PLAUSIBLE FUTURES FOR THE QUEENSLAND PUBLIC SERVICE: EXPLORING THE CHANGING NATURE OF GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES AND GENERATIONAL CHANGE

- i-Queensland Government bureaucracies are being forced to change due to several major social, economic, environmental, technological and political influences. These include changes brought about by an ageing population, globalisation and generational change, and diversity within perceptions of the time and space in which we live as Queenslanders. A better educated, more politically aware and technologically literate society is expecting, not only open and accountable government run by knowledgeable staff working effectively and efficiently, but a public service that works in partnership with private enterprise and other levels of government to provide sustainable services into the future. The chaos and complexity of the changes required to meet society’s needs for the public sector of the future, working within historical structures and characteristics of government bureaucracies, and the resultant contradictions within everyday working life for public servants, have been identified as the source of a sense of anxiety, currently evident in the Queensland Public Service