As Barrie Saunders noted in his excellent article yesterday the new SSC head is going to have to play a major role in re-establishing the political netrality of the public service (we still can't find this article on the Stuff or Dominion Post websites sorry).
For this reason we favour an temporary appointment to fill the "gap" left by Mark Prebble. We are not saying that there will be a change of Government in November, but even the most ideologically sound Labour cabinet members admit that this is a real possibility. So rather than risk appointing someone who might not have the full confidence of a new Government (whoever it might be) it would seem wise to appoint a recently retired CEO or some other safe pair of hands for a 9 month contract, and make the permanent appointment in about March 2009. As Trans-tasman noted yesterday such a process would be "the convention". Another advantage is that a temporary appointee could be used as a change agent. There is a problem that needs to be cleaned up. Get someone in who doesn't mind ruffling a few feathers and forcing the required changes.
We hope that all parties agree that the good name of the public service has been sullied in the last couple of years. Lets not look to blame anyone for allowing this to happen. Instead, let's, in a bi-partisan way, try and put things back the way they were. As we noted yesterday we have to move fast. If things are not turning around before a new Government settles in, the alternative is to go the US way. Have a complete spill at the top, and start again with appointees that the new Government has full confidence in. The Hive doesn't really want to see this happen, but would rather it happened in an overt and transparent manner, rather than the politicisation through stealth that we have seen in recent years.
