A central question the Joint Committee on Public Accountability and Audit is pursuing in its inquiry into probity and ethics in the Commonwealth public sector is how to hold individual public servants to account for the failures so often being found in ANAO reports and those of other inquiries. Must we have a Royal Commission before individuals are identified and held to account?
The Public Service Act and Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act exemplify the shift from earlier more prescriptive approaches to personnel and financial management to a ‘principles-based’ approach. They devolved more authority to agencies to manage for results, ostensibly with firmer accountability for those results. They also spell out the responsibilities and duties of senior executives which relate to how results are to be achieved, including the ethical leadership expected of secretaries and other agency heads.
But as the Auditor-General, Grant Hehir, said in his latest annual report and repeated in evidence before the JCPAA:
‘there appears to be a relatively high risk-tolerance for non-compliance so long as results are achieved, rather than seeing compliance as a hallmark of integrity and essential to the craft of public administration.’
He might also have noted recent interpretations by some public servants that the ‘results’ to be achieved include what ministers and their staff prefer rather than the formal objectives of the programs being administered.
The concern I expressed to the Committee is that the rewards from pleasing ministers and advisers, even when this involves non-compliance with legal and ethical requirements, seem to exceed any penalties. Indeed, it is rare that anyone is held to account for non-compliance let alone any sanction........