He manu aute, e taea te whakahoro

11/7/2023

The term civil service was coined in 1785 to describe the non-military or civilian roles undertaken by the East India Company. For those of you who don’t know the history, the company was formed in 1600 to exploit East and Southeast Asia as well as India.

The term was subsequently borrowed to mean all the non-military institutions of the British government who were in service to the British Crown.

So it was the case in Aotearoa.

In fact, it was not until the start of the 20th century that the term public servant became preferred to civil servant. The change in nomenclature was intended to signal the need for independence from the colonial past.

That said, today, the public service in Aotearoa is still in the service of the Crown. Indeed, our constitution asks our independent, non-partisan, and expert public service to serve the government of the day through a Minister of the Crown.

The whakataukī above reminds us that much like a kite that becomes useless when it is slackened, a public service that does not understand its constitutional role is also a problem.

The role of officials is to support Ministers by providing accurate information, free and frank advice, continuity, and institutional means for good government, so that effect and impact can be given, through the democratic systems and processes, to the will of the people. In Aotearoa, the other role of officials is to keep an eye on the public interest and ensure that it is also served. This second role was sharpened in the recent public service reform.

To wear both hats, the accountability arrangements of public servants in our system of government are both vertical and horizontal: to the Minister through the chief executive and to the public and through other government institutions like the courts, ombudspersons, OAG, think tanks and academics.

There is a purposeful and enduring tension in the accountability arrangements. It is not an easy space to work in. The success of officials in this space is driven by and often reliant on the statutory obligations we call public service ethics: they are articulated in the Public Service Act 2020 and reflected in the various codes of conduct each department, agency and entity is required to have.

Back to our whakataukī: when the ethical behaviour and conduct of a public servant slackens, it impacts the entire public service. Frankly, no public servant can be indifferent to the ministerial interest or the public interest. Equally, no public servant ought to put their private interest over and above either.

I was taught and inducted into the public service by Ta Wira Gardiner. He taught us that everything a public servant does must be guided by a disinterested concern for politics and an appreciation of the public good.

Yes, I know the concept of what constitutes the public interest or what a public good is or is not is debated, and that is the job of our public policy system.

And, yes, I know tensions arise between “politics” and “statecraft” and between professions that use “statecraft”. However, understanding those conflicts is essential.

But, the ability to resolve those conflicts without resorting to the unauthorised disclosure of personal and private information of an indigenous Minister of the Crown by a senior public servant is beyond okay.

This was not whistleblowing. There was not a formal complaint. Rather it was a set of allegations, reportedly shopped around a number of outlets. And that seems a long way from the public service we thought we were getting at the start of the 20th century.