Public Sector Bargains
8/1/2024
Over the next few weeks, I will offer a few frameworks for those of you wanting to better understand the work of the executive.
This is the first one.
These are high-level introductions only. But I will link you to the primary scholarship.
Public Sector Bargains are the explicit and implicit agreements between public servants and ministers.
They look a bit like this:
The bargains have two basic features: what ministers and officials agree not to do and what they get in return from one another for not doing those things.
They are a widely used concept in public administration and public management.
Christopher Hood (who is a Kiwi) and Martin Lodge built on the idea of the Schafferian bargain to give us some clarity about the nature of the relationship between ministers and officials.
While we have seen the idea of public service bargains ebb and flow, it has been used across a range of jurisdictions and is pretty much canon.
Why do I think this one matters right now?
Well, if you are an official leaking against a current government or releasing personal and private information about ministers, then you are probably undermining the public service bargain and probably don’t understand your constitutional role: i.e., an unelected official who ought to be indifferent and unconcerned about the politics, and instead be facilitating the voice of communities and implementing the policies of the government of the day.
Similarly, if you are a minister who wants the right to hire, fire, and directly set the remuneration of officials, then you are also probably undermining the public service bargain. If you don’t want a constitutionally independent public service, then you ought to change the relevant legislation. If you want a more accountable public service, then confirm your theory of the state, clarify your strategy and set your outcome measures.
Next week I will cover off the purple zone and the concept of the authorising environment.
Remember, these are normative frameworks. I am making no judgement about what is currently happening or what has happened. These frameworks enable us to have a shared lens or window into the executive.
References:
Comment: Regulatory Standards Bill
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the regulatory standards bill. As someone involved in regulatory systems and policy, I want to talk about their design and likely impact. Let me be direct: these proposals lack any supporting evidence that they would improve our regulatory environment. Instead, they demonstrate a troubling pattern of overreach. The fundamental problems are st...
Read moreThe Knowledge Wave’s Bitter W …
Apropos of nothing - except for the current vibe coming out of Wellington. Let's be frank about what went wrong with the Knowledge Wave circa 2001 and 2003. I remember sitting in those early conferences - all optimism and powerpoints about our gleaming tech future. But in reality, we were trying to bolt a Silicon Valley dream onto a country that runs on milk powder and tourist dollars. Here's...
Read morePublic Services in Crisis? A Tale o …
Note: This analysis was initially prepared as a commissioned piece for a local private sector client in December 2024. With their permission, I am sharing these insights more broadly to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about public service reform. While the core analysis remains unchanged - at the time this post was published - from the original submission, it has been formatted for wider circu...
Read more