The real question is why did the government press Brian into this role, which he got pretty much on his own terms, instead of appointing someone from the public service? The Public Service Commissioner is the top role, so why were not that several first class candidates that the government was comfortable with?
And, why was retired Iain Rennie appointed to head Treasury and retired Chris Seed to replace Phil Goff in London. Furthermore why was retired diplomat Rosemary Banks appointed to Washington to hold a slot she had previously filled?
Something is clearly wrong with the public service when it’s not producing top level people to take up these appointments. In addition we seem to have appointed some people incapable of delivering net gains for NZ. There are numerous examples out there of bloated bureaucracies achieving not much. Education would be high on my list of failures.
Brian Roche has identified some high level points and good luck to him making some improvements. I hope he can also reflect on why he is in this role.
Something has gone wrong over the last 30 years which is not the fault of any particular government. I would like to see people, more knowledgeable than myself, comment on the underlying problems and their solutions.
One candidate for the failure to produce top officials that enjoy the confidence of ministers is, I suspect, the ending of the permanent secretary role, and its replacement by mostly five year fixed term contracts. The permanent secretary was the traditional British model. Its abolition here in the late 1980s reduces long term security and in my views discourages CEOs from providing free and frank advice as was common up until the 1990s.
Australia has a different approach, which accepts the political nature of a departmental head, and gives the head of the Prime Ministers department the key role effectively appointing these departmental heads. This is markedly different from the USA where Presidential powers allow them to control several levels in departments.
Up until recently I have supported restoring the permanent head. I still think that is a valid option because we seem to be in an uncomfortable place, in between two quite different approaches. More recently I have been drawn to the Australian model which is what clearly happened with the appointment of Brian Roche and possibly also with Iain Rennie.
It would be nice if we could have some civilised discussion about the situation and the options.
Barrie Saunders has a background in Government Relations and blogs at www.barriesaunders.wordpress.com. - where this article was sourced.
And, why was retired Iain Rennie appointed to head Treasury and retired Chris Seed to replace Phil Goff in London. Furthermore why was retired diplomat Rosemary Banks appointed to Washington to hold a slot she had previously filled?
Something is clearly wrong with the public service when it’s not producing top level people to take up these appointments. In addition we seem to have appointed some people incapable of delivering net gains for NZ. There are numerous examples out there of bloated bureaucracies achieving not much. Education would be high on my list of failures.
Brian Roche has identified some high level points and good luck to him making some improvements. I hope he can also reflect on why he is in this role.
Something has gone wrong over the last 30 years which is not the fault of any particular government. I would like to see people, more knowledgeable than myself, comment on the underlying problems and their solutions.
One candidate for the failure to produce top officials that enjoy the confidence of ministers is, I suspect, the ending of the permanent secretary role, and its replacement by mostly five year fixed term contracts. The permanent secretary was the traditional British model. Its abolition here in the late 1980s reduces long term security and in my views discourages CEOs from providing free and frank advice as was common up until the 1990s.
Australia has a different approach, which accepts the political nature of a departmental head, and gives the head of the Prime Ministers department the key role effectively appointing these departmental heads. This is markedly different from the USA where Presidential powers allow them to control several levels in departments.
Up until recently I have supported restoring the permanent head. I still think that is a valid option because we seem to be in an uncomfortable place, in between two quite different approaches. More recently I have been drawn to the Australian model which is what clearly happened with the appointment of Brian Roche and possibly also with Iain Rennie.
It would be nice if we could have some civilised discussion about the situation and the options.
Barrie Saunders has a background in Government Relations and blogs at www.barriesaunders.wordpress.com. - where this article was sourced.
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