23 May 2007

PSA encouraged to pursue public value

When the mandarins of the Public Service Associaton (PSA) raise a glass to their Partnership for Quality agreement at Parliament’s Banquet Hall today they should reflect on whether the agreement should be renamed Partnership for Public Value, according to new public service watchdog group Pugnacious.

The PSA, which ‘represents’ 55,000 public servants, has claimed credit for rebuilding a public service that it says was so run down when Labour’s coalition governments took power that it (the public service that is) could not carry out some of its basic functions. The Partnership strategy was a response to that situation but more recently the PSA has been promoting a new governance and management model for public services based on a concept of “public value” and needs to keep going in that direction to show that it is not reliant on government to give that concept a life and integrity of its own (beyond the current level of a cartoon strip).

The Partnership for Quality was supposedly a means to give public servants more means to collectively influence decisions about their work and the quality of services, to enhance what the PSA calls “worker voice” and to ensure work in the public sector is meaningful.

Before patting itself gratuitously on the back, the PSA needs to question if the Partnership for Quality is still the right strategy at the right time and needs to stump up some evidence that it has actually resulted in more rewarding and satisfying rank-and-file jobs as claimed.

Sources consulted by Pugnacious indicate that the public service is becoming more confused about what its “basic functions” actually are, highlighted by what a senior official has called the ‘theming obscurantism’ of Budget themes, particularly the Families, Young and Old theme.

In an independent Budget analysis it was found that the funding for initiatives other than health, the Police and justice, schooling, early childhood education, youth interventions and superannuation under the catch-all Families, Young and Old made up just 2 percent of the total ($90.1 million). Further to that some $100 million was incrementally shaved off the votes for Child, Youth and Family, Community and Voluntary Sector, Housing, Senior Citizens and Youth Development. With some exceptions such as NZ Herald journalist Paula Oliver’s analysis of what adds up and what doesn’t at Budget time (e.g. 2006: Maori Affairs part of 1B budget cut) this isn’t a level of detail that will appear in the media or be subject to investigative questioning or challenge of any kind.

Pugnacious contends that digging below these figures is exactly how organizations like the PSA should be building an understanding of public value and the vagaries of decisionmaking in the public service, as well as scrutinizing where meaningful work is being treated in a tokenistic manner, under-funded, undermined or simply fluffed.

ENDS

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