The NSW Crown Solicitor's Office (CSO) is administratively part of the NSW Attorney General's Department. On 1 July 2009 CSO announced it has undergone a restructure. Its website assures us that these organisational "changes aim to further improve our clients' experience with and access to our services."
The website shows a new organisational chart and it indicates that CSO has a marketing division. Why CSO needs to "market" its services is not entirely clear to me. However one can be sure that the CSO employees are stretched to breaking point in what is demanded of them. There was a tacit admission of this in the 2007-08 Annual Report of the Attorney General's Department:
"The Crown Solicitor’s Office is assessing the recommendations made by
beyondblue, the national depression initiative, in its review of the CSO’s current
practices for managing workplace mental health, with a view to implementing them in
2008–09."(page 67)
While it is important that stress and depression be recognised and treated, the prior question is how does the public administration policy and practices affecting CSO provide the seed-bed out of which such mental illness arises? In other words, why are the employees whose numbers are fewer and fewer expected to do more and more? Why are employees working beyond the standard hours to the point where work is done until late at night and even on weekends (all of which is not remunerated)?
Is there a culture of fear among employees about losing their jobs if they complain? Why does such fear exist in the first place? Does this fear of being abused and bullied and of vendettas come from senior bureaucrats in the upper echelons of the public sector?
It is one thing to treat the symptoms of stress. It is another to go back to the tap-root source of it all and to apply weed-killer. Weed-killer is obviously needed to root out the bad personnel. hideous attitudes, unworkable policies and unrealistic work practices insisted on by those at the top in the public sector. Why does the NSW Attorney General Mr Hatzistergos preside over such a regime and do nothing to clear out the problem among those directly underneath him?
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When employees are subdued and feel afraid to express dissent individually or as a group, and where the Public Service Association seems to listen more to the dictates of Sussex St (ALP HQ), then it is not surprising to see them knuckle under as "slaves". The system is partly perpetuated because nobody says anything publicly. It is perpetuated because the bully-boy behaviour of senior executives is never decisively challenged or rebuked. Much of the gimmick with bullies is that their standover tactics are called largely by bluff. A bully cannot handle being challenged by a bigger bully.
ReplyDeletePeople in charge of departments who abuse their workers verbally and who rule with an iron fist can be knocked off their perches. As soon as public scrutiny is in the air they all dive for the bunkers. These "leaders" cannot cope with criticism, and any challenge to their authority. They are transparently pathetic creatures who try to turn on the charm like a chameleon adapting to whatever context they find themselves in. They are usually men without chests - and without craniums worthy of examination.
It would be fascinating to see the executive culture in the public sector brought under the searching spotlight of public scrutiny.