Scott Morrison tells public servants to get back to work

Scott Morrison has directed public servants to return to the office, telling their bosses he wants to engage with them at close range.

Scott Morrison says he wants officials to take positive lessons from the pandemic, such as the way the public service ‘was able to swarm to solve problems’. Picture: Adam Taylor

Scott Morrison has directed public servants to return to the office, telling their bosses he wants to eyeball and engage with them at close range in the next phase of the policy response to the pandemic.

Speaking via video to the top echelon of the Australian Public Service on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said he wanted bureaucrats back in the office and solving problems together.

Mr Morrison said the past 12 months had been a “ridiculous experience” but he wanted officials to take positive lessons from the crisis, such as the way the public service “was able to swarm to solve problems”.

Senior government ministers and officials became frustrated with “pyjama policymaking” in the era of Zoom, especially in COVID-free Canberra, as they feared rising taxpayer costs, a lack of focus and a slippage in productivity.

According to Australian Public Service Commissioner Peter Woolcott, at the height of the pandemic, one in five federal agencies moved their entire workforce out of the office for a period of time. At one point, over half of the APS workforce of 145,000 were working from home.

After the speech, where Mr Morrison said citizens had “witnessed the Australian public service at its very best”, he was asked by a senior bureaucrat about the right balance of adopting flexible working in both the public and private sectors.

“Within departments and across departments, I think we have to have good processes for harvesting the learnings about what has worked well and lock that stuff in,” he said.

“But don’t go, ‘Oh, 2020 was pretty good, we all got on pretty well that year and did stuff’ and then we throw it all away and we go back to how we’re doing things before.

“That would be a great failure and I think that would be that would disrespect the achievements of the public service have made this year.

“I don’t think honestly there is any substitute for people coming together and being in a workplace environment.

“I think that’s positive from a productivity point of view, from a collaboration point of view, and I think it’s positive from a social point of view, frankly, and people’s own wellbeing.

“I think it has taught us, though, about how we can be a bit more flexible on some of these things. I think there is improvements around the edges. I’ve always been one for flexibility in workplace arrangements and that is a very much a collaborative exercise and so I’m open to those sorts of things.

“I don’t think the lesson of 2020 is everyone can work from home from now on. No, we want people back in the offices working together, solving problems together. And as good as the technology is and as it’s on show today, I’d rather be with you all. I’d rather be able to see you all and I’d rather engage with you all”.

In his speech, having lauded the APS for its flexibility and rapid responses, Mr Morrison said the job wasn’t finished, and that the coming year would present different challenges, especially in program delivery and monitoring of performance.

“And now I’m going to ask for something from you once again, and that is more next year,” he said.

In a speech last week, Mr Woolcott noted that flexible work was not new for the APS: “Prior to COVID-19, almost all APS agencies offered work from home arrangements, with around 20 per cent of employees working flexibly some of the time”.

In one staff census in August, almost two-thirds of the APS, or 93,000 people, were working from home.

“Remote working at this scale would have been inconceivable just ten years ago. Our ability to move our workforce out of the office, and remain productive, hinged on the support of our digital workforce and systems,” Mr Woolcott said.

The annual state of the service report is expected to be tabled in parliament next week.