The Core Roles
Government undertakes many roles and responsibilities in pursuit of its desired outcomes. Traditionally, organisations have combined many of these roles. As organisations have grown and changed, the boundaries between these roles have become blurred and the lines of accountability less transparent.
In more recent times, organisations have focussed on their core business activities. This has required a process of separation of these various roles to enable clearer lines of responsibility and accountability to be drawn and to minimise potential conflicts of interest.
This separation of functions has occurred in varying degrees within individual organisations depending on the perceived need for change and the value that it brings in being able to manage more effectively.
The core roles of Government agencies fall into five broad categories:
- policy adviser
- regulator
- purchaser
- provider
- employer.
Policy advisers are responsible for strategic planning and formulating new initiatives and revisions to current Government programs and services. They do so in response to Government policy objectives, identified community needs or both. The Australian Government is responsible for its own programs and for achieving a coordinated national approach where this is required.
Regulators develop regulations in direct response to Government policy or legislation. Regulators are responsible for implementing the framework designed by policy advisers.
Similarly for purchasers, established policy directions guide the purchasing frameworks to be implemented. Funding is allocated on the basis that purchasing specifications are designed to give effect to the policy framework.
Service providers also work within established boundaries. These boundaries exist in the purchasing frameworks that accompany funds received to provide the service. Purchasing specifications specify how services are to be provided, to whom and under what conditions.
The final role, that of employer, is universal to all Australian Government organisations. Though conditions of employment may vary between organisations, the core functions of an employer remain the same.
The employer role will remain as part of the overarching CDS framework, however from 1 July 2007 agencies will only report on the employer role activities through the Australian Public Service Commission’s State of the Service survey and not via the agencies annual report.
Most organisations have a number of differing roles and responsibilities. The most common separation of functional responsibilities is between the purchasing of services and the provision of services. Less common, but certainly present, is the separation of policy advice and regulatory responsibilities.
Where an organisation has more than one core role, responsibility for applying and monitoring the performance indicators for the different roles rests with the individual areas performing those roles.
These roles are the foundation upon which the new performance reporting framework for the Strategy has been developed.