Edition #42
This issue
- growth oriented public sector leadership
- mental health at work
- public value is unknowable
- Australia’s prison dilemma
- COVID-19 vaccine audiences
Plus what I’m reading.
In an environment of unprecedented events and heightened uncertainty, public managers not only need to bounce back but also grow and develop. A paper in the Australian Journal of Public Administration examines the role of leadership in supporting staff to adapt and flourish.
Got something you want to tell us? Reader feedback plays a big part in shaping The Bridge, so if there’s a research paper, journal article or report you’d like to add to my reading pile, or a topic you’d like to see explored in The Bridge, just let me know. If you’ve got any other suggestions or feedback, please send them to me at M.Katsonis@anzsog.edu.au
A new paper by the Black Dog Institute looks at how changes to work are impacting Australians’ mental health. National data from the past two decades shows people are taking significantly more time off work due to incapacitating mental health conditions.
The cost of poor workplace mental health on the Australian economy is estimated at $39 billion in lost participation and productivity each year.
The changing world of work
Work in Australia has changed dramatically over the last twenty years. Technological innovation has led to wide scale digitisation of work, automation and the growth of the gig economy.
Australia’s workforce has also changed with greater female participation, increasing cultural diversity and an older retirement age.
Despite these changes, inequality of work opportunities and remuneration remain for women, younger workers, CALD communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Has the mental health of working Australians changed over the last 20 years?
Several concerning trends regarding the mental health of Australian workers have emerged. New analysis shows that mental health symptoms reported by Australian workers have gradually increased over the last decade.
This trend is most apparent among workers aged under 25 years. Young people have also reported a steep increase in mental health symptoms over the last year. This suggests changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated the trend towards worsening mental health for younger workers.
The bottom line
The paper argues workplace mental health is an emerging public health crisis requiring attention from government and employers. To develop mentally healthy workplaces, organisations need to adopt proactive strategies that mitigate against psychosocial risk factors, while promoting workplace protective factors and early help-seeking.
For government, workplace mental health should form a key pillar of preventative actions to reduce the unacceptably high burden of mental ill health in Australia.
The last issue of The Bridge featured a research brief on why not all wicked problems have the same level of wickedness. In response, we received a paper from Mark Prebble, former New Zealand State Services Commissioner.
Published in Administration and Society, the paper argues public value is unknowable and public authority makes every government decision a wicked problem. Knowability is not about absolute certainty. Knowability is the ability to identify a preferable course of action with sufficient confidence to justify adopting that course.
Assessing public value
A typical way for a public manager to assess a public value proposition is to consider the pattern of expected benefits.
If the expected benefits correspond to some prespecified measure better than the current pattern of benefits, then the proposition is regarded as contributing to public value. But no measure is neutral.
The paper analyses a series of options to assess concepts of public value. This included a justification test which outlines the requirements for a solution to a problem involving the imposition of public authority. The analysis did not identify any feasible approach and all methods failed the justification test with the result that public value is shown to be indeterminate.
What this means
Every decision in government is a wicked problem, not just because of difficulty arriving at a consensus but because public value is unknowable. The practical implication of public value being unknowable is not that government is impossible. The implication is that government requires humility, discourse and compromise.
Despite falling crime rates, imprisonment in Australia is at a historic high. A Productivity Commission report looks at these trends and underlying drivers. It also investigates the benefits and costs of imprisonment and the alternatives.
At a glance
- On 30 June 2020, more than 40 000 Australians were in prison. Over one-third of prisoners are on remand, waiting for trial or sentencing. Nearly 60 per cent have been in prison before.
- Two broad changes are affecting Australia’s imprisonment rate: (1) changes in the nature and reporting of crime; and (2) changes in criminal justice policy. Both of these changes underpin Australia’s current high imprisonment rate.
- Prisons cost Australian taxpayers more than $5 billion per year, or more than $330 per prisoner per day. In contrast, alternative punishments, such as community corrections orders can cost as little as $30 per prisoner per day. However, compared to imprisonment, this changes the risks facing the community.
Alternative approaches to prison
The paper draws on case studies from Australia and overseas to consider alternatives to imprisonment. These include:
- alternative sanctions to prison for low-to moderate-risk offenders (Operation Checkpoint in the UK).
- restorative justice conferences (Aotearoa-New Zealand).
- extended throughcare models such as the ACT program which provides continued support to prisoners for 12 months after their release.
One of the first steps in any effective public health communication campaign is knowing your audience. A segmentation study was undertaken by Monash University and Massey University (Aotearoa-New Zealand) to understand Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine audiences.
Five vaccine audiences were found:
1. Sceptics (10 per cent) had no intention to get vaccinated. Concerns included fears they will get infected with coronavirus from the vaccine and dismissing the pandemic as not serious as some people say it is.
2. Vaccine hesitants (15 per cent) have low favourable attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines.
Concerns included vaccine side effects, the speed of vaccine development, and more time to be sure about the safety of the vaccine.
3. Vaccine socials (20 per cent) have lower, but still positive, attitudes, norms, and intentions compared to supporters and enthusiasts. Socials showed slight favouring of medical experts and doctors as trusted sources.
4. Vaccine supporters (26 per cent). Over 95 per cent said they will definitely get a vaccine to protect others. They most trusted doctors, medical experts and scientists.
5. Vaccine enthusiasts (28 per cent) perceive a high degree of social expectation for vaccination. This segment chooses the greatest number of reasons to get vaccinated, protecting self, family, and community.
What I'm reading
1. Working together to de-mystify public policy
Policy is often seen as a mysterious black box. Even the most experienced policymakers have been known to disagree when it comes to defining policy. A blog post in Public Policy Design throws open the
black box about what policy is, and the skills you need to be an effective policy professional.
Read More
2. Energy, and how to get it
Energy is both biochemical and psychophysical. You know when you’ve got it, and even more when you don’t. It is the enthusiasm and vigour you feel inside yourself, the kind you seek to instill by drinking Red Bull or coffee, plunging into an ice bath or taking vitamin B complex. This New Yorker article
unpacks the science of energy because energy isn’t energy. It’s our experience of burning energy and converting it to work. It’s a metabolic mood.
Read More
‘Til the next issue
Maria Katsonis
Maria curates The Bridge. She is a Public Policy Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a former senior Victorian public servant with 20 years’ experience. She has a deep understanding of public policy and public management and brings a practitioner’s perspective to the academic.
We acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples of Australia and Māori as tangata whenua and Treaty of Waitangi partners in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
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