The Office for the Public Sector, along with IPAA, was delighted to present A Level Playing Field – Gender Equality in Leadership Summit, an inaugural event to empower public sector employees to drive inclusive leadership where men and women are equally represented, valued and rewarded.

The program featured:

• Rabia Siddique – hostage survivor, former war crimes prosecutor, international humanitarian and retired British Army officer
• Christine Nixon – Men, Women and Systems “, what needs to be done to achieve equality.
  For quite some time it has been suggested that if we just “fix the women”, or “if the men just stepped up”, or if the HR, recruitment, reward systems worked fairly then all would be solved.
  The presentation will focus on the key changes that need to be made by Men and Women and to the systems they work within.
• a lively debate between public sector leaders including Chief Executives
• presentation on unconscious bias by Male Champion of Change, Martin Parkinson, Secretary, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
• hands-on leadership development exercises “Keep your brain on the game” with Anna Lee.

Amanda Blair, Co-Chair of the Premier’s Council for Women was the MC for the day.

The new Gender Equality in Leadership Strategy was launched featuring the gender equality hat-trick: Leadership Accountability, an Empowered Workplace and Sustainable Talent Pipeline.

During this On the Couch Dr Campbell Gemmell was interviewed by Fraser Bell from Thomas Lawyers.

Dr Campbell Gemmell is Chief Executive of the Environment Protection Authority, South Australia’s independent environment regulator and sits on South Australia’s Senior Management Council.

Before taking up the position in January 2012, Dr Gemmell was Chief Executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), for 9 years.

In his earlier career, he worked in the fields of economic development and environmental consultancy.

During the 1980s he held a post-doctoral research lectureship at Christ Church, Oxford and was involved in a range of scientific expeditions and field studies in Alaska, Iceland, Kenya, Norway and Switzerland.

In the 1990s Dr Gemmell ran the UK’s largest community forestry organisation, was Chairman of Landwise, and a member of Scottish Ministerial groups dealing with Forestry for People, Rural Focus and Sustainable Development.

He was a member of Scotland’s Government Resilience and Emergency Planning Bodies for 10 years, and up to the end of 2011 led Scotland’s Environment and Rural Services (SEARS) frontline delivery process, designing and implementing reform of rural delivery service by 9 public bodies for the previous 5 years.

Dr Gemmell has a first-class honours degree in Geography and a PhD in Glaciology from Aberdeen University. Since 2007 he has been Professor of Environmental Regulation and Policy at Glasgow University.

He is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a former Member of Court (governing body) at Stirling University.

Since arriving in South Australia, Campbell has joined the Senior Officials Committee for SCEW, been a member of the Vibrant City Senior Officers Group, and has led a Change Program to enhance the performance and capability of the EPA, working with government, industry and community partners.

In the final issue of Public Administration Today ideas around ‘productivity’ were explored. This edition featured articles from notable sector thought leaders on insights across performance, innovation and the relation to productivity. Articles included:

• Important to distinguish between productivity and efficiency: Terry Moran on public service productivity pg 04
• Productivity ‘product’ crisis: Doug McTaggart poses some penetrating questions about whether the public sector can
  improve its productivity without a better understanding of consumers and what they want. pg 06-07
• Productivity Paradox: Janine O’Flynn says looking more broadly to a range of measures of ‘performance’ is much
  more practical and meaningful than a never-ending quest for (the paradox of) ‘productivity’. pg 08-09
• Authentic Productivity: Renu Agarwa, Christopher Bajada,  Paul J Brown, and Roy Green examine why current productivity approaches fail us. pg 10-13

To read the full edition see below…

Edition 42 of Public Administration Today looked at Australia’s public service on the global stage, as well as how we learn from government globally. This issue included articles on topics including…

Competitiveness and productivity: Today asked the Productivity Commission to report on where Australia fits internationally

Innovate to compete internationally: Industry innovation and competitiveness remains a challenge for
Australian business, say Daniel Quinn and Mike Lawson.

International engagement means a safer world: Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (DI&RD) Secretary, Mike Mrdak, says international engagement builds relationships and helps keep transportation – for Australians, overseas travellers and cargo – safe and secure.

Fruitful regional harvest: Australia’s trade diplomacy is on a roll. Over the past 14 months free trade agreements (FTAs) have been
struck with three major Asian trading partners.

Access the full issue below…