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Engagement of ACT Public Service employees as APS employees
Applying for APS jobs
ACT Public Service (ACTPS) employees who wish to join the Australian Public Service (APS) are required to apply and compete on merit for employment opportunities advertised by APS agencies. Under schedule 2 to the Public Service Commissioner’s Directions 1999 (the Directions), employees of the ACTPS are identified as one of a number of categories of persons who are able to apply for APS vacancies that are notified in the APS Employment Gazette as not being open to members of the general public.
An ACTPS employee who is selected on merit for a job in an APS agency may be engaged as an APS employee under section 22 of the Public Service Act 1999 (the Act). In accordance with subsection 22(6) of the Act, conditions may be imposed on the engagement (see Conditions of Engagement).
Portability of leave
In relation to the portability of leave entitlements from the ACTPS to the APS:
- Section 25 of the Australian Capital Territory Government Service (Consequential Provisions) Act 1994 provides that where an ACTPS employee is engaged as an APS employee, the recreation leave entitlement that an ACTPS employee has on cessation of their employment with the ACTPS is to be carried over to the APS.
- The Supporting Guidance to the Australian Government Employment Bargaining Framework, issued by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), recognises that the carry over of recreation leave entitlements between the ACTPS and the APS is required under legislation. The Supporting Guidance states that agencies’ workplace arrangements (collective/enterprise agreements, determinations under subsection 24(1) of the Act and common law agreements) should also provide for the portability of personal/carer’s leave between the ACTPS and the APS as this is the basis of ongoing inter-government agreement.
- The treatment of prior ACTPS service for long service leave purposes in the APS is governed by the Long Service Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1976.
Service for redundancy purposes
In relation to the recognition of prior service with the ACTPS as service for redundancy pay purposes in the APS, agency collective/enterprise agreements or other industrial instruments typically set out the type of service that may be counted when calculating the redundancy entitlements of non-SES employees who are excess to requirements in the APS.
The general rule in relation to service for redundancy pay purposes in the APS is that it is only continuous Commonwealth service that may be counted, which would exclude service with the ACTPS. An exception to this general rule applies to persons who were compulsorily transferred to the ACTPS on its establishment as a separate Service on 1 July 1994 and who subsequently rejoin the APS. In these circumstances, agency agreements will generally provide that APS service prior to 1994, ACTPS service between 1 July 1994 and the person’s subsequent engagement as an APS employee and the current period of APS service will all count as service for redundancy pay purposes, provided the standard continuity provisions as set out in agency specific arrangements are satisfied.
For other persons who join the APS from the ACTPS, or who move from the APS to the ACTPS and then rejoin the APS, APS agreements and other industrial instruments will generally provide that the period of ACTPS service will not count for, or will break continuity for, the purposes of calculating a person’s redundancy entitlement in the APS. In other words, only the most recent period of APS service will count.
The ACTPS formerly had has arrangements in place whereby it could authorise a payment to an APS employee who had prior ACTPS service and who was made redundant by their APS agency. However, these arrangements ceased with effect from 10 June 2009.
Advice on the arrangements applying to APS employees seeking to join the ACTPS should be obtained from the ACTPS.
Circulars and Advice
- Public Service Act 1999 Advice No 17: Reciprocal mobility - Replacement arrangements
- Circular 2009/5: Service for redundancy pay purposes – Employees with prior service with the ACT Public Service
Legislation
- Public Service Act 1999, section 22
- Public Service Commissioner’s Directions 1999, Schedule 2
- Australian Capital Territory Government Service (Consequential Provisions) Act 1994, section 25
