CAPAM 2014 biennial conference ‘Public service transformation: A new conversation’ Gay Hamilton with Paul Crookall and Duane Herperger Since the founding of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) in 1994, public service has become more challenging. We have shifted from the 1994 theme ‘Government in transition’ to the 2014 theme ‘Public service transformation’ – the more casual ‘transition’ has become the more comprehensive ‘transformation’. The CAPAM 2014 Biennial Conference was reflective of the organisation’s experience. For two decades CAPAM has been the organisation for co-operation, dialogue and exchange concerning good public sector administration and management. As founding chair Sir Kenneth Stowe once noted: ‘The essence of CAPAM is to enable Commonwealth governments to perform better by fostering an environment of shared experience and collaboration.’ A speaker at the most recent biennial conference likened public service in 2014 to ‘the Red Queen’s race’ in Lewis Carroll’s book, Through the Looking Glass. In it, Alice and the Red Queen are running hard but making no progress. ‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’ ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’ That is, in order to provide better public service at lower cost, we cannot simply run faster, or work harder. We need to transform the way we do things. ‘Transformation is not about squeezing ten per cent out of the budget,’ noted Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Hon. Tan Sri Dato Hj Muhyiddin Hj Mohd Yassin. It’s about bigger changes – for example the city of Putrajaya, where the summit was held, was a plantation 15 years ago and is now a thriving administrative centre. About 1,000 delegates gathered in Putrajaya in October 2014 and we asked them why they came. Their answers ran nicely parallel to CAPAM’s mission of networking and knowledge sharing. They came to meet people, to make themselves known to others, to present their work, to learn things in their fields and to learn things from other fields. CAPAM invited more than 60 dignitaries and senior speakers to share insights and research in plenary sessions, panel discussions, presentations and workshops. One of the largest biennial conferences ever held by CAPAM, it was complemented by events held in parallel, including the Commonwealth Media Forum, hosted by the Government of Malaysia, and the Fifth Commonwealth Ministers of Public Service Forum, hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat. How does a public service transform? The conference set out to have a ‘new conversation’ on the question of transformation, with cutting-edge research and practice on the agenda. Three themes prevailed: Delegates gather around the Quilt of Belonging, a textile art installation that portrays the rich cultural legacies of every nation Commonwealth Governance 38 Handbook 2014/15
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