Introduction

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used in this report is available at Appendix 3

The Australian Public Service Statistical Bulletin 2005–06 is a statistical overview of APS staffing produced on a financial year basis. It provides details of staff employed under the authority of the Public Service Act 1999 (the PS Act). 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 (the CRP held data only for ongoing employees), including staff on leave without pay and otherunpaid inoperative staff. Agencies provide data from their HR systems to the commission on staff movements such as engagements, promotions and separations, as well as a ‘snapshot’ for all staff at 30 June each year. This information is used to verify andwhere necessary, update APSED data. Although the 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 data supplied.

When referring to the data in this publication, or making comparisons with previous Bulletins, the reader should be aware that there have been changes over time to the conceptual definitions which support 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.

About the data

A headcount approach underpins the Bulletin—that is, people working part-time are aggregated with people working full-time without weighting.

Time series data reflects the APS as it was at a particular point in time. When comparingtrends over time, the data may vary due to coverage changes within the PS Act. For example, in 1999–00 the Parliamentary agencies ceased to be covered by the PS Act and in 2005–06 Medicare Australia moved into coverage of the PS Act. Administrative changes affecting APS numbers are detailed in Appendixes 4 and 5.

Due to differences in data sources and data definitions, there may be variations between data in this publication and that published by individual agencies.

Where proportions are presented, results have been rounded to the first decimal place. Due to this rounding, the percentage results for some tables may not add up to exactly the total shown.

Data for the Senior Executive Service (SES) includes employees grouped with the equivalent SES bands under the Public Service Classification Rules 2000.

Data includes inoperative staff.

During 2005–06, extensive audits and error checking of APSED 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 for both ongoing and non-ongoing staff may have been revised and therefore may not necessarily be comparable with that in previous years’publications.
Following the introduction of the 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 (i.e. at the top of their broadband). Significant improvements in the quality of data provided by agencies in recent years have resulted in fewer agencies reporting broadbanded classifications. For example, at June 2003 over 31,000 employees had a different maximum and minimum classification. By June 2006 this figure had dropped to 6500. Therefore, data on classifications is not directly comparable with that from earlier years. See Appendix 2 ‘Effects on data of broadbanding classifications’.
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.
As part of the process for loading data from the CRP onto APSED, an audit was undertaken of employees who were current at June 1999. A number of records were found where non-ongoing employees had been recorded as ongoing on the CRP. This led to a recalculation of ongoing employee numbers in the years preceding 1999. Employees who were employed at June 1999 were included in this audit. However, those who had been employed in earlier years but who had since left were not included. It can be assumed that there was an overestimate, which cannot be quantified, of ongoing employees in those years.
EEO data published by the Commission may differ from that published by some agencies. In 2001, an independent review was undertaken of the Commission’s then current practice of retrospectively changing a person’s EEO status if it changed during their employment. The review supported the continuation of the practice for reporting for non-English speaking background (NESB) and Indigenous status as these characteristics are likely 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 provision of some EEO data by APS employees to their agency is voluntary. Therefore, as with any large voluntary data collection, APSED tends to under-represent the number of Indigenous Australians, people with a disability and people from a non-English speaking background (NESB).
This report covers the APS at 30 June 2006. Since that date, there have been adjustments to the Administrative Arrangements Order; these are not reflected here because they occurred after 30 June 2006. They will be reported in the 2007 publication.

The APSED Internet Interface (APSEDII)

APSEDII provides user friendly, internet based access to APSED data. The interface facilitates workforce planning and benchmarking by allowing users to produce tables similar to those published in this Bulletin. Users can run queries to provide Bulletin-style tables with data about an organisation and, for comparative purposes, about other agencies in that 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 sex compares to other small agencies or it might be interested in comparing its classification by age profile to other agencies. The interface allows the user to make the appropriate selections on the web page then generate the query and any charting or download requirements.

Agencies can also use a secure link to drill down into their data at a level of detail not available in Commission publications. This feature should greatly assist agencies in accessing useful data for workforce planning.

APSEDII is available at <https://www.apsedii.gov.au>

APSED services

The 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 Sue Johnson (02) 6272 5505 or David Judge (02) 6272 5938

Production team

APSED director: Sue Johnson

APSED managers: David Judge, Christopher Giuliano

APSED maintenance: Ray Maher, Catherine McLean, Stephen Burden, Amy Clark, Jillian Mahoney, Anh Nguyen, Tracey Quinn

APS Statistical Bulletin prepared by: Tracey Quinn and Mark Henry.