Will changing management arrangements give us better cities?

Counting votes - Federal election 2010

Almost everybody, it seems, from political parties to academics, think tanks and planning experts, reckons the key priority for improving planning and public transport in Melbourne is to reform the way they’re managed.

The clamour for revised governance arrangements in order to effect reform has been increasing in Melbourne, with groups like the Committee for Melbourne, the Greens, the Public Transport Users Association and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia agitating for change.

It’s therefore sobering to see the Grattan Institute pointing out that reformed governance arrangements are not a silver bullet. The Director of the Institute’s Cities program, Jane-Frances Kelly, makes the point that:

the evidence from successful overseas cities does not support the idea that changing governance structures will help. In the successful cities we examined, no one type of governance was dominant. Unnecessary changes to governance structures can also be a distraction from the things that are vital. In short, changing structures is no cure-all.

I must say this is consistent with my experience of Government.

One of the things it seem to be especially good at is perpetually restructuring, reconfiguring, abolishing, renaming and creating new organisations, committees, authorities, boards, departments, companies and accountabilities.

Yet it is not at all clear that the sort of near-continuous institutional restructuring that goes in on many State governments (Victoria is actually not as bad as most) – as Ministers and CEOs change, with new visions and ideas – has created any consistent improvement in the way policy is developed or services are delivered.

Observers tend to note the occasional apparent successes but ignore the more numerous failures (i.e. at best, no improvement). And where there is an apparent success, they rarely look to see if there are other more significant underlying causes.

Let me be clear that the way activities are managed is important. But achieving good outcomes has much less to do with formal governance structures than it has with other factors like the personalities of the key players, as well as a host of largely serendipitous dynamics that create a receptive climate for reform.

The late John Paterson, who often spoke publicly about his successful introduction of radical water pricing reforms in the Hunter Valley water authority in the 1980s, always (modestly) emphasised that the key reason for the success was the strong, unwavering support of a committed and influential Minister, Paul Landa.

Landa was an unusual politician. He was unaligned factionally and a reformer by nature. He was also extraordinarily charismatic and popular with the public. But that would probably not have been enough by itself to implement a policy that on the face of it was anathema to the Labor Members representing the working class electorates of Newcastle.

Landa’s special advantage was that he had a close relationship with the Left of the NSW ALP, who were courting him to succeed Neville Wran as Premier. This relationship gave him the leeway to implement the then-radical water pricing reforms. None of these factors have anything to do with management arrangements.

To the extent that they do matter, there are also dangers in how management arrangments are set-up. For example, according to The Age, most groups are pushing for public transport to be managed by a more autonomous authority. But they need to take note that authorities like, for example, Vicroads and the former MMBW, frequently attract the charge that they are running their own agendas.

There’s an old dilemma here. Greater autonomy from political processes presents an increased danger that policy becomes more remote from the demands of the electorate and interest groups.

Governance matters, but it isn’t the main game. It’s not the key obstacle to getting better planning policy and better transport policy. Or better program delivery. That’s a pity really – if only it were that simple.