Former NSW public services commissioner Graeme Head has made 13 recommendations in his report into former deputy premier John Barilaro’s questionable job appointment. 

Mr Head says Mr Barilaro’s appointment as senior trade and investment commissioner to the Americas (STIC Americas) did not live up to the expectations of “merits-based” public service appointments. 

He says two key issues have arisen from the appointment and subsequent controversy - the impacts on the individuals applying for the role, and the reputation of the public service itself.

The report is available in PDF form, here.

“Confidence in the integrity of public service recruitment processes is important. It goes directly to questions of public trust in the public service. It goes directly to the ethical culture of the public service,” he wrote in the report.

Mr Head made a total of 13 recommendations to the government, and the government says it supports 12.

The state is backing the call to amend government sector employment legislation so a minister cannot give directives to an agency Secretary in their functions as employers.

It has also agreed to legislate a code of ethics and conduct for the public service, as well as a codification of the roles and responsibilities of secretaries. 

Other recommendations covered new guidance for how the Secretary can clarify a government decision with training upon induction and promotion. 

But the government did not support a recommendation to amend the ministerial code of conduct to prevent ministers from influencing Secretaries or agency heads when it comes to their decisions as employers.

“The government considers that these provisions, coupled with the proposed amendments to the GSE Act, will make clear that Secretaries and other agency heads are not subject to the direction and control of ministers in the exercise of their employer functions,” premier Dominic Perrottet said in a media release. 

Mr Head found Investment NSW CEO Amy Brown failed to fully meet the expectations of the Code of Ethics and Conduct for an initial first recruitment process that included Jenny West was a late applicant. 

Ms West was a preferred candidate in the first recruitment process, but was not under an obligation to be interviewed for Mr Head’s report. 

“I reach this conclusion in respect of a failure on the part of Ms Brown to consider relevant factors in accepting a late application from a candidate who had had, through the normal course of their duties, access to information about other candidates in the process,” the report stated. 

Mr Head found a cabinet meeting had changed the appointment process, effectively stopping any STIC appointments and leading to Ms West not obtaining the role. 

In a subsequent second recruitment process, Mr Head felt  MsBrown expressed “genuine confusion” about what the appointment process was, but were no adverse findings to Ms Brown’s actions in beginning a second recruitment process.

Mr Head’s report emerges while an upper house inquiry into Mr Barilaro’s appointment continues. 

In the seventh session of the upper house inquiry, former politician and member of the interview panel Warwick Smith said he agreed with Mr Head’s report in its entirety.

“As someone who’s an experienced former person in public life, there was some element of surprise to have the self-described ‘Crocodile Dundee of Queanbeyan’ want to go to New York,” Mr Smith said.  

“My sense is that I didn’t hear from anybody until the day I’m told to sign [the report] and asked to sign it and not even by the government, but by the recruiter. I found that quite extraordinary, to be honest with you.”