Attitudes toward the public service

• James Whelan, and others
• Centre for Policy Development

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27 July 2011This report presents a summary of attitudes toward the public service drawing on a range of sources and examining the perspectives of community members, Australian politicians and public servants. Our synthesis of attitudinal studies draws on surveys that have been conducted during the last twenty years by government agencies and researchers. We examined the views of elected representatives by analysing contemporary media coverage and the Parliamentary record (Hansard) between 2006 and 2011. Our main findings are that:

• Most Australians support government exercising an active role in society and the economy.
• There is strong community preference for public (rather than private) sector agencies delivering services including transport, policing, health and education.
• Outsourcing and privatisation occur despite and contrary to these preferences.
• Australians are generally supportive of increased public service funding, even if that means paying higher taxes.
• A majority of citizens express reservations about the current bipartisan determination to return the Australian budget to surplus as soon as possible. Surveys indicate that this is not widely supported if it comes at the expense of adequately funded public services.
• Surveys indicate a higher level of confidence in public service agencies than major companies.
• Agency surveys provide an inadequate assessment of client satisfaction.
• The mainstream media communicates primarily negative stereotypes of public servants.
• Australian politicians reinforce these stereotypes, expressing distinctly less positive attitudes toward the public service than those of other community members: they are less likely than citizens to express satisfaction, confidence or willingness to fund and regularly invoke very negative stereotypes.
• Studies of APS employees toward their workplaces and employers present contradictory impressions. Surveys administered by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) present a largely positive picture including high levels of employee satisfaction, motivation and sense of personal accomplishment. These surveys also indicate that many APS employees feel that their agencies discourage innovation and that their interactions with Ministers and other elected representatives are often difficult.
• Surveys conducted by the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) present a significantly less positive impression. For instance, a significant proportion of female public servants report their work-life balance difficulties and bullying in their workplaces.

Our research highlights shortcomings of the available attitudinal studies. In particular, there are few independent and longitudinal sources to measure trends and reliably indicate whether Australians are more or less satisfied with and confident in the Australian Public Service year by year. Instead, different questions are asked in different ways making trend analysis impossible. One solution to this problem would be to conduct a standardised national survey of Australian citizens’ views of the APS. This would provide a reliable and independent assessment of community views to inform decisions about public service funding and staffing. This could be based on the ‘Citizens First’ survey administered every two years by the Canadian government, as was recommended in the 2010 Moran review of the APS.

Authors: James Whelan, Anna Long, Nicola MacColl and Daniel Lau.