Aus­tralian pub­lic pol­icy blog, Unleashed, pub­lished by our national broad­caster, the ABC, has a new piece by me enti­tled Gov­ern­ment 2.0…it can be a real­ity on what it would take to trans­form gov­ern­ment to really get Gov­ern­ment 2.0 right.

At around 800 words, it doesn’t go deep. It’s just the first of sev­eral pieces I intend writ­ing on this theme.

I’ve repro­duced the arti­cle below should you wish to com­ment here, though I’d be glad for your com­ments and crit­i­cisms either at Unleashed or here.

Since com­ing to power in late 2007, the gov­ern­ment has run a con­sis­tent agenda of pub­lic sec­tor reform.

Begin­ning with the amend­ments to the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act to encour­age a pro-​​disclosure model for the release of pub­lic sec­tor infor­ma­tion (PSI), there has now also been the report of the Gov­ern­ment 2.0 Task­force, PM&C Sec­re­tary, Terry Moran’s blue­print for pub­lic sec­tor reform and the Aus­tralian Pub­lic Ser­vice Man­age­ment Advi­sory Com­mit­tee report onpub­lic sec­tor change. The gov­ern­ment has made a strong and pub­lic show of accept­ing the vast major­ity of rec­om­men­da­tions in these doc­u­ments. The changes fore­shad­owed by the reform agenda are as rel­e­vant to state and local gov­ern­ment as they are to the fed­eral pub­lic sector.

In spite of all the appar­ent will for change in the pub­lic sec­tor on the part of the gov­ern­ment, with the intent of bring­ing into exis­tence a brave new world of open, account­able, com­mu­nica­tive Gov­ern­ment 2.0, there remains an issue.

The will and capac­ity for change within the pub­lic sec­tor itself.

The government’s reform agenda requires a pro­found tec­tonic shift of both tech­nol­ogy and cul­ture in parts of the pub­lic sector.

It will mean that the pub­lic sec­tor is equipped with new, usable and use­ful tools that allow them to col­lab­o­rate with each other on and intra– and inter-​​agency basis, with the leg­is­la­ture and with the pub­lic. The pub­lic sec­tor must be given access to the tools of Gov­ern­ment 2.0 — social tools and up-​​to-​​date IT environments.

For those of us in the pub­lic, hyper con­nect­ed­ness is, if we so choose, a given. Yet, for many agen­cies, even read­ing a blog that may be rel­e­vant to your work is impos­si­ble. Let alone watch­ing a web video on iView of last night’s The 7:30 Report or Q&A that may have imme­di­ate rel­e­vance to your work today. Or alert­ing your man­age­ment to a prob­lem with your agency that has become appar­ent on Twitter.

For many pub­lic sec­tor work­ers these things are just not allowed. Their IT secu­rity staff and often, their man­age­ment, deem such things “unnec­es­sary”. In such cir­cum­stances, how can the very many hard work­ing, ded­i­cated pub­lic ser­vants out there (and they are out there in spades) be expected to do the vital work they must do with ever-​​decreasing bud­gets and mas­sive pres­sure to increase productivity?

The prac­tice of block­ing pub­lic ser­vant access to use­ful tools that can be utilised to do their jobs bet­ter must go.

The changes her­alded by these reforms will require agen­cies and their staff to move from a model anchored in the past where closed, inscrutable deci­sions made by civil ser­vants whose only com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the pub­lic is out­wards and for­mal was the norm to one where the pub­lic sec­tor becomes a far more com­mu­nica­tive, two-​​way organ­i­sa­tion, engag­ing with and engaged by both the gov­ern­ments and publics they serve. Where Jür­gen Haber­mas’ notion of The Pub­lic Sphere of dis­course and legit­imi­sa­tion of pol­icy and leg­isla­tive change through open, pub­lic debate, is realised in full.

Along­side the tools and tech­nol­ogy, pub­lic sec­tor cul­ture itself must change.

Despite many in the pub­lic sec­tor keen to take up the many cul­tural chal­lenges the reform agenda implies, there are sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles that will need to be over­come in order to bring the real­ity of Gov­ern­ment 2.0 to light. The nature of con­sul­ta­tion will need to shift — one day, one week or one month con­sul­ta­tions will have to become con­tin­u­ous with pol­icy reform cycles shorter and more agile — respon­sive to pub­lic opin­ion. Open­ness and com­mu­ni­ca­tion out from and back into agen­cies needs to be the norm.

In a par­tic­u­larly cringe­wor­thy exam­ple of get­ting it badly wrong, last Friday’s AFR noted Defence Hous­ing Australia’s CIO, Shane Nielsen, reject­ing that agency’s engage­ment with a Face­book group dis­il­lu­sioned by DHA’s ser­vices. This is incred­i­bly short-​​sighted. In the 21st Cen­tury pub­lic sec­tor of Gov­ern­ment 2.0, this should be seen as an oppor­tu­nity to reform and improve ser­vice deliv­ery through (prob­a­bly dif­fi­cult and com­plex) engage­ment, rather than turn­ing a blind eye to bad news.

The aver­sion to and per­cep­tion of risk as a thing that is only neg­a­tive needs to switch to one where a lit­tle appro­pri­ate risk and some inno­v­a­tive ideas aren’t envis­aged as some­thing that’s inevitably going to get you hauled before the Sec­re­tary, Sen­ate Esti­mates or the Min­is­ter. Rather, small inno­va­tions need to be wel­comed, cel­e­brated and encouraged.

That change has begun, but for very many agen­cies, the notion of try­ing some­thing new or a lit­tle risky, or engag­ing in dis­course with their pub­lic is anath­ema to them.

Hav­ing worked in and around the pub­lic sec­tor for the past 20 years, I’m under no illu­sion that the reform to bring about real Gov­ern­ment 2.0 in Aus­tralia, at any level of gov­ern­ment, is going to be hard. How­ever, I hope and dream that it can happen.

Many of the pub­lic ser­vants I work and col­lab­o­rate with look to their coun­ter­parts over­seas, see­ing what is being done in the UK, or the US and wish­ing it could be done here. The fact is, it can.

If the gov­ern­ment allows the pub­lic sec­tor to change in the way it says it wants it to, and if the pub­lic sec­tor can change itself in this way, Aus­tralia promises to be a leader in Gov­ern­ment 2.0. In many ways, we are already are.