Building public sector capability: Insights from two ANZSOG roundtables

Professor Brian Head
University of Queensland

As part of his 2026 ANZSOG Academic Fellowship, Professor Brian Head convened two practitioner roundtables exploring public sector capability across Australian and New Zealand governments. Bringing together senior practitioners, specialists and academics, the discussions examined how governments can strengthen internal expertise, reduce over-reliance on external consultants, and build the long-term strategic capabilities needed to respond to increasingly complex policy challenges.

Conducted under the Chatham House Rule, the roundtables surfaced practical insights from across jurisdictions about what is working, where barriers remain, and what governments can do to build and sustain capability over time.

The key themes and lessons from each discussion are summarised below, with further detail included in the reports.

Key Takeaways

Roundtable 1: Building internal capability in government and the appropriate use of consultants

• Reducing consultant expenses and rebuilding internal capability must happen simultaneously - cutting one without investing in the other simply shifts the problem.
  

• Internal expert capability teams are often treated as discretionary and may be vulnerable during fiscal contractions - even when governments are publicly committed to reducing reliance on consultants.
  

• No single organisational model works for all contexts. A mix of approaches - combining central capability hubs, agency-level teams, and networked expertise across government - is likely to be needed.
  

• Leadership and commissioning frameworks matter. Without active sponsorship from secretaries and ministers, in-house capability models are unlikely to become embedded.
  

• The political window for reform is real but may not stay open. High-profile integrity issues have shifted the fiscal sensitivities around consultant use, but sustaining momentum towards rebalancing will be critical.

Roundtable 2: Building long-term public sector capability for future policy challenges

This session asked the question: how can governments build and sustain the capacity for long-term strategic thinking in an increasingly complex world? Key takeaways included:

• Long-term thinking capability exists across Australian and New Zealand government - but practitioners are largely unaware of each other, addressing the same problems independently.
  

• The authorising environment is crucial. Without explicit political and executive permission, foresight and strategy teams may get built, deliver good work, but then get cut.

• The tension between building grassroots capability and targeting senior decision-makers is real and unresolved - most teams have to navigate both levels simultaneously.

• Learning and development budgets are usually the first to be squeezed in a fiscal contraction. The case for capability investment needs to be made now.

• Foresight is a beneficial ‘Trojan Horse’ - the entry point for introducing systems thinking, human-centred design, and anticipatory decision-making to organisations that might not otherwise engage.

• Building more capability without demand is not sustainable. Good work and skilled teams mean little if senior leaders are not actively calling for and creating space for new capabilities.