Shorter terms for senior appointments likely - Key
The government is looking at shortening the terms for high-level appointments from five to three years, Prime Minister John Key says.
When Police Minister Judith Collins announced yesterday that Peter Marshall had been appointed the new police commissioner, she said it would be for a three-year term.
The usual term has been five years, and when he was asked about it Mr Key said three-year terms gave opportunities for performance reviews and made sure people appointed to very senior positions realised they had to deliver.
He said the government was looking for a new Defence Force chief to replace the retiring Lieutenant-General Jerry Mateparae, who will have served for five years, and that might also be a three-year appointment.
"At the end of the day we want to demand performance and we've made three-year appointments in recent times," Mr Key said.
"We did the same thing with the Law Commission, it's not unusual."
Back to home
Back to top
Print
Latest
NBR SERVICES
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Sign up for NBR subscriber content or email alerts
Comments and questions3
Hmmmm.
Given the extent of the change that this Government is likely to expect, few new CEs will have achieved that in a three year term, so they might well "fail" a performance review such as that to which the PM alludes.
Seems to me like a recipe for political influence in the appointment of Public Service CEs, something the State Sector Act was designed to prevent.
Short sighted, possibly.
Politically motivated, probably.
Potential long term effects, highly questionable but almost certainly negative in the long term.
Sigh!
This further politicises the senior public service (some might argue it completes the poiticisation of the service) so that the responsiveness of the public service to the whims and expectations of the Cabinet of the day.
What little management courage our current senior public servants have will be eroded to nothing. This should alarm the public, as much of the vision of the politicians comes from the ability of the electorally neutral public sevice to have the time and ability to look beyond the electoral cycle and to research, analyse and respond to the see the big issues of tommorow, rather than respond to (or organise) the short-term photo opportunities of today.
The public service needs courageous leaders today that provide vision and direction, and great managers that provide for effective and efficient delivery. By the time a new CE has found their way in to an organisation, done the analysis needed (or wanted by some with larger egos), made the changes that need to be made, and got the organisation humming, at least half their time for delivery will have passed.
It will be agreat day when Cabinet applies to its Ministers what they seem to expect of their CEs. Perhaps this is Ministers way of saying to their departmental and ministry heads, I get three years and then face the electoral court of public opinion, so should you.
So why not take NZ all the way towards the well-oiled US and Australian political systems (I jest of course!), and have the top civil servants completely politicised, and replace them with their Ministers at each election. At least then the public would know who are the politicians, who are the political appointees, and who are the dedicated, nuetral and hardworking public servants. At present, this distinction is not clear and in danger of becoming less so.
So much for the rhetoric from the current head of Treasury, who suggest that in policy leadership, we should be "minding our Ps and Qs". Go look it up at Treasury - its a "do as we say, but not as we do" manifesto for the professional NZ Public Service.
Should we really be THAT surprised about these pre-election, pro-right wing policy changes we've been seeing...?
I'd much rather see some robust, transformational and innovative policies being enacted to improve the economy, reduce unemployment and improve NZ exports.