process digital public services. We often do not need the entire infrastructure that sits behind it,” he said.

Publisher of The Mandarin, Tom Burton noted that digital technologies are “disruptive at a Federation level” as they the power to “unify government in a much more practical way”.

He cited the Digital Transformation Office’s recent announcement that it will create a gov.au online platform over the next few months. Interestingly, the prototype will be built around the users’ needs, rather than government’s structures.

Martin Bowles, Secretary of the Department of Health, believes if we “want to understand what’s happening out there” we need to understand big data.

“We traditionally get data and keep it in silos but you can’t do anything until you start to understand it… how do you link it to things like socio-economics because what is happening in different parts of our community we need to understand,” said Bowles.

The point was underscored by Northern Territory, Deputy CEO of the Department of the Chief Minister, Dr Rachel Bacon who said open-mindedness was essential in policy thinking into market-based reforms where “there are no markets” such as rural and remote areas.

Bowles said the growth in personal preventative health is becoming increasingly important:

“If you wear a Fitbit or an Apple Watch and it feeds into an App… at some point that will actually reflect back and impact on some decisions for doctors or somebody who’s going to intervene at some future point”.

However, digital disruption is bringing about changes in labour markets as well, demanding new working arrangements in the ‘age of the algorithm’. Delegates were also warned about becoming too reliant on digital technologies. A key element of digitisation, according to Laura Citron from WPP’s Government & Public Sector Practice in the UK, is engagement.

As more services that were once provided by people go online, there must be balance between functionality and emotion in order not to lose the “humanity” of services.

There are also warnings for the education sector with providers finding it difficult to effectively engage working age and young people, experiencing poor online completion rates.

A MORE INTUITIVE ‘SYSTEM’ The momentum towards smaller, more integrated government can be seen in major investment portfolios such as health, education and housing. New National President of IPAA, Penny Armytage is optimistic on the issue of duplication in government services, especially by the health systems focus on the “patient journey” and the underlying health issues that need to be changed.

She says discussions at the Conference showed that a key to good relations in the Federation is goodwill and a commitment to focusing on outcomes for the benefit of individuals.

Leslie Loble, Deputy Secretary at the NSW Department of Education and Communities told delegates: “Within education a lot of those policy debates that are currently housed under the Federation reform structure or tent are in some ways really dealing with that fundamental question of ‘with blended public and private delivery… our traditional mechanisms don’t seem to be working as well as they used to, so how do we now shape them?”

She said the Gonski education reforms are actually a good example of how we can meet the ideals of Federation reform.

“It’s not often understood that the dollars might be the most politicised part of this, but actually what sits underneath it is a whole series of teacher quality reforms, structural reforms in the education system that are incredibly important.”

She makes the point that: “There is no government, whether it’s Commonwealth or State that’s going to just hand money over to a provider and say ‘it’s all yours’”.

Professor Julian Disney, from the University of NSW, said broader outcomes could also be achieved in the delivery of social housing.

“There are some ways in which other aspects of social problems can be addressed through making the subsidies to some extent conditional on meeting those kinds of goals,” he said, referring to the delivery of housing suitable for disabled people or that incorporates environmentally sensitive features.

David de Carvalho, Deputy Secretary, Strategic Reform and Policy at the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) said reform is about making connections across portfolios.

IGNITE Ignite is a curated news site. It includes interviews, thought leadership pieces and papers on topics of interest to people working in or for the public sector.

Videos of each IPAA 2015 National Conference session, presentations, photos and articles can be found on Ignite.

Current members and newsletter subscribers can log into Ignite with their account details, new users register for free to access all the free material available.

Visit Ignite via our IPAA NSW homepage http://www.nsw.ipaa.org.au/ IPAA NSW is a membership organisation that strives to provide value to our members including events, training and relevant content on Ignite.

“Reform to housing has not got to just be about more stock, it’s got to look at the services, other than the housing service, that are provided to existing or potential tenants to help them achieve a safe living environment, to help them achieve employment, to help them achieve greater educational outcomes, to engage more effectively with the health system”.

To that aim, FACS is currently developing an outcomes framework, to enable it to draw connections between individual programs in one portfolio with outcomes in another portfolio.

William Murphy, Deputy Secretary of Department of Finance, Services & Innovation, says people expect to deal with “one government”.

“We all need to work together, that’s what one public service is all about,” said Murphy.

Recently the NSW government released the state’s priorities that include specific targets such as the number of households exiting public housing; reducing adult re-offending and violent crime etc. These are specific targets and all of them are cross-portfolio challenges, many with a strong data analytics component.

Murphy says solving big data challenges will require us to get the data together, bring the right skills that can understand that data to generate the insights that will make a difference. There are numerous examples were this is already happening using the deep data analytics capability in the NSW Government.

While there may be significant scepticism in parts of the public sector about the changes set to take place, much of this is driven by a need to understand how the transformation can occur. IPAA 2015 was as much educational as it was agenda setting, with discussions characterised by vitality, perhaps heightened or captured by NSW Premier Mike Baird’s comments in his Garran Oration on October 14.

He used the oration to offer a pep-talk, advising the public service to not sit back in frustration at political gridlock.

Premier Baird implored public service leaders to use their passion; take risks; use tools like performance management and recruitment; and above all to believe in themselves.

At the Conference we captured the salient points of the sessions in a unique way via scribe drawings. The second day explored the theme – Are we ready for the future? It looked at the skills those working in, and with the public sector, will need in a changing environment. Our scribe captured the sessions related to recapping the first day and the skills for the future sessions; Digital Government, Big Data, Commissioning and Market Stewardship as well as the exploring what the next steps are.

We hope you enjoy this illustrated guide and explore the additional resources including videos, presentations, photos and articles on Ignite, our curated news site available on our IPAA NSW website http://www.nsw.ipaa.org.au/ John Carnegie, Chief Executive Officer, IPAA NSW

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY

IPAA 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY 14 & 15 OCT THE HILTON, SYDNEY 488 GEORGE ST, SYDNEY