Public Service Accountability? Show Me the Change

15/5/2022

Two years on from the Public Service Act 2020, I’m still asking: where is the change?

We were told the Act would modernise the public service. It would be more connected, more accountable, and more aligned with the public good.

It promised a shift away from the old siloed, transactional state of the 1980s, toward something more collective, more values-led, using the Treaty to shape delivery.

That was the sales pitch. The reality, two years in, looks far more familiar.

Yes, the Act introduced new ideas.

Interdepartmental executive boards, interdepartmental ventures, functional chief executives. It gave the State Services Commissioner more influence over leadership appointments, ethics, and workforce direction. It made gestures toward collective accountability.

To be fair, on paper, that sounds promising. The problem is, not much has happened.

None of these changes came with funding.

There was no budget to build out the boards or ventures: it was all done within baseline.

No resourcing to support joint planning or delivery: it all had to be done within baselines.

No shift in how departmental and chief executives performance is assessed.

The machinery of government is still designed to work in vertical lines: from department to minister, from CE to portfolio, from budget bid to siloed outcome.

Indeed its worse because officials now think they have the discretion to judge for themselves what is in the public’s interest – without talking with the public.

If this was a genuine system shift, we’d see it in what the public service produces.

By now I would have expected to see the joint strategies? Where is the public reporting that shows shared delivery? Where is the capability to act across boundaries and produce results?

I can’t find it. Departments are still behaving like separate entities, with separate priorities, and separate incentives. And, even worse, they think everything is fine because they are acting in the spirit of service – and that is enough.

The test isn’t whether the law changed. The test is whether the system changed. If there were new outputs, we’d be seeing new models of delivery. If there were new outcomes, we’d be seeing improved coordination, better experiences for whānau, and more joined-up responses to complex issues. If there were real impacts, we’d be seeing changes in trust, equity, and performance. But we’re not.

We changed the legislation but left the system intact. We added collective language and gestures but kept individual accountability. We introduced new forms without changing the function. Ministers still govern by portfolio, not by outcome. Chief executives are still judged on what happens inside their own walls. And the public is still expected to navigate complexity that the system itself refuses to resolve.

It’s hard to call something a reform if it isn’t funded, if it doesn’t deliver, and if no one outside Wellington has noticed a difference. What we got wasn’t transformation. It was an administrative adjustment, useful in parts, but symbolic more than structural.

If we’re serious about accountability, then the next reform has to be a accountability and performance reform and it needs to happen in more than statute.

We need shared budgets, aligned incentives, and performance systems that reward collective results. We need ministers and chief executives who are willing to lead together: not just in words, but in practice.

Until then, let’s stop pretending this Act changed the game. Because two years on, the money isn’t there, the outputs aren’t there, the impacts were never shaped and the outcomes never arrived.