Bureaucrat moves on, brain drain swells

THE chief bureaucrat for higher education, David Hazlehurst, has moved on to a new job in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet barely a year after his appointment to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

The move has sparked concerns in the sector at the lack of long-serving senior public servants in the portfolio.

The departure of Mr Hazlehurst, who was widely respected in the sector, is stoking fears the department lacks expertise at the top when it is drawing together several reviews and policy initiatives including the crucial base funding review.

"It's unfortunate to have personnel changes so quickly at that level at a time when significant reforms are being implemented," LH Martin professorial fellow Vin Massaro said.

Professor Massaro said the turnover would make it more difficult to fashion coherent policy.

RMIT University policy analyst Gavin Moodie said the frequent turnover was "very concerning". He noted, though, that Mr Hazelhurst's elevation to Prime Minister and Cabinet expanded higher education policy experience at the centre of government.

Mr Hazlehurst was brought in from Treasury as DEEWR's group manager of higher education in April last year when the sector was worried the department was being overwhelmed by the reform challenge, with frustration centring on the formulation of legislation for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

Subsequent negotiations and a final agreement would be counted among Mr Hazlehurst's key achievements in the job.

At the time of Mr Hazlehurst's appointment, a senior bureaucrat from Finance, Kathryn Campbell, was also brought in as deputy secretary to head the tertiary and skills portfolio, which includes higher education. Both bureaucrats are now gone.

Ms Campbell left earlier this year after she was promoted to secretary of the Department of Human Services. She was replaced by the portfolio's associate secretary Robert Griew.

Meanwhile, Mr Hazlehurst's replacement has yet to be announced. James Hart, higher education branch manager for infrastructure, is acting in the role.

University of Melbourne higher education policy expert Simon Marginson said the high turnover reflected a problem within the public service in which mobility had become intrinsic to career progression. "This produces a lot of operational generalists . . . but undercuts the formation of depth of content knowledge," Professor Marginson said.

"Thus interest groups know the content much better than the public service and this asymmetry weakens trust and feeds fears of 'producer capture'. It also means the public service isn't able to add value as it should," he said.

Professor Massaro said the void in experience highlighted the need for an independent body akin to the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission that was disbanded in 1987.

Such a policy co-ordination body, separate from the department, would have its own staff and provide career paths for people who retained deep knowledge of the sector, he said. "It would be in a better position to manage the disparate advice coming from different reviews into a coherent tertiary policy," he said.