Public service free speech

 

If I had to choose, out of the ten things in this blog, which single reason for bad government policymaking was most significant, it would be this one.

Let’s start out by considering my old manager, Peter. His office wasted money at every opportunity. In my view, he had no concept of the fact that every dollar of spending he authorised actually came from taxpayers’ pockets. It isn’t free, magic money. Peter constantly travels around the country, using any excuse he can think of.

Peter also didn’t provide good leadership or direction, and staff weren’t treated fairly. Think about this for one second. What could I do about it? Most people who have worked for big corporations or government know that there isn’t anything you can do. If you say something, you become a troublemaker, and you’ll never get a promotion. You might even be shunned or told you ‘need better people skills’. It’s rarely worth it, even if the situation is really bad.

Public employees who see things that need improving are prevented from raising concerns publicly, and are ignored or even attacked by senior government officials.

There are consequences flowing from this sort of situation. It means that governments spend our tax money wastefully. It means that they are less effective in making our economy and our society better. It allows free-market extremists to argue that governments can never do any good, and that it should be kept as small as possible.

In fairness to Peter, this is only my own version of events. But even if Peter has good reasons for his actions, and opinions that differ from mine, shouldn’t I be allowed to ask the question? Or notify the media of my concern about how our government works?

Here’s another example. Sam once privately told me about a time, before she was a government minister, when she was trying to cross the road at a school in her local area. There was a marked pedestrian crossing and a lollypop lady to assist children to safely cross the road. But it still seemed dangerous to cross because, being a highway through town, the traffic was heavy, and cars sped up over a hill just before the crossing. The lollypop lady looked nervous as she chose a moment to stop traffic to allow children to cross.

‘This crossing looks dangerous. It needs an upgrade,’ Sam said to the lady.

‘I know, it’s terrible,’ she said.

‘Why don’t you say something about it to your manager?’ Sam asked.

‘Oh, no, we have tried that,’ she said.

Sam asked for her manager’s phone number, but she refused to give it. She gave the hint that she didn’t want to say anything.

This is an example of how our system of government can fail us. Is it true that lollypop ladies can’t raise issues and get action, even when children’s road safety is at issue?

I find this scenario plausible because I see it all the time.

It raises the question of free speech. We all know the power of free speech to be effective in holding governments accountable, and getting action. You can see it constantly within corporate organisations. There’s nothing like negative coverage of an issue in the media to inspire politicians and senior bureaucrats to turn their mind to a problem.

One particular day, at my desk, I was angry and I Googled ‘totalitarianism’. I found a list of commonly cited features of totalitarianism, which include the use of ideology, propaganda and fear. There is often surveillance of people, and restriction of freedom of speech. Unfortunately, I found myself seeing less-extreme versions of the same things in my own workplace. Employees were told by managers more senior than Peter not to discuss conflicts in our office with people outside of the office. We were told not to discuss them with each other. Often, doing so was derided as ‘gossiping’. At events with staff in the broader government organisation outside of our specific office, managers would speak in glowing terms about our efficiency and achievements, and how important and successful we were. The same happened at team meetings. It was incongruous with reality, but we were told that it was important for maintaining morale, which was in danger of sinking.

I call it spin doctoring. It was a mild form of propaganda, designed to distract insiders and hide from outsiders that there were problems. Perhaps you, yourself, have noticed similar things happening in organisations that you have worked for?

At one particular time in this office, people started secretly recording conversations with other employees, or with managers. Managers singled out staff, confronting and pressuring them to sign performance agreements. It is one of the examples of how fear was used against employees. Could you imagine what it is like working in a place like this, where the focus is meant to be on serving the public good, but where people end up focusing on themselves instead?

If I was still working for the organisation, it would be a breach of the workplace code of conduct for me to write about this and publish it in a book. In recent years, the Queensland Government has also introduced laws that mean that people who allegedly breach the code of conduct (including in this specific way) can still be investigated and punished, even after they leave the organisation. This may not be totalitarian, but it’s still a form of power trying to control people and restrict freedom of speech.

Management behaviour aimed at controlling information is just an everyday occurrence in the public service. To be fair, it’s probably how most big organisations work. In my case there were low-level and senior managers who felt afraid and vulnerable about people finding out that they had mismanaged. They tried to prevent it. And I think it’s ridiculous that people can’t talk to journalists about these things if they want to. Organisations don’t like people speaking to the media because it affects their reputation. But public servants are spending public tax dollars and they should be able to withstand this scrutiny and be accountable.

This means that some government organisations squash dissent, and are not transparent or accountable to the public. Employees do not have freedom of speech when they see things happening that shouldn't be happening. Can you think of a valid argument for why, in a democracy where government organisations are apparently accountable to the public, why employees aren’t allowed to talk about the performance of their organisation publicly or outside of that organisation? I can’t think of any reasonable democratic argument why employees should be controlled like this. Can you?

In 2011, employees working for an Australian government contractor doing security clearance work raised internal concerns about poor processes, arguably leading to security clearances being granted to people, to allow them to work for agencies like the Department of Defence, without a rigorous process.⁴ When the concerns were not addressed internally, an employee went to the media to voice their concerns. Because governments are so secret, we can’t know whether that problem has been fixed, but the issue gained significant media coverage, which led to intervention from the Australian Minster for Defence, Stephen Smith.

Unfortunately, going to the media is usually a breach of the employees' workplace code of conduct – something which is distinctly undemocratic, robs us all of our right to free speech, and merely prevents senior public servants from being accountable. Governments should immediately change laws to encourage, rather than prohibit, people raising concerns publicly if the concerns are not resolved in a timely fashion internally.

 

But politics is a game, and like other politicians Sam has been guilty of encouraging spin doctoring to try to win elections. Nothing politicians say in the media can be easily corrected if it is wrong, because any public servant who can show that it isn’t quite true is prevented from saying anything publicly.

In 2005, a nurse named Toni Hoffman working for the Queensland Department of Health, or Queensland Health, gained public prominence as a whistleblower. Hoffman, and others, claimed that a surgeon working for the Bundaberg Hospital had inadequate skills and training for the job, and had been conducting operations for which he was not capable. It is alleged that patients died as a result. The charge of manslaughter is still to be finally determined by the court system, some seven years later. It is claimed that Hoffman and others raised concerns with senior managers at Queensland Health in 2003, two years before they were made public, and actions were taken, in 2005.

This case, and other circumstances, were factors leading to changes to whistleblower legislation and grievances processes within the public service in Queensland. But this legislation is just pieces of paper. It doesn’t seem to have had an effect on the lollypop lady. Pieces of paper don’t cure that situation, or any of the other quotidian examples of poor management.

Hoffman’s case shows how if employees speak publicly about their organisations, the public will notice, and politicians have to react, and then some change is possible. In any event, senior managers in government and publicly funded organisations should be kept accountable by the knowledge that, at least in theory, there is a risk that if they don’t do their job properly then they might be open to public scrutiny. Alas, this is not the case, but if it were it could have a big impact on the performance of the public service. I hope that one day it happens.

As it stands, it is usually against codes of conduct for employees working in government to alert the public and media that their money is being wasted or that there is mismanagement, even if they have already tried to raise concerns internally first. Instead of governments and public servants being afraid of the public, we are made to feel afraid of them.

A story in the Australian newspaper in 2011⁵ reported on how Hoffman is going lately:

THE senior nurse who put her career on the line to expose killer surgeon Jayant Patel in one of Australia's worst medical disasters revealed yesterday how Queensland Health and the Bligh government had treated her "like a leper" since she blew the whistle.

 

Ms Hoffman, who received the Order of Australia medal and Local Hero recognition in 2006, said she was threatened with "performance management" and left in no doubt that her career was at a standstill or worse.

 

Hoffman is quoted as saying:

The truth is I haven't coped. I need support but my employer wants to punish me. But I'm not going to let them wreck my life and my career after I did the right thing. I'm not going away. But people need to know that the bureaucracy is just out of control. Its culture is sick.

 

My mate Cam, an old drinking buddy of mine, reacted negatively to these Queensland Health scandals. He fully supports free speech for people like nurse Hoffman. Jess, who is a liberal, can be quite anti-government at times and also gets very angry when big government departments try to stop internal dissent being made public.

          Sam, despite her story about the lollypop lady, will argue against free speech for public servants. However, think about this for a minute. We have created an impression that politicians like Sam are in control of their departments, that they have the power to influence everything, that they know how their departments work. The minute there is any scandal, such as the Queensland Health scandal, the minister is immediately blamed, and is likely to face consequences.

          There is a certain type of gotcha journalism that revels in this game. Ignorant of how government departments work, and unable to understand what ministers actually do from day to day, journalists focus on creating a scandal. And it will sell them stories because this simplistic interpretation of events, that the minister is incompetent, seems plausible to voters and newspaper readers, who hate and mistrust politicians in the first place.

          From this broader perspective, Sam is merely part of a political system, a game, that she can’t control. She plays the game as it is, which in one sense is understandable. It certainly doesn’t make Sam evil.

          In any case, it is an undemocratic system of government if dissent is discouraged. Through debate and discussion about how government really works on the inside, the community can have an informed discussion about how to make it better. That’s why I wrote this book, and that's why we need stories in the media about how government actually works on the inside.

Peter, the bureaucratic manager, is in no actual sense accountable. Technically he is accountable to his superior, in a Westminster system of ‘responsible government’. However, his superior is part of the same game, and is often focused on making themselves look good.

Being a public servant, Peter is almost impossible to keep accountable. It is impossible to sack him. In fact, if he is bad enough and annoying enough to his superiors, he could get a favourable reference because they are so keen to get rid of him. Yes, this is reasonably common.

Peter also plays the game. He has enough excuses for not doing his work to last a lifetime. Inevitably he will get promoted or change jobs to another government department, and will have escaped responsibility for the poor outcomes he achieved in his last job.

Unfortunately, I have very little nice to say about Peter. He’s lazy, and could do with a good stint in the private sector where he would actually have to work hard. He also has no formal qualifications or real technical skills in making policies that decide how government money is spent.

It would be interesting to see what things public servants would say if they could. And how would we react? Would we blame the politicians and throw them out of office?  Perhaps it would be good to have our eyes opened.

If there were no restrictions on free speech, I would have told the newspapers all about the things I saw. Now that would have been real accountability.

 

Key points: ·         If public servants do not have freedom of speech, the country is not really a democracy. ·         Allowing public sector employees to speak out against poor government policy performance would revolutionise accountability and efficiency. ·         Without freedom of speech, employees and the community are often afraid of the government, rather than the government being afraid of the people. This is the wrong way around. ·         Political journalists could be  diverted away from horse-race political reporting by allowing the views of public employees to be published in the media. This would give all of us a better understanding of how the public sector really works.

Possible reforms: ·        Public employees should be allowed and encouraged to inform journalists about what questions they might like to ask of government. This wouldn’t change the amount of questions asked of governments or politicians, or the amount of time spent answering them. It would merely improve the nature of the questions asked. ·        There should be better and more accessible compensation available at law for people who have suffered as a result of being whistleblowers or speaking to the media.