45. Families SA & Child Protection

Hi. I am Greg and I want to Grumble about the demise of Families SA chief, David Waterford who spectacularly resigned on the weekend deepening the state government crisis over child protection.

Now I don’t know any more than is in the public domain, and Mr Waterford is certainly no friend of community services. My experience of him goes back to the gutting of financial counselling services in 2010, where he appeared hostile and obstructive at best.

More importantly though, it is not like he was a brilliant leader and the child protection system in SA was the best thing ever – clearly it’s not, and he has presided over this flawed system.

But running an appalling system is not why he resigned.

He resigned because he gave incorrect advice to the Minister, and they in turn made misleading statements to the media – not the parliament mind you, to the media. This is obviously fatal because we have such a superficial political dialogue that it is impossible to simply say, as any reasonable person elsewhere would, “look, we gave some advice last week, but on further checking we found out something else”.

But what sort of message does this send? Presumably it is ok to oversee a failing system – even one as vitally important as child protection – but if you embarrass the Minister that is a crime requiring falling on one’s sword.

And more broadly, when I see the unflattering image of David Waterford on the front page of today’s Tiser with screaming headlines about the “shambles” of the communication around the latest child protection disaster, I wonder about the impact on a public service already so cautious and risk averse that at times it appears incapable of decision – let alone innovation.

I fear this type of public flogging may drive public servants to focus even more on covering their own-backs, implementing even more layers of centralisation and control – notwithstanding that part of the problem of the system is this centralisation, the ensuing mountains of paperwork which senior public servants have to wade through in long hours at night, and the lack of authority and agency at other levels of the system.

Ultimately, we probably do more damage by having a public service with a culture of risk and decision avoidance, than we do from having the odd controversy or wrong fact communicated.

Maybe I am naïve, or a hopelessly unreconstructed modernist, but I think outcomes are more important than communications!

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 29 July 2014