In the early 80s, when I was working in the then Department of Social Security, ‘program management’ was used in a limited sense of ‘to run’ a program. With the advent of the ‘new public management’ it evolved to reflect new styles of operating in the public sector. The use of the term very likely records the shifts and nuanced adjustments that have occurred in public administration in the last two to three decades.

Today, the sense in which I am using ‘program’ describes the overall intervention by the Government which is intended to bring about change that is consistent with a policy position. Welfare to Work, the Regional Partnerships program, or Australia’s skilled migration program are classic examples.

In this contemporary sense, program management is the discipline of delivering, directly or indirectly, the outcomes and outputs that contribute to achieving a policy objective of the Government—for example, to support elderly people with low income in their retirements; or to assist business and community development in regional areas; or to provide more effective government services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The type of integrated and coherent program management framework that I see evolving in the Australian Public Service operates on two levels: the systemic or public service-wide level, and at the agency level.

At the agency level, officials manage particular programs and work with others to facilitate the delivery of Government policy objectives.

At the systemic level we are seeing a whole of government approach to the monitoring of implementation of Government policy decisions. This is happening through the Cabinet Implementation Unit is ‘traffic light’ report, and the ‘gateway’ review system being developed by the Department of Finance; a focus across the APS on learning from experience; capability building through development programs, and, importantly, by ensuring greater exposure of people to service delivery and implementation issues.

The discipline imposed by program management not only helps to articulate the relationship between aspects of the program’s outputs, but seeks also to ensure that they are integrated so that ‘the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts’.

A commitment to program management recognises that responsibility for developing and implementing the Government’s major programs often crosses organisational and jurisdictional boundaries, and requires joint agreement about what is to be achieved and how that will happen.

As it has evolved, program management has taken on a ‘change’ focus. The term itself implies, in my view, a responsiveness to the environment (political, social, cultural, strategic) that drives change; but also changes to structures and processes, to a more strategic focus on expected outcomes and, if necessary, to culture—with a clear view to achieving the Government’s policy objective. ^[2]

For program management to be effective in this new environment, organisations must change to move with it and to deliver on the Government’s objectives.