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At June 2004 there were 131,522 staff in the Australian Public Service employed under the PS Act. Of this number, 122,102 were ongoing and 9,420 were non-ongoing. Table 1 shows ongoing and non-ongoing numbers by sex from June 1995 to June 2004.

During the last financial year, no employees moved out of coverage of the PS Act and 233 moved into coverage. Coverage changes for the last ten years are set out in Appendix 4.

The largest increases in ongoing staff numbers were 397 (9.7%) in the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and 395 (11.2%) in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The largest reductions in ongoing staff numbers occurred in Centrelink (262 or 1.0%) and the Australian Customs Service (202 or 4.1%).

Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office had reductions of 1,438 and 943 non-ongoing employees, respectively. These two agencies accounted for most of the net decline in non-ongoing employment during the year.

Appendix 5 'Changes to Administrative Arrangements, 2003-04' should be carefully noted when examining tables that compare agency numbers from one year to the next.