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.

IPAA  SA places a large focus on strategic forums and events, and therefore are excited to announce the launching of a new series proudly supported by Wallmans Lawyers. The new series is titled ‘Inside the Project- Examining the Challenges, Risks and Processes inside some of SA’s biggest economic projects’. These will be informal interview/panel type sessions, where senior Public Sector Leaders are interviewed about a specific project and provide the opportunity for State Government employee audience members to gain exclusive access to ‘the inside story’ of a project.

Our first guest for the ‘Inside the Project’ is John Hanlon, Chief Executive, Renewal SA, who joins us to discuss the Riverbank project with our audience.

The Institute of Public Administration and the Equal Opportunity Commission hosted the Forum for South Australian executives, managers and supervisors on the 28th August 2015.

The way we work is changing. In recent years there has been a growing appreciation that organisations must respond to these dynamic shifts that are occurring within our society. Traditional patterns of working that involve ‘fixed pace, fixed time’ work no longer serve the current or future needs of the workplace and our society more generally. In light of this, a more flexible approach to working is required.1

The purpose of this Forum was to consider ways to create a more productive, dynamic and flexible public sector workforce that is able to adapt to the future needs of the State Government and the community.

Equal Opportunity Commissioner Anne Gale hosted the Forum and discussed the outcomes of the Flexible Workplace Futures project. Other speakers included the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s Chief Executive Kym Winter-Dewhurst, who will shared his views on establishing a modern public sector in the context of flexible work, and Dr Eva Balan-Vnuk of Microsoft, who discussed the concept of technology as an enabler of activity-based working. You would also have heared from the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, Erma Ranieri, who provided an industrial perspective, and Valuer-General Delfina Lanzilli, who discussed the implementation of flexible work at the State Valuation Office.

The Forum will considered strategies for increasing productivity, achieving workplace diversity and modernising the public sector.