Public Money & Management

Editor: Andrew Massey

King’s College London, UK

[email protected]

In connection with our PMM Live! scheduled for 14 November 2023, we intend to publish a theme issue in 2024 that comparatively explores the recruitment, training and retention of senior public officials. There have been many changes in approach to the recruitment, training and retention of senior public officials in different regions across the globe, including a general trend away from purely merit-based recruitment towards the focus on and acquisition of definable skills. This has occurred alongside a more nuanced recognition of the need to reflect greater diversity in the background of public officials in many countries. Yet, as the many speakers at a conference of ASEAN governments in Seoul in November 2022 noted, nations around the world face similar problems. In the drive to gain more efficient and effective delivery of public services, and to overcome the wicked problems often grappled with in the public sector, the move to skills-based recruitment and training alongside attention to equality and diversity concerns frequently coincide in modernization drives. A report by the OECD (https://doi.org/10.1787/ed8235c8-en) analysed the approaches taken by all its members to create a senior civil service (SCS) and argued that these must address:

• Leadership capabilities (i.e. skills, competencies, behaviours, styles) that are necessary to respond to complex policy challenges.
• The policies, processes and tools needed to develop these capabilities and support senior public officials in using them (i.e. the SCS).

The OECD report identified four leadership capabilities, despite a wide variation in topics and national contexts:

• Values-based leadership: Individual SCS are required to negotiate multiple and often competing values that guide their decision-making towards the public interest.
• Open inclusion: Successful leaders will challenge their own perceptions by searching beyond those they normally hear from.
• Organizational stewardship: SCS reinforce a trust- and values-based culture and equip their workforce with the right skills, tools and working environments.
• Networked collaboration: Successful SCS are adept at collaborating through networks, with other government actors, and beyond.

The report promotes innovation within leadership competency frameworks. For example:

• SCS job profiles should identify leadership capabilities appropriate to the position, often aligned to leadership competency frameworks.
• Selection and appointment mechanisms should be appropriate to the position to ensure the right fit between the leader and the job.
• Pipeline development should ensure that there is a potential pool of candidates with the necessary abilities and motivation.
• These tools should not only be used to bring in the best individuals, but also to ensure a diversity of people and backgrounds in the SCS.

The OECD report shares many commonalities with reports from the Australian Public Service Commission, the UK’s increasingly skills-based approach and that also embraced by many other nations around the globe.

PMM’s contribution

In our PMM theme we seek to solicit articles from an international range of sources to address the question:

How should we recruit and retain a public service fit for purpose and what will it look like?

Submissions

Potential authors can submit one of three types of submission. A Debate article (up to 1000 words). Debate articles will offer distinctive, provocative comments and arguments (so long as they are also considered), perhaps from the world of practice. A New Development (ND) piece (up to 3500 words) will describe innovations or changes to practice. Research Articles (up to 8000 words including references). All submissions must be suitable for both academic and practitioner readers. Debate and ND submissions will be reviewed by the editorial team and research articles double-blind refereed by both an academic and a practitioner. For more details visit the PMM website at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rpmm20

The deadline for submission of research articles is 20 November 2023 and for debate and ND articles 31 January 2024.

Quuestions to PMM’s Managing Editor: Michaela Lavender ([email protected])

Potential authors can submit one of three types of submission. A Debate article (up to 1000 words). Debate articles will offer distinctive, provocative comments and arguments (so long as they are also considered), perhaps from the world of practice. A New Development (ND) piece (up to 3500 words) will describe innovations or changes to practice. Research Articles (up to 8000 words including references). All submissions must be suitable for both academic and practitioner readers. Debate and ND submissions will be reviewed by the editorial team and research articles double-blind refereed by both an academic and a practitioner. For more details visit the PMM website at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rpmm20.  Remember to select the 'special issue'.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article