tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/jennifer-westacott-3896/articlesJennifer Westacott – The Conversation2018-05-01T11:21:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/958892018-05-01T11:21:40Z2018-05-01T11:21:40ZView from The Hill: The waves of “reputational damage” spread far and wide<p>The Liberals are always urging the business community to get onto the political battlefield and argue for what it believes, rather than leaving the space to the ACTU, GetUp! and others on the left.</p>
<p>The Business Council of Australia in particular has felt the heat. In 2016 Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger said of the BCA, “these people have got no idea how to influence public opinion” and called for its chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, to be sacked.</p>
<p>Now the BCA has taken up the challenge to join the fray, a decision that might be described as “courageous”, in the <em>Yes Minister</em> use of the word. Westacott is on the frontline in what has become the toughest of gigs, given the shocking disclosures, and subsequent fallout, in the financial sector.</p>
<p>Just this week, on Monday AMP’s chairman Catherine Brenner quit, while a day later the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) released a scathing report on Commonwealth Bank wrongdoing after an inquiry into allegations that it facilitated money laundering.</p>
<p>With the BCA conducting an “<a href="https://www.australia-at-work.com.au/">Australia at Work</a>” advertising campaign to counter anti-business sentiment and running local forums around the country in conjunction with Sky, Westacott was on <a href="https://www.6pr.com.au/podcast/dont-allow-anti-business-agenda-to-feed-off-banking-rc/">Perth radio</a> on Tuesday prosecuting the message.</p>
<p>The BCA represents some 130 of the biggest companies – among them, all four major banks and AMP.</p>
<p>Questioned about corporate bad behaviour including that perpetrated by other major companies as well as the financial institutions, Westacott admitted “we’ve got huge issues in the business community to fix, and my advice to boards and to CEOs is to fix them and fix them fast”.</p>
<p>“Business has got to get back to its purpose of providing excellent service to its customers, treating its employees properly, treating its suppliers properly,” she said. She pointed to the BCA having pushed its companies to pay small businesses in 30 days – a good move, but surely a very modest one, in the wider scheme of things.</p>
<p>But Westacott’s warning was: “If we allow [the bad behaviour] as an opportunity for this anti-business movement that has been there … for a long time, to get a stranglehold on the policy agenda of our country, we will be poorer for it”.</p>
<p>Earlier, in Tuesday’s Australian, Westacott <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/engine-of-australias-prosperity-in-need-of-support/news-story/40cdf5994786401c1b892c6098229ce2">wrote</a> that indefensible behaviour “has handed anti-business campaigners a fresh excuse to seek to punish the engine of Australia’s prosperity.”</p>
<p>Just as, anyone into scoring tit-for-tat points could say, the bad behaviour of some unions – the most notable being the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union – has handed the anti-union campaigners very useful weaponry.</p>
<p>That’s what happens with reputational damage. Its impact can be both deep and broad. This is one reason why some companies are very concerned, for example in their climate change and environmental policies, with living up to what they understand to be the “social licence” they have.</p>
<p>Very obviously, reputational damage is a hazard for governments. We see this as Treasurer Scott Morrison (who incidentally, unlike his predecessor Joe Hockey, is not personally close to the big end of town) struggles in responding to the serial revelations about the financial sector.</p>
<p>In this case, the reputational damage has two dimensions.</p>
<p>Firstly, the fact the government resisted the royal commission until it could do so no longer means people apply a discount to the various measures it did take - for example the provision in the 2017 budget that before appointing senior executives and directors, banks need to register them with APRA.</p>
<p>On Tuesday Morrison was out with strong language saying that the APRA report condemning the CBA “should be a wake-up call for every board member in the country”. He’s quite right. But Labor was quick to counter by claiming that Morrison – as shown by his opposition to the banking royal commission – “gets the big calls wrong”.</p>
<p>Secondly, the banks’ bad name has boosted the case of those arguing that they should not receive a company tax cut, via the package the government is trying to get through the Senate. The economic argument that there are separate issues involved finds it hard to compete with the more emotive one.</p>
<p>Late last week there was a notable example of a minister trying to repair personal reputational damage she’d suffered.</p>
<p>In an excruciating TV interview Minister for Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer, following the government talking points, had refused to acknowledge the government should have called the royal commission earlier. She was pilloried. A few days later, off her own bat after Malcolm Turnbull had admitted prompter action would have left the government better off politically, she said, “With the benefit of hindsight we should have called it earlier. I am sorry we didn’t, and I regret not saying this when asked earlier this week.”</p>
<p>In talking about the campaigning it will undertake as the election approaches Westacott says the BCA will “take on issues across the political spectrum”. In practice, however, the BCA will be seeking to reinforce the case of one side.</p>
<p>“Some will claim this is yet another anti-GetUp! campaign,” Westacott wrote.</p>
<p>GetUp! certainly sees it that way. On Tuesday the activist group was appealing for funds to help it “double down on our organising efforts for the next election, and leverage the latest in technology and tactics, to start winning the fight against destructive corporate power.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan owns bank shares.</span></em></p>Westacott is on the frontline in what has become the toughest of gigs, given the shocking disclosures, and subsequent fallout, in the financial sector.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100312012-10-14T19:20:19Z2012-10-14T19:20:19ZDealing with ministerial advisers: a practical guide for public servants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16381/original/h2fwbzj3-1349910079.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It takes more than a code of conduct to foster good departmental relationships.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The role of ministerial advisers and their relationship to public servants has been the subject of aserious public debate in recent weeks.</p>
<p>Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/business-declares-war-over-ministerial-staffers-costing-us-billions/story-fn59niix-1226478444994">caused a stir</a> when she advocated that the number of ministerial advisers in the public service be halved. Less controversial was former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Terry Moran’s suggestion that the <a href="http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and-media/current-circulars-and-advices/2008/circular-20087">code of conduct</a> introduced by the Rudd government in 2008 be formally legislated, an initiative Westacott also supports.</p>
<p>Political advisers in ministers’ offices are here to stay, so the proposal for a legislated code of conduct is both a sound one and long overdue at both state and commonwealth levels.</p>
<p>But important as such codes are, they will not of themselves be sufficient to regulate the behaviour of ministerial advisers or their relationship to the public servants who they need to deal with on a day-to-day basis.</p>
<p>Equally important is the behaviour of public servants themselves – particularly heads of government departments.</p>
<h2>Yes, minister</h2>
<p>At the outset it should be said that advisers have an important role to play in supporting their ministers and acting as a bridge between the minister and his or her department. It also needs to be acknowledged that ministerial offices often work under extreme pressure. This stems from the challenges of parliamentary politics and the difficulties of developing policy and implementing change under blinding glare of the 24-hour news cycle.</p>
<p>Much of course depends on the skills and capabilities of the advisers themselves. In my experience, the quality of political advisers tends to be highest when governments are newly elected and there is a relatively deep pool of political advisers, often with previous experience working in similar roles, eager to take on these roles.</p>
<p>As governments get older, it is often the case that the best advisers go on to do other things and the talent pool gets thinner and less experienced; sometimes with a poor understanding of the boundaries of their roles vis-a-vis both their ministers and the public service.</p>
<p>New governments often make a virtue of having fewer ministerial staff than their immediate predecessors. However, as governments age, the number of ministerial staff tends to grow. This increase in staff – sometimes very young and always enthusiastic – can create demands on departments without commensurate benefits for the minister.</p>
<p>While departmental secretaries cannot direct ministerial advisers, there is much that they can do in establishing a framework for appropriate working relationships with ministers and their offices.</p>
<h2>Four steps to departmental harmony</h2>
<p>At a minimum the framework should cover the following elements.</p>
<p>First, secretaries need to make it clear that advisers cannot give directions to departmental staff. The best way to do this is to identify a specific number of key senior officers to whom advisers can make requests on behalf of the minister. As an adjunct to this arrangement ministers should be told that the department will not stand behind any advice he or she receives that doesn’t come through the normal paper-flow channel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16455/original/45zzkwmj-1350008252.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The terrifying Malcolm Tucker from TV series The Thick Of It is the ultimate example of an unelected adviser wielding enormous political influence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/The Thick Of It</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Secondly, it is essential for secretaries to insist that their advice is to the minister only. While political advisers are at liberty to make comments to the minister about departmental advice, they should not to act as gate-keepers in determining what and when briefings go to the minister. </p>
<p>The best way to prevent this gate-keeping role is for the secretary to be aware of when key briefings leave the department and after a reasonable period for ministerial office scrutiny seek to have the briefing discussed with the minister.</p>
<p>Finally, under no circumstances should a secretary allow a ministerial adviser to request the department to re-write a recommendation from the department on a particular matter.</p>
<p>Of course there should be opportunities for discussion between the department and the minister’s office about the substance of advice. However, at the end of the day the minister is entitled to receive the department’s best advice and the department is obliged to provide it. If someone in the minister’s office disagrees with that advice, they are always able to write a covering note or say so directly to the minister.</p>
<p>It is also vital that departmental staff have an appreciation of the pressures of working in a ministerial office. Advice needs to be provided within time-lines that take into account the need for ministers to consult with their colleagues and reflect on media implications of the matter under consideration. Ministerial advisers also need receive early advice about issues which could be problematic to their minister.</p>
<p>The role of the secretary is pivotal. Departmental staff take their lead from the top. If the secretary establishes a clear modus operandi with a minister’s staff (and the minister when necessary), political advisers and public servants are much less likely to engage in the sorts of behaviours that cause difficulties for themselves, their department and the minister.</p>
<h2>Give and take</h2>
<p>This framework is standard fare for the way most secretaries relate to their ministers and their staff. But like all human relationships it’s one which needs to be worked on continually. </p>
<p>At its core is a simple point; both advisers and public servants need to understand that each have different but complementary roles to play. In framing their advice public servants should have the ability and confidence to use advisers to gain a broader understanding of the issues concerning the minister; and do so without compromising the integrity of that advice.</p>
<p>Advisers need to appreciate that ministerial decision-making can only benefit by being exposed to the different perspectives that public servants can bring to an issue. They should value the understanding public servants can bring to the subject matter at hand. </p>
<p>In the end, whatever is specified in codes of conduct, legislated or otherwise, the relationships between ministerial offices and departments will only work if secretaries and ministers make clear the behaviour they expect from their staff. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yehudi Blacher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The role of ministerial advisers and their relationship to public servants has been the subject of aserious public debate in recent weeks. Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott caused…Yehudi Blacher, Professorial Fellow, Centre for Public Policy, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97292012-09-21T05:54:22Z2012-09-21T05:54:22ZImproving public policy advice is a debate we have to have<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15742/original/z85h9bcg-1348204543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Business Council of Australia's Jennifer Westacott has called for a debate over the role of Australia's public service.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The provocative <a href="http://www.bca.com.au/Content/102030.aspx">address</a> by Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott to the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) International Congress in Melbourne yesterday achieved something almost unprecedented in contemporary Australian politics. </p>
<p>It focused debate squarely on the quality of debate, analysis and advice that informs decision-making about public policy issues that are of vital importance to Australia’s prosperity, competitiveness and the living standards of its citizens.</p>
<p>Westacott’s was a serious and important critique by an individual who has significant experience of policy processes both within and outside of government, at state and federal levels. </p>
<p>She has held a variety of senior roles in the NSW and Victorian governments, as a lead partner with consulting firm KPMG and now as head of the BCA. Reaction has been mostly supportive, including from the retired former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Terry Moran, and Roger Beale, a respected PWC consultant and former Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Heritage.</p>
<p>Her comments have clearly resonated with people concerned that populism and adversarial politics is undermining Australia’s ability to address the problems identified in her first major address in the BCA Chief Executive role. </p>
<p>These include: the high costs of doing business in Australia; poor productivity; and the need to embrace reforms the BCA believes will enable Australia to weather continuing global economic weakness and position itself for future opportunities.</p>
<p>It is not the first time Australian business leaders have drawn attention to the need to strengthen the public service; to streamline regulation, overhaul the tax system; and to fix a federation that many believe is “broken”. </p>
<p>These issues were key recommendations from Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in April 2008, which reminds us such criticisms precede the Rudd and Gillard governments, although some commentators have been all too quick to interpret Westacott’s remarks (and Terry Moran’s endorsement of them) as a comment on the quality and performance of Julia Gillard’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).</p>
<p>Most analysts cite 2001 as the end of the reform era which began with Hawke and Keating. Since then governments have been increasingly criticised for seeking to “buy” political support with electoral bribes and seemingly feeling obliged to compensate any individual or group that stands to lose or be affected by policy change (see Quarterly Essay contributions from <a href="http://ebooks.readings.com.au/product/9781921866531">George Megalogenis</a> in 2010 and <a href="http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781863955645/quarterly-essay-46-great-expectations-government-entitlement">Laura Tingle</a> in 2012). </p>
<p>Former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has lamented with increasing intensity on the quality of policy debate and the ability of our political system to deal with long-term challenges. He <a href="http://afr.com/p/national/henry_slams_quality_of_public_policy_mCvbwRGFiU5kr4fxFCRv5O">told a forum</a> at the Australian National University recently that he could not recall a time in the past 25 years when the quality of public policy debate had been so poor.</p>
<p>Analysts and commentators including former prime ministerial adviser Ross Garnaut and journalist Paul Kelly in his 2009 book, March of the Patriots, have questioned whether Australia any longer is capable of designing and implementing the kinds of reforms that underpinned sustained economic growth over the past two decades, including during the global financial crisis, or whether a “great complacency” has become the dominant posture.</p>
<p>It is interesting then that Westacott cites the loss of public service authority and legitimacy as a key driver of the malaise afflicting contemporary policy-making, rather than attributing it to, for example, the nature of democratic politics, greater complexity, voter disenchantment, electoral volatility, a hung parliament, or the demands of the 24 hour news media. </p>
<p>Among her recommendations are proposals “to halve the allocation of personal staff in ministerial offices and establish a mandatory code that prohibits them from directing public servants” and to “reinstate the tenure of departmental secretaries”.</p>
<p>It is worth remembering that Malcolm Fraser’s frustration with the intransigence of the Commonwealth Treasury was why he overcame his initial skepticism of the Whitlam government’s experiment with ministerial staff and developed serious policy expertise within his PMO. </p>
<p>From the late 1960s, Ministers became increasingly unwilling to tolerate a lack of responsiveness from some public service departments and sought support to bolster their capacity to drive policy and ensure responsiveness from their officials.</p>
<p>The Hawke and Keating governments implemented many of the reforms that Ms Westacott has now criticised: formalising the role of ministerial staff through the passage of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 and, later, removing tenure for “Permanent Heads” and placing Departmental Secretaries on contracts. </p>
<p>It is generally agreed the partnership that developed between ministers, their staff and the public service in this era drove wide-ranging and bi-partisan reforms that have underpinned our relative prosperity and competitiveness.</p>
<p>It is worth noting too that ministerial staff, in particular policy experts like John Rose, John Hewson, Ross Garnaut, Don Russell, Jenny Macklin and others, made important intellectual contributions to the economic and social reforms of the 1980s, breaking the public service’s virtual monopoly over policy advising. They are credited with introducing new ideas and greater contestability that many argue has improved the quality of advice.</p>
<p>But the provisions that allowed the engagement of policy specialists fell into disuse under the Howard government and have not been revived. The MOP(S) Act, which governs the engagement of ministerial staff, also enables public servants to be seconded to the minister’s staff and – recognising that offices are partisan - relieves them of their obligation to be impartial for the duration of their appointment. </p>
<p>Through the Hawke and Keating years, this was seen as a critical opportunity to expose officials to the pressures on ministers and the politics of policy processes.</p>
<p>Public service leaders like Graham Evans, Sandy Hollway, Dennis Richardson, Stephen Sedgwick, Ken Henry, Andrew Metcalfe and others followed this pathway, with benefits flowing both ways.</p>
<p>Again, this fell by the wayside as a more partisan approach took hold – it was seen as risky to align oneself with the political party in government by taking a role in a minister’s office. Ministerial staff roles became part of the trajectory of career politics – an essential (and publicly funded) training ground for professional politics. </p>
<p>While under Hawke and Keating up to 70% of staffers were seconded from the APS, from Howard onwards those numbers fell dramatically, with obvious consequences for knowledge of government processes and content expertise.</p>
<p>My book <a href="http://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/isbn/0868409812.htm">Power without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard</a> advocated addressing issues of staff accountability, conduct and behaviour, management and “fit” within a Westminster-style system of government.</p>
<p>Many of these reforms became election commitments of Labor in Opposition and were later adopted by the Rudd government.</p>
<p>But I rejected then, as I do now, the argument that problems in the interface between ministerial staff and public servants are a question of numbers. There are complex reasons why Australian ministers have the largest number of personal staff in any Westminster-style political system – mostly to do with the demands on ministers from a more complex and uncertain political environment, the expectations of citizens, the demands of the media and for federal Labor, its status as a minority government. </p>
<p>We know from experience that cutting ministerial numbers is rarely sustainable – deeper structures condition the size and organisation of offices. But we should aim to ensure the system operates on the principle of complementarity, where there is mutual respect for the professional skills that staffers and officials each bring to their shared task of supporting ministers.</p>
<p>My research, which now includes a forthcoming study of Prime Ministers’ Chiefs of Staff and <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Learning_to_Be_a_Minister.html?id=L2A7lhHAmp0C">other work</a> examining the support needs of ministers, leads me to conclude instead that the reactive policy-making that Jennifer Westacott rightly criticises is attributable to the nature of politics and it is there we must look for solutions.</p>
<p>I concur we should value and invest in a professional, impartial public service. But I would argue we need also to be attentive to the organisational skills and capacities of our leaders: their ability to select a quality team (official and partisan) and get the most out of it; to create effective arrangements for priority-setting, deliberation and decision-making (in Cabinet, policy committees etc); and ensure as decision-makers they can get the advice they need (as well as advice they want to hear); and to maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders within and outside of government. It seems to me this, as much as anything else, could address the concerns that have been expressed.</p>
<p>I welcome Jennifer Westacott’s contribution to what I hope will be a spirited debate about the advisory systems that enable decision-makers to make informed policy choices in Australia’s long-term interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9729/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Tiernan receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.</span></em></p>The provocative address by Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott to the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) International Congress in Melbourne yesterday achieved something…Anne Tiernan, Associate Professor in the School of Government & International Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.