Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694878835581.pdf (Australia)
ISSUE: LACK OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING The national institutions are simply not well funded by the Australian Federal Government.

I know this is a common catch cry through processes like this.

However in this case the agencies have been cut to the point that they cannot do the core aspects of their work.

Some agencies have published data that predicts that they will be unable to preserve almost two thirds of their magnet tape collections before they deteriorate.
In other cases, basic cataloguing backlogs have reached historic levels and it is predicted that available storage space will run out in the near future.
This means a few things: firstly, a large injection of funds is required immediately for digitisation, cataloguing and new storage vaults (not through onerous and lengthy New Policy Proposals - agencies simply don’t have the spare resources for this work, especially since they often are unsuccessful); secondly, the efficiency dividend needs to be cancelled for small agencies - every single member of staff is carrying out often unique tasks - there is no fat, the efficiency dividends are now cutting to the bone; thirdly, it needs to be understood that almost 100% of yearly budgets are required to cover the most basic activity, so there needs to be a moratorium of new requirements.
We’re saving collections for this generation but also for many generations to come.

Governing Departments and senior staff need to seriously consider this when asking for more pointless cross agency statistics, or for pet projects or whimsy.

Our collections are dying - on our watch.

We need to prioritise every resource we possibly can into saving them, cutting oversight, administration and governance to an absolute minimum.

Fund it like you mean it.


As much as it hurts me to say this, if you can’t find the resources to fund our cultural institutions properly then you should be prepared to make hard decisions about changes to Acts and broader requirements.
Allow agencies to collect representative rather than comprehensive collections, reduce the expectations for high quality access programs, provide compulsory deposit laws, be upfront that some collection works will never be saved, reduce expectations that there will be offices in each State and Territory, etc.

Fund the arts.

These institutions safeguard our culture and our heritage for Recommendation: future generations.
They also provide workplaces for passionate and educated individuals, who truly care about and love their work.

Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: HIGH GOVERNANCE REQUIREMENTS DESPITE LOW LEVELS OF FUNDING Given the amount of resources and money that is spent internally on governance - including reporting, senate estimates, ad hoc requests - the funds received is not worth the effort for the amount of reporting.
Federal funding is lowered every year, lowering the amount of staff and resources , and developing and resourcing public programs that may or may not provide an income stream.

It becomes a vicious cycle that breaks down the institution.

to seek additional funding from the private sector Governance costs to the organisation can be minimised, eg: senate estimates questions should be provided in advance.
Senate Estimates is a vital aspect of our democracy but in almost all instances over the past decade, senior staff spend weeks preparing for all questions and then sit around for half a day waiting to be called (in some cases they have to fly interstate) often to these If not be called, or to be asked rudimentary questions that could be answered by email.
​ small agencies are required to attend then the provision of questions in advance will allow them to efficiently prepare for the session rather than using up sorely needed staffing resources to prepare for any and all questions.

The above approach could be adopted for other administratively burdensome tasks.

For example - could all agencies submit basic details to a shared Annual Report?
This would make sure that the key governance details are provided without each agency having to bear the staffing and other costs for pulling together separate reports each year.

Recommendation: expectations for governance so that remaining institution staff have the time and resources to seek other income streams.
If the government intends to lower budgets, they should also lower their Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ​ ​ ​ ISSUE: LACK OF UNDERSTANDING AND INVOLVEMENT BY MINISTERS AND GOVERNMENT Perhaps one of the reasons that cultural institutions are not funded well is because they land in often absurd and abstract collections of portfolios, and are often at the bottom of the pile of importance.
Ministers need to visit these institutions, attend events, but more importantly, be involved in staff discussions (no cameras, no media) such as All Staff Meetings and working groups.

Or at the very least get their staffers to come.

This is a perfect time to change how Ministers work WITH their portfolios.

An Inquiry such as this one just proves that the current processes do not work, or you would already be aware of the issues outlined in this submission.
Plans to combine agencies are always considered in processes like this but should be avoided.

It NEVER saves money.

There have been plenty of examples of this not working and a quick check of the different Acts will show that each have different business drivers with unique collections that are being managed for different purposes and different audiences.

For example, the sort of digitisation required for a book collection is not the same as what is required for an AV collection.
If Ministers or their staffers had a better working understanding of cultural institutions, this would never come up as a suggestion.

That Ministers spend more time in the organisations of their portfolios to get Recommendation: a better understanding of the work and the issues, and how best to resolve them.
Media calls with them wearing high vis vests and hard hats are becoming a parody in and of themselves, and I’m sure the Australian taxpayers would be happier to know they are undertaking meaningful conversations with staff rather than walking around for 10 minutes with a camera crew.

Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: BOARDS Boards are not welcome or required in cultural institutions.
They are generally populated with people who have no interest in or experience of the institution they are attached to, take up a lot of budget in travel, accommodation, hospitality and staff hours to service meetings.

In my experience, there has never been a time when a board member has been an asset to an organisation.
On the contrary, they are more interested in their own ideas being serviced, without providing pathways for additional funding to service these pet projects that do not align with the organisation’s Business Plan.

They do little to advocate for the organisation, create extra work for an already overworked staff body, and do not fulfill their roles in keeping CEOs and Directors under control.
For example: I have seen the Chair of the Board only visit their cultural institution once, yet were more than happy to receive free tickets to events and concerts on the organisation’s behalf.

It’s quite frankly disgusting behaviour that only serves to feel the staff feel less valued and under more pressure.

Costs to support full Boards are crippling to small agencies.
There are examples where staff have been unable to travel for core collection development and care but board members have been flown to regional parts of the country or put up in 5 star accommodation in major cities.

Board members also tend to either provide minimal benefit to the organisations while often meddling in day to day business.
Organisations spend significant and senior resources on managing boards and their subcommittees while the collections they are supposed to be caring for deteriorate at a rate that conservators cannot match.

In some instances there is one board member for every 20 members of staff.

If cultural and national institutions are already reporting to government, Recommendation: boards have no useful role and have only been a nuisance and distraction to the organisation’s mission.
If you are loathe to part with them completely, small agencies should have just one member (Chair) or agencies should share the one Board.

There should also be a centralised budget for servicing of Board travel, etc, and for the costs not to come out of the agency’s budgets.

If Federal government require Boards, they should be willing to pay the direct costs so they can understand the ROI (or lack thereof) for themselves.
Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: RECRUITMENT AND OVERSIGHT OF CEOS AND DIRECTORS I have seen CEOs who are in no way qualified to lead organisations, with public service experience equivalent of an APS5 and yet were selected to run and advocate for the organisation.
One particular CEO recruitment decision resulted in the decimation of the organisation, arbitrarily cutting programs and staff as part of a Business Review that was only released under Senate Estimates questioning.

As a result of the Review, at least four (4) former staff members that I am aware of have been hospitalised for mental health issues.

This has been compounded by the fact that many of the programs and staff are slowly being reinstated.
Any income streams the organisation had were cut in this process, and new staffers tried other pathways such as ‘monetising the collection’ which has been proven time and time again not to be effective, however they did not have the experience to know or understand this, and would not listen to long term institution staff.

Many careers and the mental health of the staff were damaged for nothing.
The Review did nothing to improve the organisation’s financial position and only served to put it in a more precarious position due to reduced resourcing and low staff satisfaction.

During this CEO’s tenure, and while this Review was happening, staff were required to service his pet projects (again, that had no alignment with the Business Plan or the mission of the organisation).

This CEO also failed, or took years, to deliver key documentation and policies such as digital preservation.
He also failed to produce additional funds for the organisation from the private sector, and instead spent money on a rebranding exercise that only served to put the organisation back with regards to brand recognition and trust.

There was no oversight of his performance, or the results of his actions.

The unmanaged behaviour was also noted at another cultural institution, with little or no oversight of the Director and his effect on staff morale.
There was a constant demand for more output with no assistance in resourcing, and many projects were this Director’s pet projects.

It is this type of recruitment and ‘under the radar’ behaviour that directly affects the performance of a cultural institution.
It lowers staff morale and trust of the organisation, allows a culture of fear and bullying from the top, wastes money on projects that are not core to the organisation, and allows important preservation work to be put to the side so that these CEOs and Directors can create their own legacy.

That CEOs and Directors be experienced in their role, and have excellent Recommendation: knowledge of cultural institutions and governance.

This should also extend to SES officers.


They need to undergo rigorous performance management at all times, including ongoing staff surveys where staff can feel safe in giving their feedback.

Culture starts at the top - an institution suffers if it is run by a self serving narcissist with little to no public service experience, or knowledge of the organisation.
Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: MISMANAGEMENT OF BUDGETS All too often in my experience, what little funding is received from the federal government is not managed well internally.

As I’ve noted, large chunks of travel, accommodation and hospitality budgets are wasted on Board members who give little or nothing back.

Or used for the pet projects of CEOs and Directors interested in their own legacy and reputation, not that of the organisation.
This needs to be more carefully managed.

Someone needs to be able to say “no” on behalf of the organisation, such as a Compliance Officer, who can reject projects from the CEO and Board without fear of being fired.

All budget expenditure needs to be in line with a current Business Plan.

Yes, this is how it should be happening, but it simply isn’t.
Ongoing programs and services suffer because they are having their budgets lowered to enable ‘slush funds’ for executive and ad hoc projects that bring little or no return to the organisation.

Can we please spend the little money national institutions get on the core business of preserving, collecting and sharing national collections?

This issue also extends to poor recruitment choices and overuse of consultants.
I’m sure this is an issue in every organisation, but given that there are very few people in Australia with real experience in cultural institutions, it is difficult to find ‘new blood’ that understands the work and the culture.

In many cases, it comes down to some form of nepotism, not providing new staff with training about the organisation, or paying exorbitant amounts of money for consultants who have no knowledge or aren’t interested in having knowledge about the organisation.
Recommendation: services get priority, with additional projects (including that of executive) to seek separate funding.

That budgets are managed more carefully to ensure ongoing projects and Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: CULTURE OF BULLYING Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, the executive staff of cultural institutions are rarely experienced in their leadership roles or are not given sufficient training to hone their craft of people management and duty of care.
The organisation I worked at in particular has had a culture of bullying in recent years, with the two current General Managers instilling a culture of fear into an organisation that was once a joy to work for.

Both have an incredible lack of empathy or support for staff, and little knowledge of how various sections of the organisation work.
Sadly, current employees of the organisations are experiencing the lowest period of morale for over a decade, are fearful of speaking out to HR or the Union, and instead will leave their jobs to seek unfulfilling employment elsewhere.

Again, there is little oversight of executive staff performance, and there are few pathways for staff to air their concerns.

Sadly, newer staff or those new to management roles are picking up bad habits, and this culture looks set to continue.
At another organisation where I was employed, the Director was well known for bullying and inappropriate behaviour towards staff of all levels.

I attempted to make a complaint to the APSC, but unfortunately lacked the support to do so.

Again, there are few pathways where staff feel safe to air their issues, and the culture continues.

It has been well voiced that HR departments are there to “support the organisation, not the staff”.

If this is the case, there is no point having HR departments.
Without staff, you have no organisation.

As well as being able to support management with performance issues, HR should also be able to support staff with unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour from management.

Honestly, everyone who works in HR in cultural institutions may as well be glorified secretaries to the CEO, they are of no use to the staff as a whole.

This needs to change.


I’m assuming this is an issue from the APSC down, and is really something that needs to change across the whole of the public service.

It’s not the 1950s anymore.

There should also be a different way for managing Public Interest Notices.

Currently once a complaint is submitted then a senior member of staff is identified in the agency to determine whether the issue is vexatious.
Considering that many agencies only have a small number of Senior Executive staff and that PINs may include one of these staff, then the determination about the veracity of the claim can fall to the SES’s sole other SES officer, which opens a range of potential conflicts of interest and the potential for a system of shared protection.

External scrutiny of staff surveys and these outcomes to be included in SES performance reviews.
In my experience, senior staff are often employed in collecting institutions for their technical skills rather than their management abilities.

In my experience this has led to a large percentage of senior staff not understanding the value of sophisticated staff management, or even basic strategic skills.
These issues have been raised again and again through the state of the service report but then the results are provided to the very people who have caused the Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 problem in order to implement the required changes.

This has been exacerbated by a change over the past decade which has changed HR teams into a resource for management rather than a resource for staff.

This leaves staff who have genuine concerns or complaints with nowhere to go.
Poor managers are then usually in charge of choosing their replacements or other senior staff - sometimes with an active disdain for core management skills (for example, confusing strategic planning with inflexibility or a focus on staff as weak management).

It’s hard to find a solution for this but at the very least small agencies should be required to run regular short online surveys and any results that don’t hit a certain minimum level are then raised with Senior Staff through performance discussions.
Recommendation: behaviour, and that there are better and simpler pathways for staff to be able to report concerns and inappropriate behaviour without fear of reprisal.
That executive and management be held accountable for unprofessional Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: LACK OF DUTY OF CARE AND SUPPORT TO STAFF, PARTICULARLY FOR MENTAL HEALTH Further to the above issue, cultural organisations have a lack of understanding of how to best support staff who are suffering bullying, stress and mental illness that their work environment contributes to.
When I requested to work from home during the early stages of my illness, there was no pathway for this, and I was given a form to fill out that was more appropriate to physically disabled staff.

There was no support at all, but rather was asked to provide nonsensical paperwork and have multiple conversations that went nowhere, rather than spend time on my recovery or do the work that I was able to do for the organisation.
It was a backward and demoralising experience, I was left feeling very unvalued, and ended up resigning because it would take too much time from my recovery to convince the organisation that there were flexible working arrangements we could achieve that would assist me as well as keep my workload moving.

I’m not sure where this inflexible, non progressive and backward way of working stems from, but it needs to be addressed.

An understanding of mental illness also needs to be concentrated on.
We are sick, but we are not stupid and we are not a liability.

We do, however, need some additional support or flexible working arrangements in order to get our job done.

It has been proven that organisations that offer flexible working arrangements and individual support for staff have a happier and higher performing workforce.

I’m not sure why this has not been embraced by the APSC and the cultural institutions as yet, but it needs to be.
At this point, national institutions are the cause of unhappiness and mental instability, rather than preventing it.

It’s 2018.

No more lip service about mental health support and flexible Recommendation: working arrangements.

It needs to get better and it needs to happen now.

It’s quite frankly embarrassing and dangerous.

Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ISSUE: TERMS OF REFERENCE I will briefly address the Terms of Reference as outlined by this committee, being: 1.

2.

3.
2.

3.

4.

5.

6. creating a strong brand and online presence; experimenting with new forms of public engagement and audience participation; conducting outreach outside of Canberra; cultivating private sector support; developing other income streams; ensuring the appropriateness of governance structures.
Most, if not all, of these issues would be easily undertaken as per usual business if the institutions are able to concentrate on them, rather than political and cultural issues such as those outlined in my submission.
Ensuring a greater degree of competent executive staffing, lack of board interference, appropriate Government funding and support, recruitment of appropriate staff for all positions and level headed performance management, staff autonomy and appreciation, and appropriate work/life balance resulting in staff trust and loyalty would see that these issues outlined in the Terms of Reference are achieved without any additional emphasis than would normally be addressed in an annual business plan for each organisation.
audience engagement (both online and in public programs) is easily For example, excellent achieved when experienced staff are recruited to those positions, and are able to do their job with appropriate funding and minimal interference by executive staff and board (particularly ‘pet projects’).
If these outcomes are not being achieved, it is important to address: ● Performance issues of staff who may not be qualified for those positions (having gained their positions through nepotism or restructures rather than experience in the field); ● That the workloads are appropriate for the number of staff available (ensuring duty of care and administrative oversight of programs); ● Question whether there is a need for a particular activity (is it a ‘pet project’, does it align with the Business plan - you would honestly be amazed how many activities demanded of Communications and Public Programs teams have little if nothing to do with the organisation’s mission and aims, and are merely a flight of fancy); ● That the activities and sections are appropriately resourced and funded to ensure duty of care to staff, and that management staff in these areas are well trained in administration and policy to ensure this duty of care (rather than being ‘yes men’ to executive); and, ● That executive staff listen to feedback from the subject experts in these sections (eg: Communications may say “it’s not a good idea to rebrand the organisation because it means we lose the existing brand awareness and have to start again” and may recommend instead that there be an audit of social media activity and see where improvements can be made or other short term cost effective solutions, allowing funds to be used to preserve the collection rather than recreating logos).
Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​ ​ Issues of additional funding support can also be addressed by ensuring that the staff in those teams are experienced in these positions and have an understanding of the organisation.
Appropriate recruitment and performance management will ensure improved effectiveness, however appropriate recruitment can only occur when the executive level are also subject to these same terms of experience and transparency, understand the needs of the organisation and trust the staff to do their jobs.

It’s all well and good for institutions to have a vision for the future for Recommendation: preservation, digitisation and public programs.
However under the current climate and working conditions, these visions will not be met until the core issues of appropriate recruitment, funding, duty of care, trust of staff and reigning in of unrealistic and inappropriate activities suggested by executive and board are addressed.
Our national institutions are full of passionate, world class and experienced staff who do not have the time or money to do their best for their organisations because they are underpaid, overworked, sidetracked by unnecessary corporate politics, and ignored because executives are too busy listening to unqualified ‘new blood’ and overpriced contractors who don’t care about the organisation.
Operational staff must be listened to, respected and be a driving force behind the culture and vision of these organisations (for example, rather than the board who visit once a month and are on a short term contract).

Without the cultural changes noted as issues in this submission, these organisations will continue to struggle or they will simply perish.

Inquiry into Canberra's national institutionsSubmission 74 ​