On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Professor Patrick Dunleavy to talk about ‘robodebt’, department mergers, and why this very ‘Canberra’ issue has a big impact throughout the country.Will the government’s proposed departmental merger make the Australian Public Service more efficient? And as big data and artificial intelligence play a bigger role in the delivery of public services, are issues like the ‘robodebt’ scandal a harbinger of things to come? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, Professor Sharon Bessell speaks with political scientist and public policy guru Professor Patrick Dunleavy about increasing public service productivity for the benefit of all.Patrick Dunleavy is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy within the Government Department of the London School of Economics. He is also Co-Director of Democratic Audit and Chair of the LSE Public Policy Group and Centenary Research Professor at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra.Sharon Bessell is a Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy, where she is co-leader of the ANU Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) team. The IDM is a new, gender-sensitive and multidimensional measure of poverty.Policy Forum Pod is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.