Big data: the monster that could eat public service reform

At present, many citizens (and non-citizens) are dragged unwillingly to their computers to fulfil various user-unfriendly government requirements.

People don't want to test prototypes, nor their own patience while paying tax, filling out business activity statements or applying for income support.

They want to escape government interactions as fast as possible, which is why the Silicon Valley "minimum viable product" customer development strategy is no silver bullet for the mind-boggling and deeply emotional complexities of, say, dealing with the labyrinthine Department of Veterans Affairs.

But that will, we are assured, change for the better. Big data is driving transaction complexities and costs down massively and will also reduce headaches for ministers who cop the blame when services go awry.

Public servants need to think carefully about where face-to-face service is and if it will be essential or desirable to government.

A culture of experimentation

After 17,300 net job cuts across the Commonwealth civilian workforce, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is suddenly happy to admit that simply cutting staff won't bring government expenditure down to his desired 24 per cent of GDP.

Arguing for program cuts, he reminded the Sydney Institute last week that the public service wage bill was less than 5 per cent of government spending.

Finance's latest better practice guide for big data urges agencies to start small and "cultivate a culture of experimentation, adopting lean and agile methodologies to explore and deliver solutions".

It also relies on Gartner's mind-numbing and far from agile definition of big data as " ... high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight, decision making and process optimisation".

We prefer our scientist's description.

Yet traditional roadblocks to public sector change are very human. They include instinctive self-protection; bureaucratic inertia; the short electoral cycle; the high turnover of ministers, department secretaries, agency heads and government board members; paralysing structures; frequent reorganisation of the machinery of government; the fact that the government needs an impartial, reliable and expert public service; that it has multiple accountabilities; and that there is (yet) no visibly compelling driver of change such as another global financial crisis or recession.

Public service organisational reform is hellishly hard.

Just look at Defence, which will take every day of two years to implement the First Principles review and where most reforms have failed or been swallowed by ministerial or government changes.

Lumbering processes

Thawley and the Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd are determined to cut internal red tape; simplify hiring and firing, including hiring for capability rather than by classification; flatten management structures; employ more temporary staff; get more movement between private and public sectors; and give graduates mandatory rotations through hands-on service delivery areas.

They and other leaders are trying to shape a sharper organisation in which lumbering processes do less to obstruct policy and service delivery.

Yet ironically, those lumbering processes are often used politically to obstruct access to government. Think Immigration, income support and secrecy.

There is also still the vexed issue of workplace bargaining to fix.

It may be inevitable that more large chunks of front-end service delivery are handed over to the private or community sectors as time goes on.

But it doesn't always have to be that way around.

One government entity where key parts of the back-end are privatised but the front-end remains in public hands is Sydney Water.

Who knew that the sewage farms are privatised but the (mostly) men in blue who turn up to fix a broken sewer or water main in your street are still reassuringly public sector people?

Federally, most public services are not quite such an obvious critical infrastructure as water supply, but the model turns common ideology of privatisation on its head.

It is something federal departments need to think about more as big data's increasingly sophisticated manifestations of artificial intelligence increase their grip.

Big data is a tide that cannot be turned and the public service needs to harness it intelligently, rather than allowing it to become the monster that ate reform.

vburgess@afr.com.au