ANZSOG publishes new histories of State and Territory public service senior executive arrangements

A new series of eight papers summarising how senior executive arrangements in the public service have evolved since the 1980s in Australia have been published as part of ANZSOG’s Research Insights series. The papers outline the legislative and administrative changes that have affected the Commonwealth, and a snapshot of recent arrangements in each jurisdiction up to 2021. Each of the eight papers covers a separate jurisdiction, with the Commonwealth, all states and the Northern Territory represented. 

The reports also examine the political context that public services have operated in since the 1980s, covering the impact of reviews of the public sector and changing trends in management, personnel development, centralisation and contracting arrangements, hiring freezes and the perennial splitting and combining of government departments. The papers also contain summary tables of SES practices in each jurisdiction, allowing for comparisons across Australia. 

The papers have been published by ANZSOG as a resource to assist students and researchers who want to understand more about the comparative arrangements across jurisdictions. The papers were compiled by a research team led by Brian Head, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Queensland, and Linda Colley, Professor of Work and Employment at CQUniversity. Valuable research assistance was provided by Shelley Woods, Chris Salisbury and Prue Brown. The production of these reports has been made possible by funding from the Australian Research Council. 

The full Senior Executive Service case studies are available on the Research Insights page of the ANZSOG website.