Integrity and fairness

Embedding the APS Values and the Code of Conduct

The Values are set out in s.10(1) of the Public Service Act 1999 (the Act) and the Code in s.13. Agency heads must uphold and promote the Values (s.12) and are bound by the Code (s.14). The Act also places an obligation on SES employees to promote both the Values and compliance with the Code through personal example and other appropriate means. APS employees are required to uphold the Values and are bound by the Code.

This section assesses the embedding of the Values and the Code in the three main areas identified by the Commission as being important in successfully integrating the Values into an agency—commitment, management and assurance.

Commitment

This year’s agency and employee survey results demonstrate a high level of commitment by agencies to fostering a values-based culture and provide evidence that agencies are embedding the Values and the Code.

Agency heads have continued to pay attention to ensuring that their senior leadership group understand the Values, consistent with the particular obligation the Act places on SES employees to promote the Values. The majority of SES employees (84%) had been advised during the year by their agency head of the importance of acting in accordance with the Values. A high proportion of SES employees (78%) also reported that they had been told by their agency head that it was important that they develop in other employees an understanding of the Values.

The use of learning and development activities by agencies to promote the Values and the Code has also continued to increase (see Table 6.1).

Table 6.1: Agency use of learning and development activities on the Values and the Code, 2004–05 to 2006–07
Activities	Agencies using measure 2004–05 %	Agencies using measure 2005–06 %	Agencies using measure 2006–07 %
Online training	21	23	26
Awareness raising as part of induction/orientation	98	99	98
Sessions on how the Values and Code should operate in practice	61	65	78
Information on the intranet	90	91	92
Use of promotional material (e.g. pamphlets or posters)	87	83	88
Source: Agency survey

This year, all agencies used at least one of the measures listed in Table 6.1, with 75% of agencies reporting the use of at least four out of five possible measures. This compares to only 56% of agencies in 2005–06.

The investment by agencies in learning and development activities appears to be helping to maintain high levels of awareness of the Values and the Code. In 2006–07, 90% of employees reported that they were familiar with the Values compared to 77% in 2002–03. The remaining employees had heard of the Values even though they were not fully familiar with their detail. The trend in relation to the Code is similar, with familiarity increasing from 74% in 2002–03 to 93% this year.

Employees also continue to have a high opinion of the ethical behaviour of their colleagues and immediate managers. Ninety per cent of employees agreed that their colleagues act in accordance with the Values and 86% agreed that their immediate managers did so.

Levels of confidence that the most senior managers act in accordance with the Values continue to be lower but are still very high, with 75% agreeing that their senior managers act in accordance with the Values, and 13% neither agreeing nor disagreeing. This result has increased substantially from 63% in 2002–03. The majority of employees in all of the 45 agencies with individual agency-specific results agreed that the most senior managers act in accordance with the Values, with results ranging from 61% to 91%.

Results on other questions relating to ethical behaviour were also high. Seventy-nine per cent of employees agreed that their manager treats all staff with respect and courtesy, and 78% of employees agreed that their manager demonstrates honesty and integrity. Seventy per cent of employees agreed that their agency operates with a high level of integrity.

Employees’ views on ethical behaviour in the APS are generally consistent with those in other jurisdictions.¹ Eighty-four per cent of APS employees agreed that their organisation actively encourages ethical behaviour by all of its employees. This compares to 82% agreeing in Tasmania, 81% in South Australia, and 78% in Western Australia. The proportion of APS employees agreeing that senior managers in their organisation led by example in ethical behaviour (59%) is similar to that in Tasmania (61%) and South Australia (61%), but lower than that in Western Australia (67%).

Management

The incorporation of the Values into an agency’s performance management arrangements is critical to embedding the Values into an agency’s culture.² There has been major progress in incorporating the Values into agencies’ performance management arrangements. Eighty- eight per cent of agencies now require that an assessment be made about the extent to which employees demonstrate and consistently apply some or all of the Values and/or agency- specific values and behaviours when considering individual performance—up from 61% in 2002–03.

Table 6.2 sets out the types of measures used by agencies to ensure employees are assessed on how they demonstrate and consistently apply the Values. There has been an increase in the assessment of values and behaviours in performance assessment, and in training all staff in how values/behaviours relate to effective performance. There has been little change, however, in the use of multi-source feedback, which is still used by only around one-fifth of agencies.

Table 6.2: Measures used by agencies in performance assessments to ensure employees demonstrate and consistently apply the Values, 2002–03 to 2006–07
	An assessment of values/behaviours as well as results in performance assessments		Regular multi-source feedback		Training of all staff on how values/behaviours relate to effective performance
	Yes (% of agencies)	Being developed (% of agencies)	Yes (% of agencies)	Being developed (% of agencies)	Yes (% of agencies)	Being developed (% of agencies)
2006–07	83	10	22	15	53	14
2005–06	81	8	19	12	46	20
2004–05	77	9	27	13	35	18
2003–04	78	7	22	16	36	10
2002–03	61	15	22	16	27	17
Source: Agency survey

Most agencies reported assessing their employees against all the Values as a set (see Table 6.3). Performance assessment against agency-specific values was also common. The proportion of employees reporting that they had been assessed against the Values as a set, or against agency-specific values, however, was lower than the agency results would suggest. There may be a need for agencies to put in place assurance mechanisms to ensure that values are being considered in individual discussions. Managers conducting assessments may also need to be more explicit about how and when behaviour is being assessed.

Table 6.3: Performance assessment against the Values, 2006–07
	Agency survey results (% relevant agencies)	Employee survey results (% relevant employees)
Performance assessment against all Values as a set	72	51
Performance assessment against agency-specific values	52	38
Performance assessment against Values most relevant to job	28	22
Performance assessment against other behavioural indicators	24	3
Source: Agency survey and employee survey

Assurance

Agency-specific accountability and assurance mechanisms are necessary to enable agency heads to monitor compliance with the Values and the Code, identify any concerns at an early stage, and take remedial action. Some valuable quality assurance mechanisms that can be used to monitor adherence to the Values and to improve agency performance include staff surveys that ask questions directly or indirectly about the Values, and consultative committees that gauge the views of employees about the application of the Values in the organisation. There is also a range of other mechanisms that could be used by agencies, including formal internal and external processes of review.

During 2006–07, 39% of agencies used a staff survey and 33% used a consultative committee to collect information on employees’ confidence that the agency’s culture and practices reflect the Values. Twenty per cent of agencies reported that they used other mechanisms. These included focus groups, exit surveys, evaluations, performance management processes, recruitment criteria, and discussions with staff during policy development and training sessions.

As an effective quality assurance mechanism, the Commission encourages agencies to consider the option of including questions from the State of the Service employee survey in their own staff surveys, so that they can benchmark their performance against APS-wide results. This can be particularly useful for small agencies with fewer than 100 employees which are not included in the population for the State of the Service employee survey and for agencies with fewer than 400 employees that do not receive their own reports. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel (OPC), for example, which has only 48 employees, used the State of the Service employee questions this year as the basis for a staff survey to benchmark its performance against APS-wide results. OPC intends to re-run this process every two years.

Agency-specific Values

There continues to be a widespread use of agency-specific values to complement the APS Values. In 2006–07, 69% of agencies reported having developed their own agency-specific values, principles or behaviours. This is similar to 2005–06 (67%) but a decrease from the 78% of agencies that used agency-specific values in 2004–05. The practice of developing agency-specific values, principles or behaviours is more concentrated in large and medium agencies than in small agencies.

Relevant agencies cited four broad reasons for developing agency-specific values, principles or behaviours:

to complement the APS Values with values that reflect agency-specific operational and business imperatives (92% of agencies with agency-specific values)
to reinforce agency culture or to develop a new culture (58%)
to provide unity across the agency where there is a significant number of non-APS staff (23%)
to recognise external or professional standards (17%).

Agency-specific codes or standards of behaviour must be consistent with, and reinforce, the APS Values and the Code. All employees are legally required to comply with the Values and the Code. Agency-specific values do not have this status. Agencies are only able to use the sanctions provided in the Act for proven breaches of the legislated Code of Conduct.

Where agency-specific values exist, there is a risk that employees can become confused about the relationships between the agency-specific values and the APS Values. The high level of familiarity with APS Values suggests that this is not a major concern to date. It is the Commission’s preference, however, that where agencies identify a need to focus on key business principles or behaviours, they should label them in a way which makes it clear that they are different to the APS Values.

1 The jurisdictional comparison data from surveys conducted in 2005–06 and 2006–07 was provided to the Commission by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, South Australia, on behalf of the Commissioner for Public Employment (Workplace Perspectives Survey 2006); Tasmania (State Service Employee Survey 2005); and the Office of the Public Standards Commissioner, Western Australia (Climate Survey 2006–07). The South Australian survey covers all employees employed under the Public Sector Management Act 1995 and the Tasmanian survey covered all employees employed under the State Service Act 2000. The Western Australian Climate Survey involved 14 separate agencies in 2006–07. Each year 10–15 agencies are surveyed with each agency being surveyed approximately once every five years.

2 See, for example, Management Advisory Committee 2001, Performance Management in the Australian Public Service, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, <http://www.apsc.gov.au/mac>