The Senior Executive Service in Australia (Commonwealth)

General Background

The Australian Senior Executive Service (SES) was created in 1984 and the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission (PS&MPC) is charged with ensuring its success. Adoption of the SES in Australia was based in large part on the US SES which had been set up a mere six years earlier.²⁶ And as with the US SES, the premise underlying the introduction of the senior executive service in Australia was that there are no significant differences between executives in the public and private sectors; hence, public sector executives should be managed similarly. This was naturally extended to asserting that "public sector performance could be improved by linking it with pecuniary rewards and sanctions in the context of a formal performance appraisal system, and that, in following the principle of management autonomy, the "best" managers needed to be recruited for the sector".²⁷

In the early 1990s, the SES numbered approximately 1,600 officers (or about 1 percent of the total number of federal-level public servants in Australia).²⁸ This figure is now over 1.6 percent and the number of SES members has also increased to a little over 1,770 in 2000. The SES was intended to be a very flexible service and one where executive skills of senior and promising civil servants would be developed. It was also designed to serve as a service meant for all the agencies of the Public Service and not only as a sub-corps of super executives restricted only to their respective departments. Finally, the "desired "new style" of management was for managers to be freed from many of the procedural constraints which had resulted in past "bureaucratic" behaviour, and to operate more independently from central agencies".²⁹

The figure for females in the upper echelon of the public service is around 26 percent in the Commonwealth SES (see Figure 4)³⁰ (the target was 30 percent by 2001). On the other hand, representation levels of minorities in the SES have been described as being "static".³¹ Information is available only for indigenous Australians and the picture is not very encouraging (the figures show a movement of 0.7 percent in 1991, 1.3 percent in 1999, and 1.2 percent in 2000). For people with non-English speaking backgrounds, the figures were 2.9 percent in 1991, 3.6 percent in 1999, and 3.9 percent in 2000.³² The SES median age in 1999-2000 was computed to be 48 years³³ which shows the need for the government to bring in new blood into the upper echelons.

Figure 4. Number of Women in the Australian SES

Development Opportunities

In Australia, the PS&MPC makes use of a Development Prospectus to outline what it calls a "suite" of development opportunities to senior managers. For example, in December 1999 it launched the Senior Executive Development Prospectus 2000 that outlined 32 SES leadership and development programmes, courses and seminars. The suite includes core programmes (which correspond to key points in the career development of senior managers), and a wide range of targeted seminars and courses that address specific skills. In recognition of the pressures of time on senior managers, recent programmes have tended to include more short-term practical courses, and residential components have been kept to a minimum. PS&MPC also puts on offer programmes that place strong emphasis on real life challenges and projects in meeting development needs.

The development opportunities available to senior executives in the Commonwealth SES in Australia are considerable. Some of the main ones include:³⁴

• Executive Leadership Development Programme - consists of a number of modules over eight days including a three-day residential component. An integral part of this is work on a major project of immediate relevance to the Australian Public Service;
• Sustaining the Leadership Contribution - provides opportunity for experienced senior executives to refresh the skills and knowledge they need to do their work well. The programme includes a review of key leadership behaviours, and the development of skills and strategies to increase personal effectiveness;
• Senior Executive Fellowships - aimed at SES staff that has at least five years of service to allow them to pursue a course of study not normally available within Australia for a period of up to three months;
• Executive Coach and Mentor - Participants learn how to create the opportunities that will help their staff to learn and perform more effectively. Participants are also able to gain skills and use techniques in questioning and listening in ways that enable people to understand and learn more quickly;
• Career Development Assessment Centre - The Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework (SELCF; discussed later) formed the basis for the development of this Centre which is designed to provide high potential staff members with specific and reliable feedback about their strengths and development needs and to assist them to develop further in areas of relative weakness. Of particular use in the Centre is a 360° feedback questionnaire custom-built around capabilities, which provides feedback from the workplace on participants' strengths and development needs in relation to the Leadership Framework;
• Courses and Seminars - PS&MPC also presents regular SES Breakfast and Lunchtime Seminars that provide senior executives with a forum to hear and interact with leading speakers on contemporary issues; and
• Senior Women in Management Programme - This is a nine-month development programme that aims to provide personal and leadership development opportunities to senior women managers through high quality coursework and mentoring complemented by challenging work placements and group projects.

Finally, a Senior Executive Advisor is available to assist SES employees in addressing any issue they may be facing. An important component of the activities of the Advisor is support for displaced SES employees particularly in the areas of placement opportunities, counselling services, and redeployment and retirement options.

Use of Competency Frameworks

The literature is ample on competencies as well as leadership in both the Australian federal and state level public sectors.³⁵ While the Australian SES was created in 1984, a new Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework (SELCF) was introduced only in 1999 to replace the prevalent SES selection criteria. The SELCF has been described as a strong tool for development and planning in relation to the senior executives. It starts by identifying the behaviours that Public Service leaders would need to exhibit to guide their organisations towards higher performance. The capabilities described in the SELCF (see Table 5) show a remarkable level of similarity with the ECQs in the US SES. The competencies can be expanded according to individual agency requirements; this flexibility enables the departments to tailor selection and performance criteria to meet their own needs.

Table 5. Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework (Australia)

Competence	Discussion
Shaping strategic thinking	Including inspiring a sense of purpose and direction, focusing strategically, harnessing information and opportunities, showing judgement and common sense
Achieving results	Including building organisational capability and responsiveness, marshalling professional expertise, steering and implementing change, and ensuring closure and delivering intended results
Cultivating productive working relationships	Including nurturing internal and external relationships, facilitating partnerships, valuing individual differences and diversity, and guiding, mentoring, and developing people
Exemplifying personal drive and integrity	Including demonstrating public service professionalism and probity, engaging risk and showing personal courage, displaying resilience, and demonstrating self-awareness and a commitment to personal development
Communicating with influence	Including communicating clearly, listening, understanding and adapting to audience, and negotiating persuasively

Source: http://www.psmpc.gov.au/media/ministerspeech19may.htm; (date of access: 23/01/2001).

Morley and Vilkinas point out that two significant competencies that are missing here are complexity and relationship to politics.³⁶ However, the PS&MPC takes great pride in saying that the SELCF has been home-grown and that it allows for a considerable degree of flexibility. The literature reveals that Australians - at least in the private sector - have tended to follow the UK model of competencies (which uses competencies as characteristics required for adequate performance) over the US model (which uses competencies as indicators of superior performance). It is necessary to add that the various state jurisdictions have also actively experimented with competency frameworks and have drawn heavily from the experiences of jurisdictions such as the US and the UK.³⁷

²⁶ Victoria was the first Australian state to introduce the SES in its bureaucracy in 1981; the other states followed much later (e.g., Western Australia in 1987, New South Wales in 1988, and Queensland in 1990). For a review of the SES practices of these and other states in Australia, see, for example, Coaldrake and Whitton (1996).

²⁷ Lamond (1991), p. 505.

²⁸ See Jabes, et al (1992), p. 5. In contrast, at the time of creation, the percent of senior public servants in the Canadian federal government was 2 percent, and in the UK 0.5 percent (see Raadschelders and van der Meer (1998), p. 16).

²⁹ See Jabes, et al (op cit), p. 6.

³⁰ See PS&MPC, SES News, Issue no. 8, November 2000, p. 8.

³¹ See http://www.psmpc.gov.au/about/workplacediversity99.pdf.

³² The figures are averages of two types of people from non-English speaking backgrounds (see http://www.psmpc.gov.au/about/workplacediversity99.pdf).

³³ See http://www.psmpc.gov.au/about/workplacediversity99.pdf.

³⁴ See the Public Service Commissioner Annual Report 1999-00 (Appendix J: Learning and development opportunities) for further information (www.psmpc.gov.au).

³⁵ See, for example, Ives (1995), Mascarenhas (1993, 1990), Coaldrake and Whitton (1996), Halligan and Power (1991), Curnow (1998), Attridge (1991), Baker (1989), Morley and Vilkinas (1997), Hunt and Wallace (1997), and Renfrow, Hede, and Lamond (1998).

³⁶ Morley and Vilkinas (op cit), p. 412.

³⁷ For a comprehensive discussion on competency frameworks in the Australian Public Service (both at the Commonwealth and state levels), see Morley and Vilkinas (op cit)).