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PART I Enhancing the Quality of Education and Training for the Public Sector
managers questioned: “The concept of loyalty has changed today and people make
little distinction between the public service and the private sector. The person first
considers his own interests and the advantages he can obtain from his job.”
Australia is a country isolated by its geography; this seems to have given Aus-
tralian public servants an extreme sense of self-sufficiency. However, several events,
such as the Aboriginal people resorting to international organizations in order to
be recognized in the Constitution, the flood of immigrants and the 9/11 terrorist
attack have led Australians to realize the consequences of international issues on
their country. This being so, Australian senior managers today are trying to catch
up by using study trips, exchanges and training programs.
According to the Australian managers, the competencies to be developed are
as follows:
1. policy advice and policy development: to remain the principal policy adviser,
to know the machinery of policy development and management, to be on the
look-out for the expression of needs, to appreciate the impact of policies on
the people involved and the consequences on the ministry;
2. management approach: to master the public-management context and ap-
proaches, to be familiar with management in the private sector, to be interested
in results-based management, to know how to manage in a context of partner-
ships and networks, to know how to manage contracts;
3. adapted leadership: to have a global vision of the government and the ministry,
to develop a relevant, motivating and realistic ministerial agenda, to appreciate
organizational risk, to anticipate the replacement of workers and to manage
mobility, to be an active member in the networks affecting the public service;
4. interpersonal relationships: to know how to manage human relations, to know
colleagues and subordinates, to know how to get the best out of employees,
to know how to face conflicts and to resolve them quickly;
5. external relations: to appreciate Australia’s place in the world, to be familiar with
international issues and their impact on the government and the ministry.
France
In France, the managers foresee that the public administration will face the fol-
lowing nine important issues in the coming years: the consequences of European
integration, the shift toward the customer-based approach, results-based manage-
ment, the public service being open to prosecution, the advent of new information
technologies, demographics, organizational culture and human-resource manage-
ment and, finally, serving an increasingly pluralistic population, in both ethnic and
cultural terms.
Brussels makes more and more policies. The national administrations must work
in the preparation and application of the collective decisions. With European inte-
gration, there is increasing cooperation among the countries; the future of policy
development is increasingly vast and complex. France is open to the influence
of public servants from other countries of the European Community. European
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… Competencies of Senior Managers: A Look at Some OECD Countries
integration will be a factor of change for administering policy development: there
are common laws, exchanges of practices and comparisons.
The interviewees consider that September 11 demonstrated the importance of
the role of the State. In their opinion, it is necessary to be wary of the simplistic
solutions of the new public management. The limitations of this approach were
seen in the United Kingdom with regard to water and trains and in the United
States concerning airports. The role of the State will remain important, but the
ways of exercising that role will evolve. If the activity of the State changes, the
role of its leaders will also change.
The law pertaining to budget reform creates an approach based on performance
and results. As it concerns an organization act, it touches upon all administrations
and all sectors, including human-resource management. It was the subject of a
large political consensus in the two chambers of the French parliament and among
all the political parties. The budget reform lowers constraints because it creates
tangible means to support programs and to raise the level of accountability. There
will be more results-based management with performance indicators. Controls
carried out after the fact will be more present. Administrations will be made more
accountable for their own internal control work, and this will lead to changes in
work methods within the corps d’inspection. In France, it is said that everything is
too controlled and badly controlled, and these controls waste money and energy;
it will be necessary to do a better job identifying what is sought, and the work of
the numerous controllers must be better coordinated. The interviewees believe that
the leaders will have to accept that their performance be judged by staff, users and
parliamentarians: they will no longer be able to cut themselves off from the rest
of the world. Moreover, there is now more parliamentary review and the targets
of this review are increasingly becoming more specific.
As far as administrative organization is concerned, rather significant changes
have been noticed; these include the appearance of an increasing number of rela-
tively autonomous, statutory agencies, as well as the modification of the role of
prefects who have become organizers more than executive directors.
The profile of the French population has radically changed over the last thirty
years. It is expected that the State reflect this profile in its workforce and that
the senior public service become more inter-community. That will require new
approaches to manage diversity and to encourage tolerance and a deep understand-
ing of minorities. The managers who were interviewed indicate that the massive
retirement of managers, about 40% in the next ten years, will open the way to a
younger public service and an important renewal of this service. This situation is
seen as a golden opportunity to bring about profound changes in the management
culture and in staff profile.
The new information technologies destroy the uniquely hierarchical positioning of
senior managers for information is instantly accessible to the entire organization and
the employees can evaluate their superiors using this information. Requests are directly
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