DEALING WITH POLITICIANS AND THE PUBLIC/CIVIL SERVICE AUTHOR: Kevin Beck Professional Managers and Associates Melbourne, Australia March 2010

PREAMBLE

Whilst this paper contains techniques, and ideas, that can be used for training it is not written immediately for use in a training group situation, in its current form. It makes reference, on page 2, to representatives of enterprise, such as product and services distributors, and their dealings with governments and the public service among other things. These agents can have no impact, alternatively assist, or frustrate the objectives of the enterprise depending upon the agent's own position in the economy.

This paper looks at the fundamental nature of the culture, and manner of operation, of governments, and public servants, in countries where there are strong, proven and well functioning, democratic systems with a-political bureaucracies that include codes of conduct for civil servants, independent institutions including anti-corruption bodies, and separate justice systems. The model that this paper is based on is the Wesminster model of government and public service developed by Great Britain later to become the United Kingdom and Australia. There are elements that are also suited to the Canadian and United States of America. Countries such as France, Italy and the European community and the eastern bloc nations are not seen as having similar functioning governments and public services even though many are democracies.

In countries less developed, and where there is an emerging economy, and institutional base, and countries where the institutions are not as well founded, and the codes, are lacking or non - existent the motivations driving these interests have to be broadened to include corruption and often bribery. In these countries Ministers, and politicians, play greater direct influential roles in decision making, and government purchases and patronage, than in the former countries where there are separation of powers and processes, strict guidelines on dealing with public servants, probity and tender processes. In developed nations politicians do not buy your products, civil servants do. However patronage and corruption of process still exists but is submerged beneath the surface or clouded deliberatley by lack of freedom of information and disinformation. Australia fits into this category of manipulation of democarcy, government and public service. In Australia many argue that the public service has been grossly politicised.

If you are engaged in influencing policy, and legislation, then you have to have a number of disparate, but complementary, strategies for dealing with Ministers, and politicians, and civil servants. This should include developing relationships with political apparatchiks in local communities and regions where often funds are disbursed according to those influences. Commercial objectives are of lesser influence to politicians, and public servants, behaviour and response than the enterprise's, or individual's, capacity, to support or hinder their (government and public service) mutually exclusive interests and objectives. To assume that you can get a slice of government expenditure for your enterprise, product, or service, by interacting with politicians, and Ministers, in isolation of powerful interests, is fraught with problems. A comprehensive strategy model requires embracing, and interacting, with the power structures and groups that work to keep those people in office and who influence where grants and other government expenditures may fall.

There is a common ethos in developed nations that the public service exists to serve the government of the day not the public. There is often a clash of ideology between the two parties that control the government of the day - conservative and social. The divide has blurred and both tend to be centralist rather than left or right wing.

The type of environment described above dictates how one should approach government relations and relationships with the incumbents.

Government relations does not fit well within the marketing group of an enterprise, it is a precise set of skills that are best resident within the senior leadership group where senior executives are brought into the political world.

Using narrowly focused, external consultants, and lobbyists, to relate to government members and the bureaucracy, are not the best approaches yet it is a methodology embraced by many organisations. One problem with this approach, in sophisticated government environments, is the lobbyist has to be registered and their access can be monitored and controlled. They are identifiable.

The people who deal with government should not be specifically described on their business card as "government relations", government is about "parliament and politics".

This paper is predominantly about developing long term personal relations, through knowledge of the civil service and its structures, and objectives, and achieving ongoing contribution in a climate of mutual benefit.

KNOW WHO IS DEALING WITH PUBLIC SERVICE AND GOVERNMENTS IN YOUR SPHERE OF ACTIVITY

There may be people with whom you work closely, and with whom you associate, who themselves deal with the public service, and who have their own networks and engage narrowly or broadly. They are as much a potential influence and of interest to you as are competitors. Competitors are often more than mere sellers.

" Know who they are

" What level of access they operate at

" Learn, and study, their networks and primary goals and do not assume they are all business related.

" Seek to manage/counter them (with or without their knowledge) much as you manage personal relations.

Employees

Ask your employees if they have any personal interaction with governments, or public service, and find out what those activities are and how valuable/impacting those connections (active or not) may be. Employees may be members of political parties, local community groups, sporting organisations and clubs, university and other alumni.

TECHNIQUES

In many respects the paper is about learning and about techniques of methodically approaching the civil service, step by step, over time, and the people within it, learning their objectives, way of thinking and processes. Assist them to achieve their goals, maybe solve a problem, advise them, educate and inform (via many methods), as much as you want them to assist you in your interaction with government public services. Make submissions to parliamentary committees, create policy ideas and submit them, send white papers and other research documents to educate the recipients about your world of interests.

Fundamental Requirements Underpinning Government Strategy - We are there, at the end of the day, to attain an objective, not to measure ourselves by how many people we know of status or can meet.

There must be a solid and flexible multifaceted approach, well structured and template developed, in the hands of a specialist group or individual, not an ad hoc cobbled together group, or process, drawn from disparate divisions of the enterprise.

WHAT ARE YOU DEALING WITH? A VERY UNIQUE CULTURE THAT CAN BE PERCEIVED AS COLD, ALOOF AND COLOURLESS

Dr. Paul M. Johnson (A Glossary of Political Economy Terms copyright © 1994-2005 Paul M. Johnson, Department of Political Science, 7080 Haley Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, has a good description contained in the above work, "Bureaucratic organisations are typically characterised by great attention to the precise and stable delineation of authority, or jurisdiction, among the various subdivisions and among the officials who comprise them, which is done mainly by requiring the organisation's employees to operate strictly according to fixed procedures and detailed rules designed to routinise nearly all decision-making. "

Johnson points out that "some of the most important of these rules and procedures may be specified in laws or decrees enacted by the higher "political" authorities that are empowered to set the official goals and general policies for the organisation, but upper-level (and even medium-level) bureaucrats typically are delegated considerable discretionary powers for elaborating their own detailed rules and procedures."

The public servant, and the politician, is not drive by the objectives you may see as relevant. What is logical to you may not be important to them at all.

As Johnson points out "Incentive structures of bureaucratic organisations, and political party structures, largely involve rewarding strict adherence to formal rules and punishing unauthorised departures from standard operating procedures and political practices, rather than focusing on measureable individual contributions toward actually attaining the organisation's politically assigned goals".

The bureaucracy thrives on documents, which is why the best approach is to give them briefing papers, white papers containing information and summaries of what it is that you are pursuing. Couch those documents in their linguistic style and nomenclature. Where possible match the document in part as a support document to their goals and policies.

Max Weber (Economy and Society, 1922), believed that a permanent, well-educated, conscientious, non-partisan, public service professionally committed to implementing whatever decisions the legitimate rulers of the state might arrive at was the best organisational form yet discovered for the rational and efficient pursuit of collective social goals in a modern society with a specialised and highly complex division of labor.

Johnson gives an insight into the world of the public servant - "Hired and promoted largely on the basis of educational credentials and seniority within the organization and protected by civil service personnel practices designed to provide a high degree of job security, bureaucratic officials tend to be very well insulated from responsibility for the external consequences of their decisions and actions as long as they stay formally within prescribed procedures." There are no real consequences for failure and poor performance as evidenced by the massive waste and loss of taxpayer funds under the stewardship of the Rudd labor government 2007 - 2010. The lack of accountability is set out in Kevin Beck's Australian Political web site. Similarly in the commentary sites on governance in NSW , as well as Victoria and in Queensland.

"Robert K. Merton and Michel Crozier have shown that pressures on officials to conform to fixed rules and detailed procedures, when added to the narrow responsibilities of highly specialised agencies for pursuing only a select few of the many objectives that government has set, quite regularly leads bureaucrats to become defensive, rigid, and completely unresponsive to the urgent individual needs and concerns of the private citizens, and outside organizations, with which they come into professional contact." (Source: 1994-2005 Paul M. Johnson Department of Political Science, 7080 Haley Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849)

WHO ARE YOU DEALING WITH? THE PUBLIC SERVANT PERSONALITY

Life in bureaucracy is radically different from life in society where hierarchy is rigid whilst protecting them from responsibility and accountability. Rules and systems command their everyday lives. The demands of politics often over ride their sense of ethics and morality. They are there to do as they are bid and until they reach the pinnacle they must be conformist. Not only are they at the beck and call of their bureaucratic masters they are also similarly harassed by the political staff of their Ministers who act as pseudo elected officials. In the most extreme cases, and not all that uncommonly, political staff usurp the power of the Minister becoming the Minister for all intents and purposes. The practitioner of government, and public servant relations, must be able to identify where and when this occurs. To use Johnson's words "you have to fit with their tension, experience and their agenda and world of work".

. "They have a paradox of needs, and constraints, that are not necessarily logical to you and which you must be prepared to try and fathom and deal with. We can explain this by example. A health service can fulfill all patient needs without any other consideration or people may be given a lesser service, or may even die, due to cost, and mishap as occurred in Queensland Australia in the case of Queensland Health.

"Jayant Patel has been sentenced to seven years in jail for the manslaughter of three patients at Bundaberg's Base Hospital in southern Queensland between 2003 and 2005 and will be eligible for parole after three-and-a-half-years." (source: ABC Australia, News July 2, 2010)

A programme can be started (a tender) and then be stopped by government decree at great cost to the public purse and taxpayer, there is no value in whining or complaining about this because the conscience is detached by the political objective/interest/ideology which plays above the public interest. One example is the "Access Card" stopped by the Rudd labor government, in 2007, effectively wasting $A50,000,000 of taxpayer's funds already spent, endless hours of bureaucracy time and $A10,000,000 of corporate funds wasted in tendering. Their timetable, urgency (or not), work and decision making is politically driven. Government, and public service relations, is measured in years and up front low return on investment for the corporation.

If you want a reaction then you have to also drive the political aspiration and policy of the Minister and/or the government or attach some down side or up side to your overtures. To do this you create themes that relate to their policy and objectives - national security, protection of citizen, cost savings and support of the political ideology. This is apparently what business associations and interest groups are seeking to do. To do this we have to use a complex mix of strategies, interaction, communication, relationship development and maintenance and technology/human networks with public service, government and politicians. It should also be remembered that powerful and influential politicians may not be in government and may not necessarily be Ministers. There is a need to research the individual within the public services and within the parliaments.

Public Service Speak

Johnson says that "the secret of bureaucratic language lies behind its technical terms, its jargon, and its affinity for acronyms in the way bureaucrats are taught to think. Reasoning deductively from general rules and by analogy' from previously established case norms, bureaucrats speak a language that differs from ordinary speech exactly because it is created on a knowledge base that is top down and prior to experience derived from the universal laws and rules that constitute modern knowledge of reality".

In public service a new form of speech arises that is top-down instead of reciprocal in defining reality; information replaces communication. In public service a new form of thinking comes to predominate, analogous thinking in which bureaucrats are trained to recognise reality only to the extent that aspects of it match a previously conceived model of their reality and that of the government. (Johnson, op cit) This is a difficult world to master.

LATERAL THINKING AND INTUITION

You may think that your reality is the same for them but it is not. Their work life and interaction is characterised by the demands of the Minister and their own bureaucratic hierarchy. They can often do endless hours of work, with no discernible outcome or benefit. Waste is high in an environment where political whim, and the urgency of the Prime Minister, Minister or the event of the day, may cause a shift or warp. How can you make sure that your approach is relevant and has longevity? It must, as far as possible, anticipate and reflect, the overall path that events will follow. Anticipation, intuition and prescience even prediction are skills that few in government relations, or for that matter any organisation, possess. Lateral thinking, a required component, is also a rare commodity even though many think that they possess the attribute.



TYPES OF PUBLIC SERVANTS

Johnson claims that there are fundamentally two types (though there is a reference below to a covert third): of public servants

1 Policy creators, and policy implementers - this is predominantly the province of federal public servants though they have operational arms like customs, immigration and police.

2 Operational (services delivery, pension, social services, health, police etc), these are usually duplicated state public service and/or regional governance, agencies. In Australia Centrelink and Medicare are exceptions.

3 There is another type of civil servant less defined, and harder, to determine and deal with, they are the covert. China, Union of Myanmar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the like, have agencies which are very influential and covert. In sophisticated countries these agencies are open to scrutiny but they often (behind the scenes) control standards, policies and activity of other agencies that can directly affect access, what you may offer, where you may operate and what you can sell them or learn from them.

IDENTIFYING AND INTERACTING WITH THEIR OBJECTIVE AND THOSE OF EXTERNAL FORCES

The overriding aim of most civil servants is to maintain their own system of order. Thus you have to frame your offerings, contribution and relationship offers within that frame. They often contract out activities e.g. security and access, information technology and are at the behest of embedded external influences and competitors, lawyers, computer integrators and consultants. Thus you have to deal with internal, and external, powerful interests at the same time. They also engage in their own systems of order and one of them is creating barriers for those who would seek to alter or influence that order.

You must identify who will object to you dealing with the public service and where they are and why they may object. These external influencers, and barriers, may not be competitors or even be selling anything. They may be special interest professional associations, unions and community activists, privacy agencies and others that have their own agendas. They may also be other sectors of the public service vying for control or power. Public service agencies compete for influence and resources. You need to determine the best method, through them, around them or having someone else work to shape, or influence, their attitudes. You must adjust/modify the themes to suit the agency and the situation, often seeking to assist each in their world of work modifying your language accordingly. You can use these approaches regardless of economy type, or the developed state of the nation, including those countries where it is accepted that favours are granted or given.

The agency structure is important and should be analysed. Each agency is different and thus the approach must be modified to suit. Within the public sector agency there may be many subsections, all with different agendas, all serving a section of the government policy activity or objectives. Thus a health department will itself be dealing with (a) politics and government Ministry, and related public sector agencies who have interests, (b) with health practitioners and owners, (c) enterprises such as pharmaceutical companies, research bodies, universities (d) interest groups and (e) local boards and delivery as well as Medicare and international. Thus the need, system of order and thinking will be varied.

There are overlapping agencies and they compete for prominence and control in their world - social services versus the health department for example. They compete for resources and the attention of their political masters. Then there are the standards and directive agencies, mentioned above, these are Attorney Generals, Defence and Intelligence, Finance and Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Committee agencies. This complexity requires you learning about their world by research into the whole and each of the units within the agency to determine what the frame references, goals and objectives might be.

You can find information about these frame sets from:

" Agency web sites, particularly structure, organisation and contacts

" Codes of conduct and policy

" Annual reports

" Oversighting agency such as Auditor General and the Ombudsman

" Parliamentary debates and government policy statements.

" Parliamentary committees

" Interest groups, professional associations, structures such as hospitals, universities, institutions and so on

" Public servants, advisers and others (including external sources who interact with parliaments, political parties and public services, who are willing to educate and inform you

" Exploratory questioning and communications direct (cold calling) to departments

" Direct information gathering from your civil service networks and contacts

" External sources, unions, local political apparatchiks, local government, lobbyists, media journalists, professionals and others who have political and administrative tentacles.

Thus your avenues into the public service agency are many, and may not all be via government employees.

DO NOT ASSUME THEY KNOW YOUR SUBJECT

If you know your subject, and its application to their world, you will probably know more about it than the civil servants including how it relates to them. If you are visiting they rarely do research about who you are or the things you do. It helps to give them a synopsis paper. That paper should relate to their world. The expertise of bureaucrats is focused, in playing by the rules, or in devising policy, delivering actual services, rather than understanding the subject itself. There is a different mindset if they are an operational civil servant - hospital, health, child services, police, customs and so on, to a policy public servant or to a political adviser. You need to find a way to match their skill with the rule book, to your objective. When dealing with a political adviser you must be able to attach value, upside or downside to your approach and presumptions. Otherwise they will just give you the time of day and not much else. Public servants are human beings, look among the people you are dealing with and find someone you are comfortable with. As a human being, once they are comfortable with you, they will help you through the system. The political adviser though is harder to reach and warm to.

Bureaucrats who take a pride in their job and who do understand the issues will sometimes break out of their conservative culture and training to help someone they like. Political advisers weigh up the advantage in doing that. They rarely see over the horizon so you must be able to predict. They usually give little credence to these predictions unless they think you have the resources and willingness to deliver. The Australian miners put money where their mouth is when they took out millions of dollars of advertising attacking the Australian government in 2010 over the resources profit tax. One can note the response of the senior Treasury Secretary, Dr Ken Henry, to the outcome, refusal to acknowledge any flaws in the elegant policy, a resigned attitude that "rarely any policy advice gets up in its total form" and the detached accountability.

INSIDE THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Operate at different levels, with different people. Rarely can the same representative deal with every level of the public service. Secretaries, and Ministers, are usually likely to deal with General Managers and Vice Presidents/CEOs unless the person seeking the meeting has some long standing relationship with the service, or they are personally influential beyond a corporation, in their own right. Lobbyists, and consultants, can arrange meetings at these levels; however meetings can also be had if a written submission, or policy idea, gets their attention and contains something that is of interest, or they may want.

Work the interaction horizontally, and vertically, taking appropriate things to a higher level, by finding someone who has an overview of the situation, the agency, the interaction or is a powerful member of the bureaucratic club or has access to it as an outsider.

Do not send brochures to Secretaries, and Ministers, of government. These get rerouted by political staff to a middle ranking, or lower public servant, in the relevant public service department or to the adviser with an interest in the topic. Assume that the Minister does not see all correspondence. The recipient may simply file or throw them away because they have come by this route. In some cases inadvertent consequences and outcomes may result. Never communicate during a tender, if you are an organisation that is party to the tender, to the relevant agency or Minister with carriage of that tender.

Reshape marketing material into information papers, and ideas, that you send to the Secretaries of the department. Pick themes that suit their interests. These people however are more reserved than those below them, are often "ego driven" and will only deal with people of similar status. This is where the senior executives of an enterprise are brought into play. Develop blogs, web sites and twitter about their interests and policies and the performance of government and politicians. The more diverse your strategies the more attention you will garner. Too often corporations think that being "a-political" is the best practice. Politicians, governments and political advisers are partisan and will use their power to stop you pursuing an interest or to silence dissent or to block your representative's activities.

MIXING PUBLIC SERVICE AND POLITICS IS A "NO NO"

Be careful how you approach the Ministers of departments. Public servants must not think you are trying to manipulate them. Think about your communications type and content. By writing neutral communications, letters and presenting ideas to Ministers, and Secretaries and to Committees of Parliament and the Public Service or by posing a question about a policy you can often be referred to senior civil servant or be invited to give a presentation. The more you write the more work that is generated and the public servant may resent this impost.

Never ever write a letter of complaint, or a criticism, about a public servant to the Minister. The worst pain a civil servant can usually experience, at work, is a reprimand from their bosses, advisers and if senior, from the politicians. If required write to the Secretary of the agency. The letter should come from the CEO, or the Vice President, of the Company. Always frame the letter content as a matter of "code of conduct" issue or a possible breach of some policy or process. You may have a breach of conduct or may wish to query a tender outcome or you want to ask why you were not considered for some project or you might want to question a policy or get an explanation. Sometimes you only have to do this once to programme the agency, and the service generally, that you are serious, because word spreads quickly in the public service that you are playing by their rules. See if the agency has a code of conduct and read it carefully. It can be invaluable in dealing with them.

Generally it may be best not to write a complaint at all unless you want something on record as a precaution later. For example you might criticise a policy, or decision, due to poor specification or budget allocation by the relevant agency. These are valid. Never lose your temper, or be belligerent, because public servants are used to this and will tend to write you off completely as irrational. They can also use regulation against you. Rely on the content of your case, representation, wonderful personality and the quality of the brand to win, and penetrate, the public service and once inside develop relationships with them that vary according to the role and place they occupy in the structure. Finally remember in dealing with agencies, in most developed jurisdictions public servants must document their meetings with you, register any gifts, including lunches and other interaction. In the bureaucracy everything has a paper trail.

BUILDING COMMUNICATIONS

Submissions, and responses, to parliamentary enquiries have already been mentioned along with white papers and blogs and twitter. More extensive models can be considered whereby you create and dedicate web sites to particular state, or federal, jurisdictions and to events, and policies, that impact the work of public servants and your own sphere of activity. The content of these sites can be distributed via RSS, Facebook, Twitter and other means. One can develop campaigns which are designed to reach public servants, governments and politicians increasing the likelihood that you will obtain access and discussion.

I send people, within many business enterprises, public services, institutions, communities and parliaments, articles, commentary, submissions, white papers and critiques, on a wide range of topics including policy, governance, corporate and consumer behaviour, ethics and the operations, and performance, of parliamentarians, government, political advisers, public service and business in Australia. Click Here to Join the Distribution Forum and Tools Journalism Resources Media Distribution Services Toolbox

Technology designed to communicate to, and interact with, politicians, governments, public officials, executives at every level in corporations, associations, institutions, communities, interest groups and individuals across the web. An activist utility. If this section is blank turn your active content on. Forum and Blog Article Archives Distribution Utilities OPUS DEI "Opus Dei is a Catholic institution founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá. Its mission is to help people turn their work and daily activities into occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society. Opus Dei complements the work of local churches by offering classes, talks, retreats and pastoral care that help people develop their personal spiritual life and apostolate."

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THE MOSIAC PORTAL IS A WEB NETWORK OF UNLIMITED INFORMATION, AND TOOLS, FOR RESEARCH, WORK AND RECREATION FREE TO USE WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF KEVIN R BECK The portal is not like any other personal web site network.