Diversity

APSED and the quality of EEO data

Information on the representation of EEO groups in the APS comes from individual agencies and is stored on APSED. The provision of EEO data by APS employees to their agency is voluntary (with the exception of sex). Therefore, as with any voluntary data collection, APSED tends to under-represent the actual number of employees in these groups.

Of the data provided by agencies to APSED at the end of June 2007, around 40% of employees had comprehensive EEO data: Indigenous status was provided for 58.0% of employees, and data on disability was provided for 53.7%. Data quality was better for country of birth (68.3%) and first language spoken (71.1%). The proportion of employees with comprehensive EEO data has increased from around one-third last year.

In practice, the quality of data on APSED is much better than these figures indicate, as historical data is generally better than that provided by agencies on an annual basis. Once an employee’s data is provided to APSED, it is stored there permanently unless the employee subsequently chooses not to provide it. If the person moves to another agency that does not provide this information, then the previous data is retained.

For the voluntary EEO items this year, Indigenous status is available for 73.6% of ongoing employees, disability status is available for 68.3% of ongoing employees, and non-English speaking background (NESB) status is available for 72.1% of ongoing employees. These proportions are higher for Indigenous and NESB status than those reported last year indicating a focus on improving data quality in some agencies. The quality of employee-provided data overall, however, continues to be poor and there are many agencies still providing little or no data on the diversity status of their employees.

Employees for whom no data is available are included in the population for calculating percentages. Therefore, the percentages provided on representations of EEO groups in the APS are likely to under-estimate the actual proportions in agency and APS populations.

All APSED data in this chapter covers only ongoing employees. This is due to the quality of diversity data provided by agencies for non-ongoing employees, which is generally lower than that for ongoing employees.