THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF PUBLIC SERVICE CRAFT

In the second act of the musical Hamilton, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton vie for influence in the youthful US republic. In song, Burr jealously describes Hamilton’s presence in ‘the room where it happens’. It is a pivotal moment which crystallises Burr’s enduring enmity towards Hamilton.

The song refers to a meeting which took place in 1790 between Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and their congressional opponent James Madison. It gave rise to what is known, accurately enough, as the compromise of 1790.

The compromise involved Madison and Jefferson agreeing to support Hamilton’s financial plan to address public debt created during the revolutionary war. In return, Hamilton agreed to support moving the US national capital from New York to a location on the Potomac River. The new location was in Madison’s home state of Virginia. How convenient.

Burr’s desperate desire to be in the room where it happens is understandable. It is the place where policy and politics mix and resolve into decisions which can change a nation and create history. Many seek entry. Few are granted it.

Being in the room where it happens brings opportunity, privilege, and responsibility. This obviously applies to the politicians entrusted with forming executive government. It applies equally to the unelected public servants who provide policy advice to democratic decisions makers. They may not always be in the room personally, but their advice usually is.

In Australia, the privileged place (some might even say voice) of public service advice in government decision-making flows from convention rather than requirement. Our constitution makes no reference to the public service providing independent policy advice. But the presence of such advice is generally seen as critical to good government. This is reflected in the Public Service Act which articulates a policy advising role for secretaries and senior executives.  

Views about the exact role public servants should play in providing policy advice vary. Former PM Scott Morrison, when not using the public service like cartoon character Batfink’s wings of steel against Royal Commissions, took a narrow view. So did his predecessor. UK constitutional theorist, Albert Venn (surely his nickname was Diagram) Dicey, also had little time for policy ideas from uppity public servants.

The current Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has a different view. Public service policy advice is not only welcome in the room where it happens; it is actively sought. From being an apparently passive implementer of ministerial directions, the Australian Public Service is now a valued source of policy ideas.

What a difference an election makes. Or does it? Public service policy advice may have played a larger role in the previous government than we thought.

Robodebt

It is rare for public service advice to be scrutinised publicly. Advice which goes into the room where it happens generally stays behind closed doors. The logic behind this is compelling. Ministers should be accountable for the decisions of an elected government; apolitical public servants should not. Revealing public service advice would interfere with this accountability.

The recent Robodebt Royal Commission provides one instance where the doors secreting public service policy processes and advice were thrown open. What the Commission’s gaze uncovered was disturbing, even allowing for the unflattering picture hindsight reviews always bring.

Commissioner Holmes found that the essential features of the Robodebt scheme were conceived by public servants in the Department of Human Services. The design of Robodebt clearly responded to the priorities and philosophy of the government of the day. But the scheme itself was a public service creation which was shepherded into the room where it happens by the responsible minister. 

The Robodebt scheme was described by the Commissioner as “crude and cruel” and “neither fair nor legal”. It was, without doubt, all of those things. As a piece of public policy, it fails almost every test. This includes being inconsistent with the beneficial approach to interpreting social security law required by government’s own Social Security Guide.

In the report’s overview, Commissioner Holmes noted that two different mindsets can be brought to social welfare policy. One argues that “many people” will need financial support at some point in their lives and that this should be provided by government “willingly, adequately and with respect”.  The other argues that those receiving social security benefits are a “burden on the taxpayer” whose cost should be minimised by “any means available”.

The two mindsets loosely describe a longstanding philosophical cleave in Australian politics. Both major sides of politics have required citizens to repay overpayments of income support (the stated policy purpose of Robodebt) and used this as a source of budget ‘savings’. But one has done so with considerably more, let’s call it, ideological zeal than the other.

Public servants must navigate these philosophical divides. Advice leading to Robodebt was provided under a government with one view. Advice being provided following the Royal Commission’s findings is going to a government with the other view. Public servants and chameleons must have more in common than biology suggests.

The Royal Commission report highlights many failures, including in the initial policy advising process. One was the failure of public servants to advise decision making ministers of the scheme’s questionable legality. A second was the lack of responsibility ministers took for the quality of proposals made in their name to Cabinet. A third, not emphasised by the Commission, was that the Department of Social Services’ initial policy objections to the scheme were never made available to the room where it happens.

History might have been different. Robodebt could have been made legal via legislation. If this had occurred, public servants would have still been responsible for conceiving a policy that was crude, cruel and unfair. Serious harm to the community would have still taken place. But the doors preventing scrutiny of public service advice may well have remained shut.

Public service craft

Almost 230 years separate the events described in Hamilton and those described by the Robodebt Royal Commission. In one, decisions were made without the benefit of what we in Australia would call independent public service advice. In the other, public service advice was central to decisions taken.

The absence of public service advice in the 1790 compromise raises a fascinating question. Had the comprise taken place in Australia and public service advice been sought, what should it have said?

For Robodebt, a similar question arises. The actual policy advice provided by the public service was undeniably poor. But it is equally clear that public servants were responding to strong signals from the government of the day about its attitude to social security recipients and a desire for budget savings. Given all of this, what advice should the public service have given?

Answering these questions is more difficult than you might expect. Good public service advice should be apolitical and independent, but it also needs to be appropriately responsive to the objectives and philosophical preferences of the elected government.

Providing advice is a key part of what is commonly known as public service ‘craft’. Learning craft takes place via an informal apprenticeship inside the service and is something passed from generation to generation. It all feels faintly medieval or even Jedi like. Perhaps public servants with craft should wear a funky robe and carry a policy sabre.

Craft is an old German word. It denotes activities requiring high levels of applied skill. The sense given is that policy advising cannot be ‘book’ learned or algorithmically produced. Experience and judgement, rather than the application of abstract knowledge, are critical.

This emphasis flows through to the way public servants are trained and how senior public servants are selected. External credentials, such as those provided by university public policy courses, and experience have some value. But they are no substitute for craft.

There is a lot to be said about the notion of craft. It captures something genuinely important about the subtleties of providing quality public service advice to a democratically elected government. Public policy making may look technocratic, but decision making in the room where it happens is contested and deeply human. To be effective, public servants must build good working relationships with the ministers they serve.

The benefits of conceiving public service advice as craft come with some downsides. The mysticism it creates can become an excuse for non-transparency. It can also prevent the public service from properly reflecting on the ongoing quality of the advice it provides. At its worst, it can result in people with craft becoming the unimpeachable ‘good chaps’ of Yes Minister fame.

Is craft enough?

The convention which sees the public service being given a privileged voice in the room where it happens comes with a heavy responsibility. In the case of Robodebt, it is a responsibility the public service failed to meet.

Commissioner Holmes emphasised the role leadership and culture played in creating an environment where poor policy advice, implementation and administration could happen. It is something the public service is rightly keen to address. The gap between the behaviours the service says it values and what actually ‘gets people ahead’ is far too wide.

The insight provided by the Royal Commission into the quality of public service advice also deserves serious attention. Two questions, in particular, arise. How does the public service know when it is providing good quality advice? Is craft enough to ensure the quality of public service advice?

After all, even Jedis can go to the dark side.