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With the benefit of hindsight viii a mirror of their ability.After all as past Public Service Commissioner, Lynelle Briggs, observed in her lecture, Secretaries are the leaders of the APS and their behaviour is watched and modelled: Studies have shown that people will do what they see a leader do; even when that leader tells them behaving that way is unacceptable.I trust that my foreword will whet your appetite to delve into the words of some thoughtful and committed former public servants.I have been fortunate to work alongside almost all of them over the years and, to varying degrees, enjoyed a shared, and sometimes fraught, commitment to serving the public. Steve Sedgwick Public Service Commissioner ixSome of the former secretaries contributing to this collection managed to hold the office for around a decade serving multiple governments and working with various ministers; others served a much shorter term perhaps with just one minister in one government.Three served as the Australian Public Service Commissioner besides heading departments and agencies (Peter Shergold, Andrew Podger and Lynelle Briggs).As a group of executives their trajectories differ according to the contingencies and circumstances they faced.Most left With the benefit of hindsight xiiSo what do they tell us about the nature of public service and government administration, about leading public institutions, and about the state of public policy more generally?From the outset it is clear that there is no uniform message, no single narrative levelled either in praise or in criticism, other than pride in the public service and strong belief in the contribution it makes to the Australian community.They have their own personal 'takes' on how the public service looks to them, on its performance and on the challenges confronting public administration into the future.Most spend some time looking back, reflecting on the extent of change that has occurred over the length of their careers; but equally importantly they look forward, anticipating future policy dilemmas and capacity challenges.Several strongly dispute the notion that there was ever a 'golden age' of the APS from which some subsequent fall from grace has occurred.Roger Beale notes in his 2004 speech that for every great man of the past there were others holding back reform, and that 'those great men of the post-war public service were also great haters and great players of time-wasting, self-indulgent bureaucratic games'.'The system had to change -and it did', he says.Others also are comfortable with the influential speech given by Peter Shergold (see AJPA 63(4) 2004) when he was Secretary of PM&C originally entitled 'Once was Camelot in Canberra?', which poured scorn on the 'golden age' affliction.Ric Smith and David Borthwick refer to the more collegiate approach in the modern era.But equally secretaries are not complacent and consider it essential (and prudent) to enhance the critical capacities of the public service and its abilities to analytically scrutinise or challenge ideas inside government in the pursuit of good public policy.They are also conscious of increased accountabilities applying to today's secretaries that were far less onerous for their predecessors prior to the 1970s.According to these more recent secretaries, their distant predecessors had an easier set of tasks to perform and accountabilities to meet, and a more leisurely pace at which to do it.There is a general agreement about the important challenge of managing the relationship with ministers, making it work, finding ways to ensure ministers get the advice they need to hear.Ministers are important partners and gatekeepers in their public service endeavours -whether identifying priorities, providing policy advice, appraising risk, or delivering services to the public.Ministers bring the all-important political dimension to the table without which many decisions or actions would not be taken.As politicians they may be a little distant or wary, constantly time-poor and at times motivated by different concerns, but finding ways to work with ministers is crucial to the secretary's own performance and that of their agency.Shergold highlights the nuances of the relationship, observing how closely he worked with each of his ministers: 'yet not one minister was my friend'. 1 This speech was delivered in March 2004 at a function organised by the Department of Environment and Heritage.
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