Government (previous quotes now in a PDF file)

'Clearly from the point of view of clarity around going forward, there is a high premium on that.' Queensland Rail National chief executive Lance Hockridge, Australian Financial Review, 20 July 2010. Thanks to Julian Turecek.

'Organisational cultural capabilities are fundamental to the achievement of the NSW Government's Plan and apply to all roles across the sector. The selection process will ascertain your compliance with these capabilities. In performing the role of  Communications Officer –Publishing and Media you are expected to demonstrate the 5 following culture capabilities at the level stated:
- Customer Focus - Level 4
- Cultural Awareness - Level 4
- Teamwork - Level 3
- Taking Ownership - Level 3
- Building Strategic Partnerships - Level 3/4'
From an advertisement for a job in the NSW public service. The levels are explained in the NSW Capability Framework. You can download the 52 page document. We tried but the Weasel Words computer kept closing down. Thanks to Marian Wheatley.

'The I & I NSW Corporate Plan for 2010 –2013 articulates our vision and values, defines our strategic priorities and goals through key result areas, identifies intended outcomes and lists the practical strategies we will undertake to deliver
these results. It clearly demonstrates how we will deliver on the NSW Government priorities outlined in the NSW State Plan. A range of ambitious performance indicators will measure our success over the coming years ... one of our key result areas : Increased science-based innovation capability across NSW.' Industry and Investment, NSW. Thanks to Sophie who says 'science-based innovation capability' put simply means research.

'One APS—Build a unified, citizen-centric APS by leading APS organisational and human capital strategies.' A new strategic priority of the Australian Public Service Commission.

'Background: Key driver is to have a physical and organisational infrastructure in place that can best support student centric outcomes.' From an internal document. Thanks to anonymous.

'The ratepayers of Ispwich City are benefiting from recent strategic planning undertaken for their water supply and sewerage services. The resulting Strategic Management Plan included transitional actions required to achieve full commercialisation of these services. The implementation of the plan has resulted in increased customer focus as well as exposed all aspects of the business to financial accountability.' Strategic Management Planning A Foundation for Commercialisation.

'Chief executive officer of Redlands-based Aus build, Ron Loney, said he hoped the current strong lines of communication between developers and Redland City Council would allow for "real live ground-truthing" to be done when it came to designated koala habitat.' 'Developers welcome habitat laws', Bayside Bulletin, Brisbane. 25 May 2010. Thanks to Eoin MacDhugail.

'A vendor-neutral environment for public servants, government evangelists, and private sector innovators to network and collaborate ... Gov 2.0 Expo brings stakeholders together to explore transformative technologies and discover new solutions ... Hear from those spearheading innovative projects and learn how to set your social networking and collaboration strategy to improve access to information, build better communities, and increase user engagement.' Thanks to Virginia Tressider

'The new organisation structure is designed to unlock the depth of talent within Australia Post which will be developed and rewarded for sustainable outcomes.' Managing Director and CEO of Australia Post, Ahmed Fahour, launching a five year program tht will be customer-focused. Thanks to Damien Sams.

'OFT has many strengths and has been steadily addressing its capability needs. It still has some significant skills gaps in current and potential leadership and managerial skills which will inhibit its effectiveness to meet the challenges identified by the leadership itself. Much of the progress has been driven by individuals responding to specific circumstances including, for example, encouragement from CEO, NAO report, IIP review. There is a need to develop more collective capability. Current leadership has lacked co-ordinated tools to manage talent more proactively and deliberately. The effect is that OFT is excessively vulnerable to the loss of key staff and is disproportionately obliged to seek talent in the external market.' Office of Fair Trading, UK. PowerPoint presentation.

'The Road to Excellence Talent Management at the OFT What does it mean for Grade 6's moving forward? ... Board view of strategic challenges, “Talent” debate, career management debate, People Strategy, Flexibility and robustness agenda ... - The enabling environment – proactive attitude among staff, ongoing feedback by managers, collegiate culture, top staff role-model leadership behaviours and take management seriously, heads of profession take leading role, create an develop networks and development opportunities... What can I expect during the development centre? To be developed stretched and challenged... Key Questions ... - What are the negatives/risks that we should be aware of as we firm up the detail?' Office of Fair Trading, London UK. PowerPoint presentation.

'Static water supply is an alternative source of water in a bush fire event, such as a rainwater tank, swimming pool or dam in addition to the mains water supply that could be utilised to fight fires.' Rural Fire Service of NSW Planning for Bush Fire Protection: Single Dwelling Application Kit, thanks to Alasdair McGregor.

'Mr. Barry said that if it had functioned, it would be more of an incendiary event than an explosion.' Police Discover Car Bomb in Times Square and Clear Area, New York Times. Thanks to Helen Pringle.

'The Department of Immigration and Citizenship is undergoing a wide-ranging transformation program to position itself as a high performing immigration and citizenship organisation, equipped to compete in global markets and attract the best migrants and key skills required for Australia. The transformation process will enable the department to deliver globally consistent services to our clients ... To align with other business areas, a restructure of the two GSM sites into a total case management model, is being implemented ... This temporary shift in focus may reduce the number of applications finalised in the near future and may have an impact on current processing timeframes. You may notice less applications being finalised in the very quick processing timeframes you have become accustomed to seeing, in particular where Decision Ready Checklists are utilised. The department remains committed to client service standards and the delivery of service excellence to our clients.' Letter to migration agents from Liz Kerrish, A/- Director, Program Delivery, General Skilled Migration, Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 16 April, 2010. Thanks to Sasha.

'...throughout the day I spoke to Deputy Commissioner Walshe in relation to the fires and the impact they were having throughout the state, as has been my practice during previous significant fire events.' Former Victorian police chief Christine Nixon. The Age, 15 April 2010.

'Enhancing our strategic foresighting capabilities is essential to developing a forward outlook of potential food regulatory issues which may arise.' Steve McCutcheon, CEO of Food Standards Australia New Zealand's (FSANZ), FSANZ newsletter, Autumn 2010. Thanks to Phil Doyle

''We acknowledge the government's commitment to the delivery of key services in health, education and community safety ... We therefore call for a containment of expenses in this areas [sic] in order to facilitate further tax cuts and productive infrastructure spending - all vital to our long-term competitiveness.' Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce's submission to Victorian Treasurer John Lenders. 'Business says PS growing too fast', Paul Austin, The Age, 5 March 2010

Environmental Trust
Environmental Research Program Expression of Interest Form
C2 Project objectives - list the project objectives (ensure you provide a list of your objectives and not simply a list of activities and outputs...
C6 List he expected outcomes and environmental outcomes of the project
From the CSIRO. Have a look at 'the key elements of our research management strategy'.

'Victoria Police will begin trialling the use of conducted energy devices in country Victoria from 1 July...' Also known as tasers. From a Victorian Police news release.

'Diversity goes beyond the concept of rectifying the disadvantage of target groups by emphasising the importance of an inclusive DSE culture and of valuing difference between individuals and communities. While we should aim to be inclusive in all our work, at times it may be necessary to tailor the engagement processes and activities to enable some communities or individuals to fully participate.'From the Department of Sunstainability and Environment Victoria website which details its "Diversity (Inclusion) Action Plan 2009-2012".
Environmental Sustainability Issues Analysis for Victoria
As part of the work to develop the Framework, DSE commissioned CSIRO to review six important resource and environmental issues, and six drivers that have pervasive effects throughout the Victorian economy and, directly and indirectly, on the environmental issues of concern'. Again, the DSE website. Thanks to Julianne Walker for these quotes.

'Libraries are community spaces. Conversations which do not disturb others are welcome'. A team leader's suggested replacement for 'No talking' signs, sorry, public signage. Thanks to Patrick.

'The work will be broadly described, flexibly structured, complex and have a frontier or explorative nature ... (We need to) ensure the intentionality of activity...' From the Australian Public Service. Thanks to Chris McGregor.

'Local authorities are also tasked with supporting and challenging schools in delivering the Government's reform agenda and ensuring that progress on remodelling the workforce is sustained and deepened through the effective deployment of teachers, headteachers and support staff.' UK Dept. of Children, Schools and Families. Thanks to Tony Bougatsas

'...focusing on you' Bairnsdale Regional Health Service who have a Vision:
To be a key provider of health care services in East
Gippsland through:
• Innovation in the delivery of health care services
• Recognition by its clients as being committed
to quality care
• Working in partnership with other health care
providers
• Responsiveness to community needs
• Recognition by its staff as an employer who
values their contributions...
To value those contributions, Bairnsdale Regional Health Service hired the self-confessed "white witch" Carolyn Shahbaz who ordered staff to mix samples of blood and hair in order to "get on board" and bond with the corporate management team. Now they use Fran Stoner & Associates, Human Resource & Industrial Relations Specialists "working collaboratively for value added change" .
'We utilise unique 'user friendly' processes and highly developed facilitation skills to assist & motivate people to achieve their potential and organisations to achieve their mission and goals. Thanks to anonymous.

Mark Scott outlines ABC's International Blueprint
A BC Managing Director Mark Scott has outlined a bold agenda for the future of the ABC's international broadcasting operations, calling for the unification of its radio and television arms into one strong brand. 'We have an important role to play and we have to use all the tools at our disposal to continue to do so ... using the media to put our nation's culture, values and policies on show.' Australian Broadcasting Corporation media release, 5 November 2009.

Crackdown on political jargon urged by MPs
'In its report on its inquiry into political and administrative language, the committee said that in politics, badly worded explanations could stop people understanding how policies would work and "stock phrases" could be so overused they replaced original expression and thought ... People should be encouraged to complain about particularly bad cases of official language - first to the department concerned, then to the relevant ombudsman.' BBC News, 30 November 2009.
One of the quotes from the report:

'Savings on the core grant-in-aid delivering the Change-Up programme, against the counterfactual of an inflationary increase and reprioritisation of the OTS budget to fund a wider range of investment programmes from the 2007-08 baseline amount to around £4.8m realised in 2008-09.' From the Cabinet Office's 2008-09 annual report. Reported in The Guardian, 'Not fit for purpose? The jargon-laden language of politics', 30 November 2009.

Ambulant Toilet
Sign on the ninth floor of the NSW Supreme Court, Sydney. Thanks to Margot Saville

'It's all part of the Victorian Government's ongoing Transport Plan to ease congestion and provide a safer, more reliable journey for Melbournians moving forward.' Citylink Victoria. Thanks to Richard Godbehere.

'Intelligence Analysts are primarily concerned with the production of value-add product from the collection, evaluation and analysis of information, including the ACC's bulk datasets.' Job Description- Australian Crime Commission- Intelligence Analyst. Thanks to Matt Dawson.

'The probability of downside events appears to have diminished considerably.' Ken Henry, Secretary to the Treasury, 21 Oct 2009. Thanks to David Green.

Indigenous Vs Indigenous focused

'The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Child Care and Youth, Kate Ellis, today announced the locations of five Children and Family Centres for Western Australia.

The Indigenous-focused centres will be in Fitzroy Crossing, Kununurra, Roebourne, Halls Creek and the Swan region ...
"These centres will co-locate a range of parenting, child care, early learning and development services in the one location, making these important services easier for parents and their children to access," Ms Macklin said.

"They will be places where Indigenous and disadvantaged families will be able to seek help and work with a range of support services to ensure their children have the best possible start in life." ... "The Australian Government recognises the importance of the early years of a child's life and is committed to supporting children and families," Ms Ellis said.

"The Children and Family Centres will bring together a range of services aimed at ensuring families have access to the tools they need to help care for their children." Joint Media Release with Kate Ellis MP, Minister for Early Childhood Education Child Care and Youth, 2 October 2009.

Response from the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC):

'The September edition of SNAICC News was posted out early this week. It includes an article by SNAICC Executive Officer, Frank Hytten, concerning the current development of the 35 Indigenous Child and Family Centres (ICFCs) across Australia. The two key matters addressed were an apparent change in both terminology and intent from ‘Indigenous Child and Family Centres', to ‘Indigenous focused' centres; and a suggestion that the Multifunctional Aboriginal Childcare Services (MACS) services could ‘top-up' their funding if they surrender their MACS status as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled services.'

'Plain English focuses on the message. It uses only as many words as necessary and avoids jargon, unnecessary technical expressions and complex language. In other words, plain English is the opposite of gobbledegook and long-winded, confusing communication ... Organisations need to use plain English for all their communications with stakeholders.' Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations publication. This is the department that has 'Our strategic framework - Australia's Prosperity and Wellbeing - National Capability - Learning, Skills, Knowledge' plus '7 Goals and 24 Strategies.' Thanks to Helen Hall.

Absconsion - word on incident form from Victorian Depart. of Human Services. Thanks to Margaret Ady

THE QUEENSLAND COMPACT - Communication and Embedding Plan
This document outlines activities to inform and engage members, clients and stakeholders in the implementation of the Queensland Compact... This strategy aims to support achievement of the Compact vision by raising awareness of the Compact and supporting implementation of its principles, goals and commitments... The objective of the strategy is to embed the Compact in practice in both the Queensland Government and the Non-profit Community Services Sector by... facilitating discussion and the sharing of learnings about more collaborative and innovative ways of working...' Community Services Queensland.

Resource Management Centre - new sign on the Mugga Lane tip on the fringes of Canberra. Thanks to Kevin Popple who can remember an item in the local paper referring to gardening near the Armadale station having been assisted by correctional clients from the Department of Corrections.

'Integrated Natural and Cultural Resource Management for Pastoral Properties in the East Kimberley Project: Learnings of the Project.' Land Water & Wool, Australian Government.

'Following the demonstration phase and its learnings, it is intended that access points will be rolled out across SA. The recurrent funding is for the operation of the access points in the demonstration regions in 2009-10.' Recurrent Regional and Sub-Regional HACC Funding Priorities 2009-10, South Australian Government. They're talking about home care.

'The Bushfires Royal Commission has heard a senior Country Fire Authority officer kept no log of his actions inside the main fire control centre on Black Saturday. Mr Warrington is the fourth high ranking official from the CFA to tell the commission he was performing a strategic role on Black Saturday, taking a statewide overview. The Counsel Assisting the Commission Jack Rush QC questioned Mr Warrington as to how many people were needed to make the same decisions. Mr Warrington said he saw his role as adding value. He told the commission he kept no log, but admitted he should have. Mr Warrington agreed he sent key messages on the day on his mobile phone, but shortly afterwards he got a new phone. He said it was not a deliberate attempt to hide anything and that efforts were made to recover the messages.'  ABC

'We're obviously aware that high-wind events and particularly with a history of expansion and contraction of power lines, yes, I'm aware of the broad history of the power industry being involved in fire starts. ' Mr Warrington in The Age

'Certainly with the benefit of hindsight there's potential for more proactive action and as a consequence of, as I mentioned,what are unprecedented learnings from an extraordinary event there are opportunities to improve those processes,and I think the chief officer in evidence has already referred to those opportunities and certainly I agree with them ... As the chief officer has indicated in his evidence, there are huge learnings from this experience and great opportunities for improvement. We have identified those
and are working on them... They have been built and refined from our learnings and our debrief processes and our review processes and, by comparison to where they were 10 years ago, they have improved markedly. Certainly the events of 7 February tested them like no other incident that we have had, and once again there are huge learnings from that and there are huge opportunities to refine them and improve them again, which is what we are doing now... As the chief officer has indicated in his evidence, there are huge learnings from this experience and great
opportunities for improvement. We have identified those
and are working on them...Of course the learnings from these fires, the scientists will come out and give us an outcome of what sort of messaging and where we can go to better inform communities about what they should do .' Mr Conway, CFA, 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

'That type of stovepipe approach to recruiting is a way to turn off talent.' Jeff Neal, chief human capital officer at the Department of Homeland Security. 'Officials Pledge to Fix Federal Hiring Process' by Steve Vogel, Washington Post, September 4, 2009

'The intention is to protect and enhance frontline services by reducing the size of the overall workforce while continuing to focus on serving the South Australian community ... Across SA Health, a number of efficiency initiatives have already been implemented ....' Dr Tony Sherbon, Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of Health, in a message to staff letting them know that 64 positions in head office were to be declared 'excess to requirement'. Thanks to anonymous.

Mapping the Future of Interoperability, Data Collection & Data Management for Operational Excellence within Australian Government... SEGS does not cover issues that are on the periphery of your core investment areas.' Spatially Enabled Government Summit 2009

''Local Government Working Group Delivery Plan 2009
The LGWG Delivery Plan 2009 has been produced to ensure there is clarity, shared understanding and commitment to physical
activity within and across local governments ... Create a framework for Local Government physical activity policy, Create a portal for the distribution of policy information, Establish an advocacy sub-group consisting of LGWG and CWG
members to develop a LG advocacy strategy and subsequent
support materials.' beactive.wa.gov.au

'The research councils, the review says, should "be measured against firm knowledge transfer targets" to show that they are turning enough science into business... The government is also spending £150m "to change the culture in universities: boosting the work they do with a whole range of businesses and increasing commercial activity". All this is another covert bailout, relieving companies of the need to fund their own research.' 'These men would've stopped Darwin: Science research in Britain is now all about turning knowledge into business, rather than the beauty of exploration.' George Monbiot, 11 May, guardian.co.uk. Thanks to Karl Armstrong.

'This year we have revised our quality improvement plan to focus and cross referenced to the new Framework For Excellence so we are working towards meeting future expectation enabling a more workable and live document which has met with the approval of the LLSC. The QIP is updated timely at the SMT where each of the team are fully involved and questioned if need be.' 'Jargon in council report described as gobbledygook', 3 May, Telegraph.co.uk

'Another to lose their job was Gail Connolly, the executive director of metropolitan planning [in the NSW Department of Planning]. ... The executive director of the taskforce, Aaron Gadiel, has been critical of the lack of housing and other property development in NSW. He said yesterday he was pleased with the changes, saying "there's nothing wrong with teams refreshing themselves from time to time".' 11 May, Sydney Morning Herald. Thanks to Terry Tredrea.

'When pushed for an example of how DHS might intercede, Kudwa [The Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman] gets a bit touchy. "I'm not privy to CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] operation plans here at headquarters in Washington, D.C.," she says. "So let me reach out to CBP and get a little visibility on this, and then I'll circle back with you." But Kudwa never did circle back after reaching out, so we called CBP ourselves.' From an article in the Tuscom Weekly about contingency plans that the US government may have to prepare for a flood of Mexican border-crossers should there be an emergency such as a pandemic. Thanks to Melissa Dryden.

Building a high-performance, values driven organisation:
A Public Sector Approach
An open lecture/masterclass by Mr Richard Barrett hosted by Institute for Healthy Leadership (WA health department). Richard Barrett:
'... is the Founder and Chairman of the Barrett Values Centre. He works with CEOs and senior executives in North and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia to develop vision-guided, values-driven organisational cultures that strengthen financial performance, build cultural capital, and support sustainable development. He is the creator of the internationally recognised Cultural Transformation Tools (CTT) which have been used to support more than 1000 organisations in 42 countries in their transformational journeys'. Thanks to Brian who reckons he'll skip this one.

'The existing 50 m pool was dewatered to allow for modification work and construction of a new disabled ramp. Also the main pool hall which has the iconic 'dome' shape, will be rejuvenated during the project...' New Aquadome fact sheet no. 3, November 2008, City of Playford, South Australia. Thanks to Julie Freudenberg.

(previous quotes now in a PDF file)

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