The Australian tertiary education sector has been experiencing transformational change for many years driven by shifts in public policy and funding, emergent competition on an increasingly international scale, a seemingly never-ending number of universities restructures, and the sudden rise of online teaching forced upon by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This high level of environmental uncertainty

Household financial stress is a persistent problem that can be exacerbated by shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper finds that assets are more important than income for explaining financial stress using the Household Expenditure Survey, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Households in the bottom quintile for net assets are more likely to experience many dimensions of financial

The national-level data extracted from the World Bank, Transparency International, and the United Nations databases were analysed in this study to examine the contribution of e-participation in improving governance factors through its influence on corruption, voice and accountability, and government effectiveness. The analysis has provided a mixed outcome in improving governance through e-participation

Human services, such as social supports and health care, have low contractibility; services are difficult to specify and measure, and difficult to manage when delivered by a third party. Services can and do fail, resulting in the inefficient use of public resources and potential harm to clients. This article develops a conceptual framing using transaction cost economics (TCE) theory to understand why

This article reports on the ongoing development of the Australian Unemployed Workers Union Rating Scale (AUWURS), which allows unemployed workers to rate their experiences of employment services to allow the evaluation and improvement of service delivery, as well as an aid to the selection of a service provider. The seven subscales comprising the AUWURS (‘Useful’, ‘Client Centred’, ‘Fair’, ‘Trustworthy’

Addressing the urgent need for aged care providers in Australia to enhance their accountability, this study examines whether and how downward accountability (to clients) and lateral accountability (to employees) in aged care organisations are affected by beliefs and boundary controls exercised by the organisations’ management. Analyses were performed on survey data collected from 228 not-for-profit

Since the 1970s, Australian governments have sought to reduce regulatory burdens, particularly on business, subject regulation to rigorous cost–benefit analysis and constrain both the stock and flow of new regulation. Yet, however, measured, regulation continues to grow, frequently in response to community demand. In this article, we interrogate both the more extreme claims of the anti-regulation advocates

Faced with fiscal pressure and concerns over bureaucratic inefficiency, policymakers at Australia's state government level are evaluating instruments to improve social housing services. A public–private partnerships (PPPs) procurement approach is one such instrument for increasing housing supply to address housing affordability in Australia. To determine the value of pursuing a project through a PPP

Despite the long-standing connection between South Australia and the national development of immigrant multiculturalism, epitomised through the role of Premier Don Dunstan, recent policy developments have not yet been studied at the state level. This article evaluates the development and ‘policy success’ of multiculturalism in South Australia from 2007 to 2017, a period characterised by the so-called

As the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) moves towards full rollout, it is timely to describe the nature of the policy framework and environment driving outcomes in order to better respond to commentary and learnings. To do this, this paper assesses Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach as an explanatory model which will allow us to untangle the spaghetti of competing interests, issues and

As public sector organisations around the world enact strategies to progress gender equality, managers are forced to navigate the apparent conflict between making employment decisions on individual-level ‘merit’ and considering the collective constraints and disadvantage that occur along gender lines. In this paper, we investigate how managers’ understandings of merit contribute to this tension. Analysing

Analysis of the welfare state emphasises that access to social security support is a key component of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Recent literature has identified administrative burden as a concept that helps us to understand an emerging dynamic between the state and the citizen, where citizens must deal with increasingly onerous administrative ‘costs’ in order to access services

Drawing on a systematic review of the literature, this paper explores the factors which have enabled and/or constrained the transformative potential of public service user participation within the five most influential recent narratives of public service reform. It argues that these narratives have failed either to offer a holistic conceptualisation of such participation in theory or to achieve its

The idea of ‘think tanks’ is one of the oldest in the policy sciences. Although the topic has been studied for decades, recent works dealing with advocacy groups, policy and behavioural insight labs and into the activities of think tanks themselves have led to discontent with the definitions used in the field, and especially with the way the term may obfuscate rather than clarify important distinctions

Local government amalgamations, mostly aimed at improving financial sustainability, remain a strongly contested public policy option. Proponents of amalgamation tend to emphasise the advantages of scale and plan around population size targets. By contrast, some scholars note the importance of understanding the needs and tastes of residents for local public services and stress the dangers of amalgamation

Over the past three decades social inequality has risen in almost all OECD countries, reaching historical highs. Social inequality is created and maintained not just by the specific focus or goals of particular policies, but by the norms, values and processes of our government institutions. This special issue looks at how administrative burden is constructed in a range of Australian social policy areas

This short essay reflects on the evolution of the journal and the environment it operated in over the last 7 years and volumes. It is anchored to the introductory article in the first issue of the journal under the new editorial team, ‘Learning from a Distance’ (2015) authored by Brian Head, which addressed a perennial question in public administration – the nature of the relationship between policy

The decentralisation of Swedish healthcare closer to citizens has been slow. Drawing from empirical material of the reform prior and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper argues that the pandemic has disrupted the healthcare ecosystem. Consequently, citizen-centred collaborations have accelerated integration of resources (such as knowledge and skills) across organisational, hierarchical and professional

The national Closing the Gap reform provides a mandate for mainstream organisations to undergo structural transformation to better address the needs and concerns of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. In the criminal justice sector, the reform resonates strongly with ongoing discussions about how both policy and practice can address the significant over-representation of Aboriginal people

This study examines the performance measurement of four different values (efficiency, service quality, customer service satisfaction, and social equity). This study also distinguishes between the values emphasized at the three stages of the policy process model: process, output, and outcome. The prevalence of each value is compared across time and at various stages of the policy process at the agency

How to satisfactorily implement the public–private partnership (PPP) network is the most important target for infrastructure and public services policymakers. In this article, we elaborate on how project- and process-management styles can combine to deliver a satisfactory PPP. This paper uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the relationship between management styles and

Public services face increasing and more varied demands, but public service managers often lack the resources to develop their staff to effectively deal with them. This paper identifies how public sector line managers can support their subordinates to not just cope with challenges, but also to grow and develop in the midst of them. It primarily draws on employee attributions of leader effectiveness

This article provides an empirical account of Herd and Moynihan's theory of administrative burdens as they apply to Australian child support recipients. Interviews with 41 separated mothers revealed how they were compelled to engage in the child support system and then required to expend significant time and effort undertaking administrative work on behalf of the state, often for little financial benefit

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) bring many benefits to society, particularly in public sector organisations servicing increasingly diverse communities. To deliver public value, government agencies at all levels must more intentionally direct public sector knowledge, skills, and experiences to shape the current and future capabilities of a more diverse and inclusive workforce. Fully optimising workplace

Why do employees continue to work during illness? So-called presenteeism behaviour is a topic of great managerial and societal importance as it is connected to a series of negative individual and organisational outcomes. A growing body of research points to the importance of workplace factors in shaping employee stress and uncertainty and, ultimately, presenteeism behaviour. Curiously though, the impact

The Disability Support Pension (DSP) provides financial support to more than 750,000 Australians with permanent physical, intellectual or psychiatric impairments that prevent them from engaging in employment. We sought to characterise the information, compliance and psychological costs of applying for the DSP. A cohort of 518 DSP applicants and recipients completed a questionnaire capturing medical

Researchers and practitioners alike are in general agreement that the public sector is increasingly tasked with managing ‘complex problems’. Many authors have warned that the established practices in government are not sufficient to deal with such problems. The integration of systems thinking in design practice has been advocated as a promising approach to understand and more effectively deal with

The aim of this study was to gauge the opinions of people in Australia about policies to help them recover from the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions. An anonymous online survey of people aged 18 years and older in Australia was available from 1 July to 31 August 2020. It included 16 proposed policies which respondents rated as ‘Not at all helpful’, ‘Somewhat helpful’

This is an introductory article to the AJPA symposium on 'Generating and demonstrating implementation impact'. It provides an overview and synthesis of key themes canvassed in the papers, which includes a focus on implementation for impact regarding measurement, partnership approaches, and storytelling.

Academics undertaking public policy research are committed to tackling interesting questions driven by curiosity, but they generally also want their research to have an impact on government, service delivery, or public debate. Yet our ability to capture the impact of this research is limited because impact is under-theorised, and current systems of research impact evaluation do not allow for multiple

The question of impact is at the heart of human service design, with governments searching perennially for the right approach to meeting citizen need while responsibly acquitting public funds. In this area, ‘commissioning’ has become a popularised approach, most recently in Australia. Although in theory commissioning is a strategic and relational practice offering to put communities at the heart of

This paper draws on systems thinking and selected case studies to explore how ‘prac-ademic’ partnerships can create impact in real-world settings. The paper argues that knowledge co-generation partnerships are sub-systems of the complex systems in which research is being undertaken and that governance arrangements are central to enabling partners to work together more effectively to achieve research

Experts are increasingly replacing elected representatives in the planning of Australian cities and regions. Following concerns about delays and corruption, expert decision-making has been promoted as an important mechanism to restore trust in the planning process. Others have expressed concerns about the loss of democracy entailed in this shift, but this is not the whole story. The nature of expertise

This study analyses and profiles public ancillary funds (PubAFs), charitable trusts that act as intermediaries between public donors and approved nonprofit beneficiary organisations. PubAFs are an important part of Australia's philanthropic landscape given their public benefit purpose, yet little is known about this sector's characteristics and identities. This paper examines PubAFs, analysing online

Studies of representative bureaucracy have shown how minority groups are often underrepresented in public agencies. They also indicate that the match between the backgrounds of the bureaucrats and their clients has a strong effect on minority groups. Less attention has been devoted to the question of what happens when street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) from a minority group serve clients in organizations

Although Western nations have long placed conditions on access to social security payments, many of the more recent conditions utilising technological tools have intensified surveillance and control of the poor and imposed weighty administrative burdens on social security recipients as they attempt to navigate these systems. The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) imposes additional administrative burdens –

Over the last 30 years, governments have sought to give citizens greater choice and control of the public services they utilise. As a result, we have seen the creation of various forms of public sector markets, including through contracting and tendering processes and, more recently, by utilising individualised or ‘personalised’ care budgets. Under the latter, individuals are given money to purchase

Policy makers globally often claim to use evidence when making policy decisions, but few studies have documented and evaluated the sources of evidence they rely on. This poses challenges to researchers and decision makers alike, as they struggle to assess the impact of research on policy. This study analysed citations in Australian federal parliamentary committee reports to better understand the role

I examine how failures surrounding a quarantine detention program for returned travellers from overseas brought a deadly second wave of the Covid-19 virus into existence in Victoria, Australia. In addition to providing insights into the ways in which public administration organizations (PAO) can plan for and respond to wicked problems, I propose that they can learn to manage latent failures and equivocal

Public sector innovation is a management paradigm that introduces novel actions and artefacts in confronting societal challenges. However, the enabling or inhibiting role of innovation remains a conundrum that necessitates on-going analysis and critique for advancing public management discourse and scholarship. The purpose of this article is to analyse the drivers and barriers to innovation in the

Public–private partnerships (P3s) have continued to grow in importance both as an alternative infrastructure delivery model and a management practice in many jurisdictions and across institutional contexts. This study draws on the institutional work perspective to investigate the nature and form of micro-activities that interact to cement a policy through the examination of the implementation of P3s

Labour markets around the world are experiencing extraordinary disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. The gap in the employment rate between Australians with and without disability is likely to widen, given the entrenched disadvantage of people with disability in the job market. For many, it will compound existing health and economic vulnerabilities. This scenario is troubling from both a human rights

A suite of ‘place-based’ Commonwealth policy frameworks to address geographically concentrated socio-economic disadvantage foreground local knowledge and devolve some decisions to multi-government and local agent governance bodies. We analyse these policies with reference to Dewey's theory of democratic experimentalism, focussing on how publics are constituted in place and enrolled in processes of

This paper explores the territory between the evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) agenda and the research impact agenda. Although these two related agendas are typically considered in isolation, this paper provides an analysis dedicated to how they interact. It begins with a discussion outlining the origins of research impact and the use of evidence in policymaking. This is followed by an overview of

Expressions of interest sought from academics interested in becoming the new editors of the AJPA The Institute of Public Administration Australia is now seeking expressions of interest from qualified public administration academics to take on the editorship of the Australian Journal of Public Administration from 1 January 2022. The Australian Journal of Public Administration is the journal of record

Public sector leaders in the Australian Public Service (APS) can learn from the demise of programme evaluation introduced as part of managing for results reforms, as they implement the evaluation of agency performance outcomes under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act (2013) (PGPA). This paper demonstrates that public sector management reforms require more than top-down initiation

Indigenous peoples in Australia and similar colonised countries are subject to racism and systemic socioeconomic disadvantages, resulting in worse health outcomes compared to non-Indigenous counterparts. Such inequities persist despite governments’ attempts to reduce them. Since 2008, Australian governments have committed to a national ‘Closing the Gap’ (CTG) to reduce inequities in health, education

In Australia, the precarity of the aged care sector has been well documented over several decades. During this time, policy reforms have ultimately landed care, and the business of providing it, within a market model. Following recent evidence produced by the Royal Commission into Aged Care and Safety and the COVID-19 Senate Committee, this model and the sector's incapacity to consistently deliver

‘Robodebt’ is the label applied to an Australian government initiative designed to increase recoveries of ‘overpayments’ made to social security recipients. Following complaints from many of those affected, there have been multiple investigations and inquiries, and a Federal Court Case which ruled the policy unlawful. The government is in the process of paying back more than $1000 million to more than

Disability support is often provided at the interface with other human services such as health, education, and employment agencies. This can present many organisational problems for people receiving support and the organisations that provide it. Individualised funding is one attempt to ease problems of fragmentation and unmet needs, but perversely, it introduces further interface complexities as organisations

Robust indicators and measures for outputs and outcomes against agreed objectives are the holy grail of performance reporting. Transparent performance reporting can be a means to improving accountability to taxpayers for public funds and responsiveness to users. The Report on Government Services (RoGS) for the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) is widely seen as ‘an exemplar of benchmarking in

JobKeeper is a short-time work subsidy implemented between March 2020 and March 2021 in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic to reinforce the resilience of the labour market. As a job retention (JR) program, JobKeeper supports businesses, protects jobs and employment relationships and secures income of Australian workers. Drawing on microeconomic and macroeconomic evaluations of the JR programs published

The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has, since its inception, prioritised policy relevance in its research. Drawing on an impact narrative approach, this paper presents a case study of the contribution of AHURI research to the development of a specific policy initiative: the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator function of the National Housing and Finance Investment Corporation

Addressing the cultural drivers of domestic and family violence (DFV) has become a core policy priority for governments across Australia. Over the last five years, the Queensland Government has taken a particularly strong stance on the issue through its Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Strategy 2016–2026. This strategy identifies the Queensland Government's leading aim of changing the community

This paper examines the employment representation of non-English-speaking background (NESB) immigrants in the Australian public sector. It explores the extent to which the (federal) Australian Public Service (APS) legislation for managing diversity and equity has influenced employment outcomes of NESB employees in the APS. Drawing from APS Commission reports and APS Statistical Bulletins from 2001

The barriers and tensions between the world of academic research and the policy world have been a recurrent theme in policy research since the 1970s and has gained renewed interest in the light of the evidence-based policymaking movement. Although there seem to be many good arguments to not exaggerate the gulf between what has been called ‘the two communities’, we will in this article demonstrate the

The paper investigates whether performance measurement drives performance improvement in Australian government agencies. Because the answer to such a question is rarely unconditional, contextual factors such as jurisdiction and type of organisation are considered. The paper uses documents such as budgets and annual reports of nine government agencies in three Australian jurisdictions to analyse how

The Black Summer Fires of 2019/2020 remind us not only that Australia is arguably the most bushfire prone area in the world but also that we have much to learn in terms of how we learn from such events. Bushfires interact with emergency management systems in a manner that is complex and unpredictable which all too often results in damages and losses, so significant that governments establish public