REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE 2010 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE INST. OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE 2010 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Dia dhíbh a chairde, I’m delighted to join you here and I’d like to thank Brian Cawley for his kind invitation to take part in this crucial and timely debate about building confidence and trust in our public administration. The Institute of Public Administration has a long history of being at the centre of the development of best practice in public administration and management. It’s a role which has been of major significance in the past and looks set to be of even greater importance in the future as we probe much more forensically and critically the private and public infrastructures which impact profoundly on our social and economic wellbeing.
The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said ‘wise men put their trust in ideas and not circumstances.’ Wise women too I am sure! It is ideas, but good sound ideas that have our collective national wellbeing at their core, that can take us beyond circumstances – especially current circumstances. The IPA provides an opportunity to develop not just good ideas but an agenda for fresh thinking and best practice in public administration. It encourages a culture which routinely interrogates current practice and strives to make it work more effectively in the broad public interest.
These things are sorely needed right now when we are attempting to transcend the prevailing mood of public disappointment. We look to those in leadership, particularly in our public service, to help us navigate these turbulent seas. Knowing that it will take more than a solo navigator to get us to calmer waters, I am reassured by the crew you have assembled here today with high-level speakers from Ireland and abroad whose experience, wisdom, insight and intuition will undoubtedly generate lively and constructive debate. I hope it will distil into a clear-sighted view of the next steps we need to take to ensure our public service is giving high quality service and leadership that advances the broader national interest.
In these difficult economic times, our citizens and businesses are more dependent than ever on accessing quality public services. There are new levels of individual and family vulnerability as a result of the economic retrenchment and these impact in a very immediate way on the people who are delivering our public services. Our social infrastructure of care for the vulnerable is part of your stewardship. Our economic infrastructure which needs to foster business growth and promote increased employment is also part of your stewardship. The backdrop to your working environment has shifted kilter quite markedly for, instead of the surging confidence and optimism of the rapid growth years, there has been an erosion of trust and reputational integrity, not only in the institutions of State but in financial and ecclesiastical institutions both globally and at home.
The public service is one of the sectors scrutinised in terms of apportioning responsibility for the current predicament and in terms of assessing its current and future capacity to provide workable solutions to our problems. Those problems and this mood are unprecedented and difficult but they are soluble and already our country has received international plaudits for the courage and determination it has shown in its efforts to address the fiscal and banking challenges and to regenerate confidence in our country.
A meitheal of effort is needed to move us from where we are to where we want to be and the dedication and commitment displayed each day by the vast majority of public servants is the hub of that effort. My work allows me to regularly see the excellent work carried out by public servants on the front line of service provision – by those working in our Local Authorities, in our hospitals, social services, in our schools, in the Defence Forces and in An Garda Siochána. I have no doubt that each of those individual public servants feels deeply the economic and psychological effects of these times and, at the same time, feels the need to play his or her part in advancing this country on the road to recovery.
Public servants have already made a substantial contribution to that recovery through the reduction in the public service payroll costs and in their commitment to a programme of transformation to deliver savings and increase accountability and transparency. Public services are now being delivered by a smaller work force, with staff at all levels recognising the necessity of doing more with less. In some areas, such as the delivery of our social welfare service, there are now unprecedented levels of demand as the social consequences of the economic crisis make themselves felt. Public servants have shown commendable flexibility in cooperating to address priority needs. Indeed, many have gone further and displayed great innovation and creativity in addressing service areas which are now coming under strain.
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith said ‘if it is dangerous to suppose that government is always right, it will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people suppose that it is always wrong’. Rightly or wrongly, we now live in those awkward times where the public service is rarely given the benefit of the doubt and the default setting for most commentary on the public service is negative. It is all the more important, therefore, that trust between the public service and the citizens it serves is enhanced; that the public service focuses ever more sharply on the needs of the citizen; and that it constantly renews its commitment to delivering the highest quality of services in and through the toughest of times.
Those public services affect all aspects of our lives. Every citizen has some form of engagement with some face of the public service. If that engagement is continuously positive, courteous and attentive, it will cumulatively but inevitably augment the values of trust, respect and esteem which we all want to see at the heart of the relationship between the public service and citizens.
Many public servants are understandably aggrieved that their individual and collective contributions to national recovery have not been adequately reflected in the public discourse. The hurt and frustration felt by the general public over our economic situation has undoubtedly impacted on its willingness to give credit for the sacrifices made by public servants. If you have lost your job or business in the private sector, you are unlikely to regard the public servant with a reduced income as meriting greater sympathy.
This “them and us” dichotomy between the public and private sectors is, however, neither healthy for the mood of the general public nor staff morale within the public service. Our collective challenge is to channel this negative energy in a more positive direction and to convert the current mood of indignation into a steely determination by all of us together – public and private sectors alike – to get our country back to work, to opportunity and to sustainable prosperity.
A prominent figure in US politics remarked that “you should never let a good crisis go to waste.” The flipside of crisis is opportunity - an opportunity to ask questions, interrogate the prevailing orthodoxies, open ourselves to change, liberate the undoubted talent and creativity that exists in the public service and bring them sharply to bear on the reforms necessary to build a stronger, more prosperous and more equitable Ireland. In the years to come, this generation of policy makers and implementers will be judged on our response to this perfect storm of fiscal, banking, employment and reputational challenges that has faced Ireland since 2008. Business as usual will not suffice; being spectators will not generate forward momentum. Our respective institutions and organisations have to be fit for purpose for the journey ahead and we rely on you to ensure that they perform to the best of your ability.
The scale of the issues being faced and the embedded attitudes and practices which created them gives us the motivation and the opportunity to drive long-term, far-reaching transformational change to deliver a public service of which our citizens can be truly proud. Due to the magnitude of the crisis and the reduced resources available we are going to need to be open to new ways of operating smarter and better and of delivering services in ways that are more efficient and effective.
The sheer scale and diversity of the public service means, of course, that there is no single, one-size-fits-all solution to the current challenges. However, the recent Public Service Agreement provides a platform upon which each organisation in the public service has the opportunity to formulate and implement specific and targeted measures that will improve the quality and efficiency of its public services. While the outworking of this Agreement will require ongoing dialogue and cooperation between management and staff, its effective and visible implementation will clearly have consequences in terms of building fresh public trust and confidence and increasing morale and motivation within the public service.
One area which, I believe, merits priority attention is the system of performance management and development in the public service. It ought to be possible to devise and proactively implement robust frameworks which both recognise and reward good and exceptional performance and, at the same time, tackles under-performance where it arises. Schemes such as the Taoiseach’s Excellence Awards are a commendable way of recognising projects of exceptional merit or innovation across the public service. While they receive relatively modest coverage in the media, these awards have shown that the effectiveness, productivity and spirit of public sector organisations will be enhanced by well-structured schemes that celebrate corporate and individual achievement.
We all know from our own personal experience as service users that it only takes one careless member to give the entire team a bad name. In the very small number of cases where it arises, persistent under-performance must be rigorously addressed. At a time when the public is rightly demanding greater accountability for its tax euros, any tolerance of under-performance is very damaging to the public service in reputational terms, as well being corrosive of staff morale among committed and dedicated public servants.
Building trust and confidence was one of the major challenges to be faced in constructing a template for peace in Northern Ireland. I am particularly pleased to see that your programme includes an address earlier this morning from Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, well known from her time as President Bush’s Special Envoy on Northern Ireland. I wish to thank Paula for all her work in consolidating devolved government in Northern Ireland and, indeed, to express appreciation for the role successive US Administrations have played in supporting peace on our island.
The story of the peace process in Northern Ireland has certain apt resonances for the theme of the Conference today. The need to build trust and confidence – in people, communities and institutions – was one of the key tasks that had to be faced, time and time again in Northern Ireland. If ever we need an inspiring example of an institution being reformed to build new trust and confidence among the community it serves, we need look no further than policing in Northern Ireland. In less than a decade, the RUC – that in the past was overwhelmingly identified with one community, one identity and one culture – was successfully transformed into the PSNI which draws its members from all backgrounds and perspectives and now commands very high levels of public support across all communities. This transformation was achieved through a winning combination of an inspiring vision, resolute partnership among the key stakeholders and relentless implementation in the management of the project.
The road to peace in Northern Ireland was led by the risk-takers; the political and community leaders who courageously led the way out of the zero-sum model of sectarian conflict towards a new win-win culture of respect, tolerance and partnership. Their pioneering work was however hugely facilitated by successive generations of public servants who helped to draw the map, define the destinations and mark the milestones on the road to peace. Quietly and anonymously and over many years, a cohort of public servants did this island a huge service mostly under the radar - in keeping open the channels of communication during times of crisis or stalemate; in articulating a new political vocabulary capable of accommodating agreement; in supporting and sustaining negotiations of seemingly interminable character; and in capturing political movement, however tentative or qualified, in textual agreements that advanced the momentum for peace and political stability. These same qualities of vision, ingenuity, resilience and determination can, I believe, be applied with equal success to tackling the major challenges which confront the public service today.
It was W.B. Yeats who famously wrote – “In dreams begin responsibilities”. We are all here today because we care about the public service, we are proud of what it has achieved thus far and we share a dream, a vision, an aspiration of what it can be in the future. We all aspire to a public service that sustains the best traditions and values of those who have worked to develop our State and its institutions, while also having the technical competences and management capabilities that are needed to tackle the complex challenges which face this country in the next decade and beyond.
As Yeats implied, it is also our responsibility to realise the dream and in this room we have many of the leaders of the public service who are confronting the current challenges that face our country. I wish you all well as you discharge your leadership roles within your respective organisations. Thank you for playing your part in equipping our State with a strong, fit-for-purpose public service, that enjoys the increased trust and confidence of our citizens and that will in the period ahead actively advance the well being of our people and the prosperity of our country.
Go raibh maith agaibh.