Just give them a lot more intellectual freedom to do "the right thing" (instead of having to implement political compromises) and give them the authority to be

Just give them a lot more intellectual freedom to do "the right thing" (instead of having to implement political compromises) and give them the authority to be really allowed to do so That's exactly the one thing that working in the public service CAN'T provide you. If you screw up, you and everyone in the chain of responsibility right up to the people who directly report to your ministry's cabinet member have their necks on the line; public service employees typically enjoy very posh pensions and no one is looking to lose that by getting sacked. I think we incentivize public service employees to do the safe thing rather than the right thing when those two things are not the same. Losing a public service pension is a terrible cost for failure, and I don't think we equivalently reward the success-side of risk for these people. It would be interesting to know what government could accomplish if the public service gave compensation that was more in line with the private sector.