Senior public sector figures should have ‘confidence and courage’ to take risks, conference told

Leaders in the public sector will need to have the confidence and courage to take risks and innovate to meet the huge challenges the country faces in the coming years, chief executives in State agencies have been told.

Addressing the Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies in Ireland (Acesa) conference in Athlone, chairwoman Rosalind Carroll said that “for real change to happen, it takes courage and an appetite for risk”.

She also said that senior figures in the public sector needed to lead the way in driving collaboration across the civil and public sector and across agencies, “to make sure we have public services that meet the needs of people in a fast-changing environment”.

Speaking to The Irish Times, she said the need to innovate was discussed all the time, to make things better. However, “you cannot innovate without taking risk”, she said. “And in some ways, we have to take risk in order to move forward.”

Ms Carroll, who is chief executive of the Injuries Resolution Board, said her agency was now 20 years old and while it had the same mission, how it carries out its work had changed.

She said the public service had to keep improving.

“So to do that, for me, to change the service that I deliver, I have to take risk.”

Ms Carroll said she believed that senior leaders believed there had to be accountability and she did not think any had fears, for example, about going before Oireachtas committees. She said that was part of the democratic process and the public sector worked for the public.

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However, she said governance structures relied on volunteers giving their time to serve on boards. But, she said, where issues got personalised in the media, or where individuals’ whole lives got taken over (by a controversy), it may “impact on the talent that we attract to our boardrooms”.

Ms Carroll highlighted to the conference the importance of collaboration between State bodies and agencies.

She said that the Injuries Resolution Board, by its remit, had access to very valuable data “on every accident that happens in Ireland where there is a claim made for it”.

“So for example, we can share with the Road Safety Authority more about the accidents that are happening on our roads.”

She said 50 per cent of collisions involved vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

She said this data could be presented to policymakers in the Road Safety Authority or local government or the Department of Transport.