APS Reform outcomes and initiatives - Stage 1

Initiatives for ensuring public sector employees act with and champion integrity (outcome 1) and are stewards of the public service (outcome 2) include: 

• The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), established in July 2023 to deter, detect and prevent corrupt conduct. It’s doing this through education, monitoring, investigation, reporting and referrals.
• Strengthened protections for whistle-blowers, through changes to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. This will ensure Australia has effective frameworks that provide strong protections for public sector whistle-blowers.
• New provisions in the Fraud Rule under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act), approved in September 2023. These require relevant agencies to act on corruption as well as fraud.
• The SES Performance Framework, launched in August 2023, that will apply to all staff in the long term. The changes to behaviour and outcomes-based performance management make it clear that behaviour is equally as important as outcomes.
• The Set the Standard Report, released in 2021. Its recommendations are under way to create safer and more respectful Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
• Transparency of Secretaries Board, improved through publishing meeting outcomes on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s website.
• The APS Integrity Taskforce action plan, to be released soon. This will recommend ways to improve integrity in the APS.
• The Review of public sector board appointments, responding to concerns about transparency in appointment processes for public sector boards. The report is currently being considered by Government.
• Strengthened provision in the Public Service Act 1999 to make it clear that Ministers cannot direct Agency Heads on employment matters.
• A new APS Value of Stewardship that all APS employees must uphold. Consultation in April and May 2023 defined Stewardship as ‘The APS builds its capability and institutional knowledge and supports the public interest now and into the future, by understanding the long-term impacts of what it does’.
• A public statement by the Minister for the Public Service every year on APS Reform. The first annual statement took place on 1 November 2023.

Genuine partnership and engagement with Australia’s people, communities, non-government sectors, academia, business and industry will help us develop policies and services that reflect the needs and aspirations of the people they affect.

Putting people first isn’t new to the APS. Many of us strive to support and help the people we serve on a daily basis.

Initiatives focus on ensuring the APS delivers human and user-cented policy and service excellence (outcome 3), and has effective partnerships with First Nations peoples (outcome 4).

• The first long-term insights briefing was published in October 2023 on how AI (artificial intelligence) might affect the trustworthiness of public service delivery. Drawing on strong engagement with communities and expert groups, this was the first in a series of reports on topics that will impact the Australian community over the long term.
• The Survey of Trust in Australian Public Services was expanded to include monthly reports. The next annual report was released in November 2024.
• Services Australia worked with a diverse group of people and staff to create the new APS vision for user-centred excellence: “Reliable and accessible services, when and how you need them”. The vision applies to all APS agencies.
• The Partnership Priorities Sub-committee of Secretaries Board was formed in June 2023. It fosters a coordinated effort in user-centred policy and service excellence by embedding a partnership culture and behaviour across the public service.
• The Charter of Partnerships and Engagement, launched in November 2023, sets APS-wide principles for engagement and partnerships. It supports agencies to build capability and develop more responsive policies and programs.
• The Data and Digital Government Strategy, released in December 2023, sets out its vision to deliver simple, secure and connected public services, for all people and business, through world class data and digital capabilities.
• Work is under way to establish a whole-of-service approach to outcomes-based contracting. This will increase APS skills in writing statements of requirements for the circumstances when it is appropriate to use external consultants.
• The Digital Transformation Agency is improving the quality of digital and ICT investment so the APS and its partners receive quality and timely advice on digital investments, strategy, policy and standards. The Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework is supporting this work.
• The myGov user audit looked at how well myGov is performing and will help inform future improvements to myGov.
• Under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, Priority Reform One, APS agencies are setting up ways to ensure formal partnership arrangements support Closing the Gap. This includes the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships and Engagement Framework.
• Action to support genuine partnerships with First Nations people is occurring to consider any changes required to transform mainstream government organisations. This enables formal partnerships and shared decision-making with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ensuring the APS is a great place to work and offers a quality employee experience is key to attracting and retaining the best and brightest public servants.

It means a valuable career for employees (outcome 5), setting the standard for diversity, equity and inclusion (outcome 6), and boosting cultural competency and First Nations employment (outcome 7).

• Publishing APS Census and action plans will help deliver better performance, ensure transparency and address poor results. 
• Through APS Net Zero by 2030 the Government is taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (excluding security agencies) and uphold its commitments in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under the Paris Agreement. The Net Zero Economic Agency is helping agencies with tools, guidance, learning and development.
• The Maternity Leave Act review proposes changes to ensure parental leave meets the needs of APS employees as they establish families and maintain careers. Parental leave conditions were tabled in APS-wide bargaining as an interim step ahead of considering new parental leave legislation to replace the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973.
• The APS Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Employment Strategy released in April 2024, is addressing discrimination and racism in the APS. It identifies actions to promote cultural capability, improve recruitment, mobility and promotion, and develop a culture that values diversity.
• The APS aims to reduce the gender pay gap and report publicly on progress by releasing 2023 APS Gender Pay Gap data for every agency with 100 or more employees. This drives accountability and encourages agencies to take further actions to address the gender pay gap.
• The Cultural Capability Hub launched in August 2023 to provide practical guidance and resources to support staff to uplift their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural capability. This is complemented by the APS Academy Footprints program, a cross-cultural learning and professional development framework supporting continuous and ongoing development of cross-cultural capability.
• The new Workplace Relations Policy focused on fair and genuine negotiations between employers, employees, and unions through service-wide bargaining.
• In April 2023 the APSC published a set of principles of flexible work in the APS to improve workforce resilience, help employees balance their work and personal priorities and help the APS recruit new staff from anywhere in Australia.
• The Secretaries Board Sub-Committee on the Future of Work is driving organisational and workforce reform priorities for the APS. It provides advice to Secretaries Board on opportunities to strengthen the APS workforce and organisational capability.
• The Government is developing a Monitoring and Accountability Framework to embed Closing the Gap Priority Reform Three. This will be in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander expertise and the Coalition of Peaks.

Across the APS, initiatives are under way to improve the capability of the APS (outcome 8).

• In 2022, the Government announced $25 million in funding to establish the APS Capability Reinvestment Fund. In 2023, the Fund supported 10 projects to build skills like evaluation, cultural and futures capability. Bids for Round 2 of the Capability Reinvestment Fund are now closed.
• The Capability Review Program was reintroduced to assess agencies’ ability to meet future goals and challenges. 
• Australian Government Consulting was launched in December 2023. The in-house consulting service for the APS reduces reliance on contractors and consultants and builds capability.
• The APS is embedding a culture of evaluation to grow capability. The Australian Centre for Evaluation was set up in July 2023 to improve the volume, quality, and impact of evaluations across the APS.
• Guidance on Optimal Management Structures has been updated to help agencies update their structures and ways of working to make decisions at the lowest possible level. The updated guidance was released in October 2023.
• In 2021-22 the Australian Government conducted an Audit of Employment. The report, released in May 2023, found external labour formed almost 54,000 full-time equivalent positions and cost $20.8 billion. The audit results inform the APS’s capability building work.
• The APS Strategic Commissioning Framework, released in October 2023, ensures APS staff do core APS work and limits outsourcing. Agency heads will use the framework to make direct employment a priority in their workforces.
• Strong partnership between the APS and ministerial offices is key for an effective government and delivery of policies and services to the Australian community. Information resources and a learning program are building APS capability to partner with and build stronger relationships with Ministers and their staff.
• Futures and strategic foresight capability is needed to broaden the use of futures analysis to inform policy and decision-making across the APS. A Policy Fit for the Future: Building APS Futures and Foresight Capability is developing a suite of practical approaches to incorporate future methodologies into strategic thinking.
• Two pilot programs to establish Asia and the Pacific Capability have been launched. The APS Indo-Pacific Executive Development Program and Pacific Cultural Capability Micro-credential will build knowledge of the shared challenges facing our region and levels of cultural competency toward Asia and the Pacific.
• Delivering Great Policy is a learning resource and series of workshops to build an in-depth understanding of the core elements for delivering great policy.