How have public sector leaders talked to their employees about Robodebt? What they said – or didn’t do – is revealing

In July 2023, after the publication of Damnation Robodebt Royal Commission ReportPrime Minister Anthony Albanese explained:

It was fallacious, it was illegal, it should never have happened and it should never occur again.

A key finding was that some senior officials were excessively conscious of ministers' wishes, to the detriment of the general public. The report describes an environment that:

full […] characterised by a powerful drive for austerity and strongly expressed ministerial political positions […] and intense pressure faced by officials.

When Commissioner Catherine Holmes examined the plan, which was carried out under the Morrison government, she was disturbed by “the lengths to which civil servants were prepared to go to obey ministers”, reflecting the concept of impartiality and being open and fearless advice undermines.

The release of Rick Morton's recent book Medium streak brings a renewed concentrate on the teachings of Robodebt. To learn from such a serious crisis, organizations must openly confront what happened, discuss it and understand what failure means. What were the systemic causes? What cultural deficiencies did this reveal? How can we be sure that the same disaster doesn’t occur again?

Our Research found little evidence that these questions were asked by many civil service leaders within the immediate aftermath of the royal commission.

In the six months following the publication of the royal commission report, almost half of Australian public service agency (APS) leaders apparently decided that they didn’t need to speak with their employees about Robodebt and explain what it meant for them.

What were the department heads doing?

It will take time to learn from Robodebt's failure. In 2024, the general public service will investigate and punish a few of those involved and implement a brand new integrity plan.

Our research focuses on the six months following the publication of the Royal Commission report: July to December 2023. Research shows The immediate post-crisis period is critical for effective learning.

But before organizations can respond, they have to interpret and understand the meaning of the error.

Just as the general public turns to political leaders in a crisisEmployees look to management. Communication from managers, whether via email, video for all employees or at a town hall meeting, is crucial.

These messages form the organization's narrative, which explains what happened and why, what its impact is, how it will possibly be resolved, and what lessons (if any) ought to be learned from the crisis.

Three days after the publication of the royal commission report, Secretary to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Glyn Davis and Australian Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer sent an email to all public service employees proverb:

We are committed to engaging with you – the APS – and the Australian public on the findings in an open and constructive manner.

However, our focus is on the response of the heads of individual departments and authorities. Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, we asked how managers communicated with employees through the crucial period immediately following the Commission's reporting.

Policy development takes place in ministries they usually often work closely with ministers.

But only half of all civil servants work in ministries. The rest work in around 100 agencies.

While most dept heads communicated with their employees via Robodebt, only 54% of agency leaders did so.

The 50 agencies that didn’t communicate with their employees in regards to the importance of Robodebt within the months following the report employ greater than 45,000 people, greater than 25% of the general public sector.

Not my problem mentality

Three major departments told us that “no documents have been identified” or “the department has no documents.” […] that meet the conditions of the request”. This suggests that they didn’t communicate with employees in the primary six months after submitting the Robodebt report. The departments were:

It's not clear why these secretaries selected not to jot down to their employees directly about Robodebt, but the dearth of communication sends a message.

This was specifically mentioned in some answers. For example, when our request was rejected, we were told that the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority:

[…] shouldn’t be an externally facing organization and as such doesn’t make payments to individual recipients. Therefore, there isn’t any need to reply to the Royal Commission and there are not any documents relevant to your request.

Even when there was some communication, the agencies didn't necessarily address the cultural issues. For example this Clean energy regulator focused on public perception:

There is an increased level of control over regulators […] Please be vigilant when approached by someone working for a media company.

Under such circumstances, cultural change is unlikely to occur.

Some positive signs

On a positive note, there have been examples of agencies addressing the intense impact of Robodebt on their work, which is able to likely result in an improvement of their organizational culture.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) identified numerous recommendations “although they were directed at other authorities”. […] that ASIC should reply to this”. They noticed The “Given that most of our employees come from the private sector,” there may be a necessity to enhance training in “our duties as civil servants.”

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Likewise the Australian statistician David Gruen emphasized Creating a culture through which “people feel supported when attempting to raise difficult issues with their colleagues or superiors.” There were similar discussions AUSTRAK.

Ministries are closest to ministers, so we hoped their communications would address issues in relationships between senior officials and ministers Key topic revealed within the Robodebt case.

Unfortunately, through the period studied, only 4 departments discussed over-reactivity with their employees or in board meetings.

The Department of Industry and Science was the most comprehensive. Secretary Meghan Quinn wrote to staff several times, expressing that “the results go to the core of leadership and culture and this should be our focus going forward.” The department's integrity unit wrote to employees:

officer [must] […] Give open and honest advice to the federal government. If you ever feel pressured to do or sign something you usually are not comfortable with, it’s important that you just speak to your superiors […] You have the support of the manager branch not to make use of your name for something that shouldn’t be true or not in the general public interest.

However, this was one in all the few departments where senior staff addressed these core issues directly in the primary few months following the royal commission's reporting. Most ministries didn’t name or discuss the underlying reason for the failure: over-responsiveness to ministers on the expense of protecting the general public.

While lots of Robodebt's flaws might be fixed through recent procedures and rules, changing the culture of public service is a bigger learning project.

It requires a shift in norms and a rebalancing of officials' competing duties. They must serve the elected ministers, but they have to also serve the general public by ensuring probity, fairness and legality.

Robodebt highlighted the damage that happens when the balance suggestions too far towards ministers and away from the general public interest.

That this was hardly a part of the communication from public service leaders to their staff within the immediate aftermath of the royal commission doesn’t bode well for the teachings learned from the crisis.