APS Statistical Bulletin 2002-03
Foreword
The APS Statistical Bulletin 2002–03 is a comprehensive source of data on the size and composition of employment under the Public Service Act 1999 at June 2003 and during the 2002–03 financial year, as well as summary data for the past 10 years. A more comprehensive statistical analysis of the APS is provided in the State of the Service Report 2003.
The main data source on APS employees is the APS Employment Database (APSED), which contains data extracted from agencies’ HR systems. I am pleased to say that this year has seen considerable improvement by most agencies in providing high quality timely data to APSED.
APSED’s functionality will be further increased when an internet-based interface is launched later this year. Anyone in the community with internet access will be able to construct their own tables and graphs on the most recent APSED dataset. Furthermore, agencies will be able to use a secure link to drill down into their agency’s data to a more detailed level not available in publications. I expect that this new feature will greatly assist agencies in accessing useful data for workforce planning.
A feature of this year’s Bulletin is a new table that shows agency retention. This has been included due to increased demand from agencies for this type of data.
The EEO section of the Bulletin has also been extended to include some tables that were previously appendices in the Workplace Diversity Report prior to its inclusion in the State of the Service Report 2002–03.
Andrew Podger
Public Service Commissioner
December 2003
Introduction
The Australian Public Service Statistical Bulletin is a statistical overview of APS staffing produced on a financial year basis. It provides details of staff employed within the APS under the authority of the Public Service Act 1999 (PS Act). This is only a part of total public sector employment across Australia. Staff employed in Commonwealth-owned companies, statutory authorities, the defence forces and government business enterprises that are not employed under the PS Act are not included. State and local government staff are also not included.
The Main Features section provides an overview of the report, together with a number of tables and graphs. Later sections cover ongoing and non–ongoing staff in more detail.
Source of data
From July 1999, APSED replaced the Continuous Record of Personnel (CRP) as the source for APS employment statistics. Data held on the CRP was migrated to APSED to form the historical series for ongoing employees. APSED records information for both ongoing and non-ongoing employees, including staff on leave without pay and other unpaid inoperative staff. Data is provided to APSED from agencies’ HR systems. Agencies provide a complete snapshot of their staff at 30 June each year. Agencies also provide data regularly on staff movements such as engagements, promotions and separations. This information is used to verify and, where necessary, update APSED data. While the APS Commission has tried to ensure data integrity and has undertaken an extensive audit of data provided by agencies, it cannot accept responsibility for inaccuracies in the supplied data.
When referring to the data in this publication, or making comparisons with previous Bulletins, the reader should be aware of the conceptual definitions of the data. Differences in data definitions due to the migration of CRP to APSED are explained briefly below and in detail in the Explanatory Notes at Appendix 1.
Limitations of the data
During 2002–03, extensive audits and error checks on APSED data were undertaken and errors in the historical data were corrected. The following points, therefore, should be taken into consideration when making comparisons between data in this publication and previous publications.
- Previously published data on ongoing staff may have been revised and therefore may not necessarily be comparable with that in previous years’ publications.
- A headcount approach underpins the Bulletin—that is, people working part-time are aggregated with people working full-time without weighting.
- Following the introduction of broadbanding of classifications in 1999, data in this publication reports the maximum classification level and is, therefore, not directly comparable with data for earlier years. This will result in some employees being reported at a higher than actual level. See Appendix 2.
- APSED data reports the actual classification of staff and includes temporary assignments to a higher level for periods of greater than 90 days. Previously, CRP data referred only to substantive classification.
- Data for the Senior Executive Service (SES) includes employees grouped with the equivalent SES bands under the Public Service Classification Rules 2000. Data also includes inoperative SES.
- As part of the process for loading data from the CRP onto APSED, a large number of records were found where non-ongoing employees had been recorded as ongoing on the CRP. This led to a recalculation of ongoing numbers in the years preceding 1999. It was not possible to undertake an audit of earlier years’ data but it can be assumed that there was an overestimate, which cannot be quantified, of ongoing employees in those years.
- Time series data reflect the Public Service as it was at that point in time. When comparing trends over time, the data may vary due to coverage changes within the Public Service Act. For example the Parliamentary agencies moved to their own legislation in 1999. Changes applicable to this Bulletin are detailed in Appendixes 3 and 4.
- Due to differences in data sources and data definitions, there may be variations between data in this publication and that published by individual agencies.
- EEO data published by the APS Commission may differ from that published by some agencies. An independent review of the APS Commission’s then current practice of retrospectively changing a person’s EEO status if it changed during their employment was undertaken in early 2001. The review supported the continuation of the practice for reporting for non-English speaking background (NESB) and Indigenous status as these characteristics tend to be constant throughout an employee’s career. Disability, however, may change with time and APSED has been modified to record the status change for an individual and the date at which that change was notified by the agency.
The APSED Internet Interface (APSEDII)
APSEDII is a new facility providing user friendly, internet based access to APSED data. The interface facilitates workforce planning and benchmarking by allowing agencies to produce data similar to that published in the APS Statistical Bulletin. Agencies are able to run restricted queries to provide Bulletin style tables with data about their own organisation and, for comparative purposes, about other agencies in their size grouping.
The interface produces charts and tables and also allows users to download the queried results and manipulate the data further in other applications such as Excel. For example a small agency might be interested to see how its classification distribution by gender compares to other small agencies or it might be interested in comparing its classification by age profile to other agencies. The interface will allow the user to make the appropriate selections on the web page then generate the query and any charting or download requirements.
The APS Commission can also provide disaggregations and analyses of the data presented here in formats other than those published, on a fee for service basis.
Enquiries or suggestions about this Bulletin, or the analyses and other services we provide, are welcome and should be directed to:
Review and Evaluation Group
Sue Johnson or Christopher Giuliano
(02) 6272 5505 (02) 6272 5125
Production team
APSED director: Sue Johnson
APSED manager: Colin Farlow
APSED maintenance: Ray Maher, Christopher Giuliano, David Judge, Kate Porter, Joel Benn-Clibborn, Michael Inacio, Greg Watman, Lee Vereschildt, Catherine McLean.
APS Statistical Bulletin prepared by: Christopher Giuliano