Reimagining the Future Public Service Workforce

This book investigates the professional needs and training requirements of an ever-changing public service workforce in Australia and the United Kingdom. It explores the nature of future roles, the types of skills and competencies that will be required and how organisations might recruit, train and develop public servants for these roles.

Leading international research – practitioners make recommendations for how local organisations can equip future public servants with the skills and professional capacities for these shifting professional demands, and the skillsets they will require.

Drawing on ideas that have been developed in the Australian and UK context, the book delves into the major themes involved in re-imagining the public service workforce and the various forms of capacities and capabilities that this entails. It then explores delivery of this future vision, and its implications in terms of development, recruitment and strategy.

Author Biography

Helen Dickinson is Associate Professor Public Service Research and Director of the Public Service Research Group at the School of Business, University of New South Wales, Canberra.  Her expertise is in public services, particularly in relation to topics such as governance, leadership, commissioning and priority setting and decision-making.  Helen has published sixteen books and over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics and is also a frequent commentator within the mainstream media.  She is co-editor of the Journal of Health, Organization and Management and Australian Journal of Public Administration.  In 2015 Helen was made a Victorian Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and she has worked with a range of different levels of government, community organisations and private organisations in Australia, UK, New Zealand and Europe on research and consultancy programmes.

Catherine Needham is Professor of Public Policy and Public Management at the University of Birmingham. She is based at the Health Services Management Centre, developing research around social care and policy innovation. She also works with the University’s Public Services Academy, researching new approaches to public service workforce development.

Catherine Mangan is the Director of the Public Services Academy and the Director of INLOGOV at the University of Birmingham. She has a particular research interest in delivering change within the public sector and her areas of interest include the integration of health and social care and developing the future workforce and leadership (she is a facilitator on the LGA’s National Graduate Development Program). Catherine is a qualified executive leadership coach and is an experienced facilitator and developer of leadership programs. Catherine teaches on the Department’s Masters programs in Public Management and Public Administration.

Helen Sullivan is Professor and Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. Her research and teaching explores the changing nature of state-society relationships including the theory and practice of governance and collaboration, new forms of democratic participation and public policy and service reform. Her work reflects a long-term commitment to finding new ways to bridge the gap between research and policy. Helen’s contributions to research and practice have been recognised by awards from the Public Management Research Association and the International Research Society for Public Management, and fellowship of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.