The Public Service Amendment Act 2024 makes changes to the Public Service Act 1999 to help the APS better serve the Government, the Parliament, and the Australian community into the future.
The Public Service Amendment Act locks in key APS Reform initiatives to strengthen the core values of the APS; build APS capability and expertise; and support good governance, accountability and transparency.
Changes include:
- Adding a new APS Value of Stewardship that all APS employees must uphold. Stewardship means ‘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’. This highlights the important and enduring role all public servants have in stewarding the APS.
- Requirement to undertake regular, independent and transparent capability reviews of APS agencies to build organisational capacity and accountability, and publication of an action plan responding to the findings of each review.
- Establishment of long-term insights briefings on topics that matter to the Australian community.
- Requirement for APS Agencies to publish aggregate APS Employee Census results, along with an action plan responding to the results.
- Strengthened provision in the Act to make it clear that Ministers cannot direct Agency Heads on employment matters.
- Requirement for Agency Heads to put in place measures that enable decisions to be made by APS employees at the lowest appropriate classification.
- Updated definition of ‘outsider’ to exclude Australian Defence Force (ADF) members so an Agency Head can delegate their functions to members of the ADF without first seeking the Australian Public Service Commissioner’s approval.
More information is available on the Parliament of Australia website.