Enhancing civil service capability: emergence of the professions model

In the last thirty years, the dominant approach in Australian public sector organisation has been one of devolution with an emphasis on management at the agency level. This has delivered benefits in terms of public service responsiveness to ministers and stakeholders and a more diverse set of approaches that are tailored to the circumstances confronting individual agencies. However, a number of reviews, including the recent Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (the Thodey Review), have highlighted the limitations of this approach and the constraints it has placed on the ability of the public service to respond effectively to broader challenges and to leverage skills across agency boundaries. The professions model is an approach that seeks to emphasise the continuity of practice across agency boundaries in various job families. A number of countries have tried the professions approach as a way to address a perceived lack of consistency and effectiveness across their collective public services. This article describes international trends associated with the professions model and describes the approach to implementing digital and human resources professions models in the Australian Public Service.