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President's Report

The Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) NSW is the professional association for people who work in and with the public sector. Our mission is to build a confident, capable and connected public sector. In addition to our ongoing work of offering events and professional development opportunities, there have been three critical pieces of work undertaken by IPAA NSW over the last twelve months. In May, the IPAA NSW Council approved our new membership strategy. This new strategy is based on research showing that IPAA NSW membership is driven by a desire to be part of a community of engaged and aspiring contributors to the public sector. As a result, we will be offering an affiliate membership to all 400,000 people working in the public sector. We have also developed a range of new membership benefits which will drive increased long-term professional membership.

In reviewing our new membership strategy, we identified Machinery of Government changes as potentially causing disruption to our business operations and developed a range of mitigating responses. Given the post-election Machinery of Government changes that did in fact occur after the state election, this work has been particularly valuable and has helped to deliver what is effectively a break-even result for the financial year. This is a very considerable improvement on our budgeted deficit and was achieved thanks to some strong areas of income growth, particularly in events and in-house programming, which is very pleasing.

We have also made substantial progress in the review and redesign of our learning program, including the creation of our new Public Sector Fundamentals Program. This new online program has been supported by all Clusters and it provides an informative and practical introduction to the 16 capabilities in the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework. The third achievement I want to highlight is the launch of our 2019-20 events program. This is the first time that a full year calendar of IPAA NSW events has been released at the beginning of the year and it represents a significant step forward in our ability to plan and deliver a major program of events. I want to acknowledge all the members of our Program Advisory Committee, as well as the Cluster heads of Learning and Development and all our members, friends and supporters, whose feedback helped to build this program.

Writing this report is one of my last official duties as President of IPAA NSW. Leadership of our association is a great privilege, but it also comes with the responsibility of stewardship. I believe this report shows that the IPAA NSW Council is meeting this important responsibility. The development of our new membership model, our expanded event program and our new professional development activities, all position IPAA NSW to take the next big steps in its development as the professional association for the public sector in New South Wales. I therefore want to personally thank all Councillors and Members of IPAA NSW for the support they have offered me as President and for their commitment to IPAA NSW and the broader public sector. I would also like to congratulate John Hubby and Janet Schorer who have been awarded National Fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to public service and to IPAA. Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank all the IPAA NSW staff for their hard work over the last twelve months.

Martin Hoffman
President, IPAA NSW