Time to end management voodoo in public service

IT’S TIME to get angry again about overpaid officials.

We’ve heard that the top bosses at ACC earned more than $700,000. A small army of others at the corporation earn more than $100,000. These people run an outfit which regularly leaks its clients’ most intimate secrets. It’s the same group that seems to have declared war on a lot of the people it is supposed to help.

The week before it was revealed that Foreign Affairs boss John Allen got a $40,000 pay rise even though he botched the redisorganisation of his department. No matter how much of a mess you make of your job, it seems, you can still earn megabucks in the public service.

Allen was hired as a supposed hot-shot from the private sector. The idea is the familiar modular theory of management. It doesn’t matter what sort of widget you produce. What matters is how good the boss is.

ACC and Foreign Affairs show that the theory is balderdash. If ACC bosses are paid so much, how come they are so widely hated and derided for the way they run things?

If Allen is so good, how come he messed up? Running a government agency is not just like running a business, although a government agency should be run efficiently. Foreign Affairs and ACC don’t produce any kind of widget.

So state agencies are not mere businesses and the theory that you have to hire tycoons to run them is wrong. Plenty of other countries understand this, although they are not typically Anglo-Saxon ones infected by neoliberalism.

Scandinavian officials don’t get sky-high salaries. The enlightened northerners undestand that these are not required.

Senior government officials are attracted to their work because it is about the public good, it is interesting and intellectually challenging, and it confers considerable prestige and power.

People who want to make piles of money shouldn’t work in the public service. They should go into banking.

This means the whole basis for paying our senior officials is wrong. The idea that you must pay them megabucks or they won’t do the job is pure ideology, or piffle.

So we need a radical change in the whole structure. A rational first step would be to cap all official salaries at $400,000, which is about what the prime minister gets.

The PM is the busiest person in the country and its most important executive. Nobody in government is worth more than him, and nobody in government should be paid more.

Under this system, the nabobs at ACC would get a pay cut of more than $300,000 and Allen would lose $200,000. If they quit in protest, no harm would be done. Others – experienced ACC people, old hands in the diplomacy – could do the job better for less. If Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf, similarly, felt he couldn’t work for $400k – bye, Gabe!

The new system would drastically narrow the pay gaps between our top officials, and that is a good thing. We would be on our way to ending management voodoo in the public service.

And after that, we should start cutting the outrageous salaries of the princes of the private sector – but that’s another story.

We need a radical change in the whole public service pay structure. A rational first step would be to cap all official salaries at $400,000, which is about what the prime minister gets.