Adrian Renouf – “Australia needs the Academy model”

Management consultancy PPB Advisory will next week launch the Australasian Transformation Academy (ATA), a new venture which it says will help government agencies “transform how public services are delivered.”

The ATA is a joint initiative of PPB Advisory and the UK based Public Service Transformation Academy (PSTA), a social enterprise that has designed and delivered development programs for all levels of the UK public service.

Unlike the PSTA, the ATA will operate as a commercial venture on a fee-for-service basis with participants paying to attend its Academy programs. These programs will leverage the PSTA’s experience, Academy model and case studies, but will be designed and adapted specifically to the Australian context .

The new venture will be launched in Sydney and Melbourne at industry events to be attended by an invitation-only group of government and non-government agencies.

“The Academy will deliver a range of programs designed to help leaders involved in managing and delivering public services to explore new approaches and address they key issues and challenges they face with implementing them,” said ATA Managing Director Adrian Renouf, who is also PPB Advisory’s government and markets leader.

“The ATA will support those organisations at the coalface of delivering public service. We will help them build their capacity to lead and manage change, and to improve outcomes for citizens and communities.

“As governments increasingly seek new ways to deliver greater public value with diminishing resources and rising community expectations, there has been a shift from large centralised bureaucratic service delivery models towards greater customer-centricity, localisation and personalisation. Many public services are now also delivered via an extended network of government and non-government service providers.

“Most challenges facing public service providers have an underlying level of complexity, and the ATA has been established to support leaders and organisations to solve issues that require alternative thinking and approaches, including greater collaboration between agencies and with the non-government sector.”

The PSTA was founded in the UK in 2016 by public sector transformation consultancy RedQuadrant, in association with the Whitehall & Industry Group (non-profit NGO and government consultancy), OPM (research consultancy), NCVO (voluntary sector consultancy), Browne Jacobson (lawyers), E3M (public service innovation consultancy), The Social Innovation Partnership (social impact advisors), the Alliance for Useful Evidence (social research consultancy), Local Gov Digital (local government digital consultancy), Collaborate (cross-sector collaboration research centre), Numbers for Good (finance for social and environmental programs), and Basis (public sector analysis consultancy).

Mr Renouf told Government News that the ATA would look to establish relationships with similar organisations in Australia. It would draw upon the knowledge and experience of the PSTA and its members, and build a network in Australia of like-minded organisations.

“The PSTA’s program in the UK was largely driven by the austerity measures most government agencies have been facing there in the last few years,” said Mr Renouf. “Australia is a luckier country, but governments at all levels still need to deliver their services more efficiently.

“There has been a significant amount of devolution of government services in the UK. The same thing is also happening in Australia, with more and more services been devolved to state and local governments and the private sector. That’s an area we believe we will be doing a lot of work in.

“There are many other complex changes taking place in the delivery of government services, and in innovation and digitisation. There’s a lot happening. Many people in government struggle for the space and the time to change things. We believe oour academy model will help them.”

Mr Renouf said that the PSTA has delivered programs to over 1500 UK government agencies in the two years since it was formed, with a significant alumni group now in operation.

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