www.mccully.co.nz - 9 March 2007

new-zealand-national-party

Fri Mar 09 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

www.mccully.co.nz - 9 March 2007

Friday, 9 March 2007, 2:23 pm
Column: New Zealand National Party

A Weekly Report from the Keyboard of Murray McCully MP for East Coast Bays

Marching Orders for Dr Bewildered

The worldwide headquarters of mccully.co is pleased, this week, to exclusively reveal the background to the shock departure of Dr James Bewildered as chief executive of the Department of Labour – courtesy of our extremely well-informed and discreet informants. The hapless Dr Bewildered was, we are reliably informed, given the opportunity to jump in the time honoured fashion, prior to being pushed.

The downfall of Dr Bewildered was most presciently forecast in the early days of his appointment by the scholarly souls at the worldwide headquarters. The good doctor had foolishly presided over an attempted white-wash over the infamous “lie in unison” email. Complicit in this process was then State Services Commissioner, (who hires and fires chief executives for the government), the self-proclaimed celibate, Michael Wintringham. Their plans were unstuck by an Ombudsman’s own motion enquiry. Several months, much political damage, and some obligatory sackings later, then Minister Paul Swain was forced to concede that it would have been preferable to have had an independent external enquiry and take the hit.

Then followed the major re-structure of the Department. All manner of bureaucratic woolly-wooftery accompanied the exercise. But not even the breathless praise of the usual Labour cheerleaders could disguise the folly of it all. An exercise in ivory tower perfection with the minor technical deficiency that it didn’t work. Add the appointments of a few square peg senior managers to some round-hole positions and you have the recipe for the unhappiness that was to follow.

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The past few years have seen all of the signs of a department that is out of control: a massive blow-out in staff numbers, massive increases in the numbers paid for top managers salaries, bonuses for all and sundry (regardless of performance), millions of dollars paid to external consultants, many for contracts that were apparently untendered, and the usual assortment of hui and conferences with embarrassing price tags and nothing to show for them.

From time to time the worldwide headquarters was moved to opine upon some of the sillier manifestations of the Bewildered regime – in the calm, restrained and caring manner with which regular readers will be familiar. But Dr Bewildered was staunchly defended by the new State Services Commissioner, Dr Mark Prebble – the only New Zealand male to claim to be offended by the sight of Christine Rankin’s cleavage. On one occasion Dr Prebble was even moved to write directly to the humble Member for East Coast Bays threatening dire consequences if his criticism of Dr Bewildered was not curtailed.

But behind the scenes, Dr Prebble was dealing with some very unhappy and relatively limited customers. You see, the Department of Labour services a range of different Ministers – the Ministers of Immigration, ACC and Labour, for example. And some of said Ministers, accorded the thumbs down for their own performance, had provided less than glowing reviews of the performance of Dr Bewildered. There has been growing frustration and concern amongst the ranks within the Department. And Dr Bewildered had been warned, we are told, that his position would be untenable unless he took serious steps to sort it out. But sorting it out was beyond both Dr Bewildered and some of the very ordinary performers he had appointed to his second tier.

Finally, events reached the unhappy stage where Dr Prebble informed the unfortunate Dr Bewildered that he had two choices: go quietly, or go noisily and involuntarily. Sensibly, Dr Bewildered selected option A.

Breaking the Code

The Mark Prebbles of this world are trigger-happy in the extreme when it comes to invoking an alleged code of immunity for public servants from political criticism. Public servants, they argue, cannot answer back. Members of Parliament, they assert, should therefore refrain from personal criticism of them. But there are two very important and compelling rejoinders to that.

First, departmental chief executives are paid a great deal of money – several times the pay of your garden variety MP, and vastly more than most could earn in the private sector. They are paid those salaries to provide excellent performance. And MPs are paid their lesser salaries to hold chief executives to account when performance falls short.

Second, chief executives who step across the political line and run interference for their political masters are fair game. They are thwarting the process of accountability to Parliament and deserve whatever comes their way.

From that perspective, Dr Bewildered should have been a marked man from the beginning. The shameful attempted cover-up around the “lie in unison” scandal was a gross insult to the notion of Parliamentary accountability – saved only by the integrity of the Office of the Ombudsman. What a pity that we have State Services Commissioners that are so quick to take offence at Christine Rankin’s cleavage, yet so slow to take offence at departments of state that are so clearly off the rails.

The Culture Problem
The unsuccessful, and from all accounts, the unhappy tenure of Dr Bewildered at the Department of Labour is far from unique. Indeed it highlights a fundamental problem that has dominated our public service for two decades at least: the dominance of the policy boffins over the good managers.

For many years now our public service has fast-tracked pointy-headed policy boffins to the top. Academic policy types seem to have been singled out for special courses and rapid promotions. Senior managers from the Treasury, in particular, have benefited from this fashion, many ending up in chief executives’ roles in which they have been spectacularly unsuccessful.

At the same time, sound professional managers, who simply excel at leading a team of people, have been ignored by the system – many, having been starved of opportunity here, ultimately ending their careers in high paying international roles courtesy of the World Bank, the UN, or the OECD.

Compounding the problem has been a failure to appoint senior managers from outside the public sector. A culture has grown that is introverted, process rather than results focused, and almost disdainful of the role of elected representatives of the people, the Parliament and its select committees. A culture that unstuck Dr James Bewildered as chief executive of the Department of Labour.

Expect little to change while the current State Services Commissioner, Mark Prebble (a creature of the system if ever there was one) is on the job. But there is a compelling argument that his successor should come from outside the current system – someone with a private sector background but a reasonable understanding of the operation of state agencies. Such people do exist. But we will almost certainly have to bring back knighthoods and the female equivalent to make it worth their while.

ENDS

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