Creating Public Value in a Westminster Context: The Case of the Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet‘s Indigenous Regional Network, 2013-2018

Abstract

For public administration scholars, one of the key attributes of public value as a concept is that it provides a framework for relating managerial action to policy outcomes. While the empirical delineation of public value remains elusive, its best ‘fit’ seems to lie with conceptions of public policy that stress co-production between different stakeholders (including government). However, there is still a significant caveat involving public servants working in Westminster systems, which prescribe a normative framework restricting public servants to implementation of policies determined by ministers and their advisers. In this paper, the practical operation of these norms is examined, by tracking the implementation of a highly ‘top-down’ policy in a complex field, that of Indigenous community support and development. This investigation highlights the implications for the achievement of public value of highly-constrained notions of civil servant action implied by ‘classic’ Westminster position.

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