The Australian Public Service needs a new ethics educational drive to combat the ethical challenges of misusing information and communications technology and the harassment and bullying that occurs in the workplace, according to the APS Commissioner, Lynelle Briggs.
Delivering the David Hawkes Oration to the Northern Territory chapter of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, Commissioner Briggs said public sector ethics affected all Australians, and the general public expected, and were entitled to, a particularly high standard of stewardship of their resources.
Briggs makes call to lift game
She said although by most indications the APS “looks pretty good” there were some areas in which it was vulnerable to ethical failures, mainly including the misuse of information and ICT, and harassment and bullying in the workplace. She said the ability to identify and think strategically about ethical challenges and have systems in place to equip staff to meet them was the best guarantor of ethical health. “In response to this key challenge, to encounter better ethical decision making in increasingly diverse situations, I believe that the APS needs to foster a new ethics education drive,” she said. “Let me be clear, I am not proposing simply that we do more of the same stuff that we have been doing off and on for years.” Commissioner Briggs said improving ethical decision making in the workplace turned on the role of Public Sector leadership. “I want to encourage our leaders to be more proactive in promoting ethics in the workplace,” she said. “The APS legislation requires our leaders – Agency heads and the Senior Executive Service – to promote the APS Values and the APS Code of Conduct, including by personal example.” Commissioner Briggs said the new drive should include a mandatory ethics component in all APS courses; upgrading of APS and SES induction training; encouraging Agencies to better integrate ethics into their management systems; and more analysis of reports and investigations that were critical of APS performance. She said the Australian community expected their Public Service to be outward looking, flexible, innovative and adaptive in the way in which it shaped policies and delivered programs. “According to a range of indicators, the Australian Public Service looks pretty good,” she said. “We have a clear ethical framework in the APS Values and APS Code of Conduct… we also have a broad body of policy and good practice in guidance available to APS Agencies and employees on the interpretation and application of the Code and the Values.” She said an international index had found Australia to be the ninth least corrupt nation out of 178, but there were some problem areas. Commissioner Briggs pointed to the escape of equine influenza from Eastern Creek Quarantine Station as an example of carelessness and incompetence that damaged the APS’s reputation and contravened the APS’s ethical framework. “I cannot emphasise too strongly that our Values and the Code are fundamental to what keeps us sound, professional and safe,” she said. “The APS Values require us to be apolitical and impartial but they also require us to be responsive.” The full text of Commissioner Briggs’s address can be accessed on the APSC website www.apsc.gov.au
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