New development: From private office to departmental court

Abstract

In the Rolls-Royce view of the private office, the minister gets what the minister wants. However, the private office's job is not just to look after the ministers. It has the equally important jobs of co-ordinating the department's work and resolving conflicts both inside the department and with other departments. Once we look at the work of the several central units that form the ‘departmental court’, it is clear there are several problems: fragmentation, rapid turnover of staff, burn out, recruitment, and an entrenched culture of long hours. To ensure departments have effective executives, we need to move beyond the minister's private office and explore ways of strengthening the capacity and capability of their departmental courts.

Acknowledgments

I must thank the 20 members of the private offices in three government departments who agreed to taped interviews and allowed me to watch them at work. I am also grateful to their ministers and permanent secretaries who gave me access and commented on a draft of the text. I would also like to thank Mark Bevir (University of California), Jenny Fleming (University of Tasmania), Paul ‘t Hart (Australian National University), and Patrick Weller (Griffith University) for comments and advice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R. A. W. Rhodes

He is also Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Newcastle, UK