Workforce profile

APS staffing

The APS grew as a proportion of total Commonwealth employment during 2006–07, with a total of 155,482 employees at June 2007, compared with 146,234 at June 2006. ABS data suggests that total Commonwealth employment (APS and non-APS combined) declined from 258,800 at May 2006 to 232,200 at May 2007.³ Adjusted for coverage changes, the increase in APS employment during 2006–07 was 5.9%. This increase continued a trend that has been evident for the past seven years as the Government has extended the range of services, programmes and regulations it provides through the APS.

Figure 2.1 shows the variations in total APS employee numbers for the twenty-year period from 1988 to 2007. The adjusted line takes account of coverage changes in the APS over the period, by adjusting the total for the number of employees performing those functions at the time that the function moved into or out of coverage of the Act.

Figure 2.1: APS employees, 1988 to 2007

Chart: description available below

Figure 2.1 shows the total number of APS employees from 1988 to 2007, as well as the number of employees when the size is adjusted for changes in coverage of the PS Act. Over the period there was a period of decline, followed by some growth in recent years.

Source: APSED

As noted above, the APS is part (currently around 67%) of the broader Commonwealth public sector.⁴ ABS data shows an overall downward trend in the size of the broader Commonwealth public sector. Since 1996, the size of the Commonwealth public sector has fallen by 35%.⁵ Over the same period the size of the APS has increased by 7.6%, and the total number of people employed in Australia has risen by 25% (see Figure 2.2).⁶

Figure 2.2: Size of the APS, Commonwealth public sector and Australian workforce, 1988 to 2007

Chart: description available below

Figure 2.2 shows the total number of Commonwealth public sector employees, the number of APS employees adjusted for changes in coverage of the PS Act and the total number of employed persons in Australia for the period from 1988 to 2007. Over the period there was a decline in the size of the Commonwealth public sector, the adjusted APS has fallen and then risen again and the number of employed persons has increased steadily

Source: APSED and ABS

The increase in the number of APS employees this year largely reflects the engagement of new employees to perform a range of new initiatives required by the Government that were funded in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 Budgets. The initiatives were in the areas of defence, national security and the prevention of terrorism, supporting Australian families and older Australians and carers, meeting health and aged care needs, improved service delivery and fraud reduction, and strengthening Indigenous communities.

Consistent with these Government priorities, the agencies with the largest growth in total employees during 2006–07 were Defence (increase of 1,461 or 7.4% of total Defence employees), DHS (893 or 16.1%),⁷ ATO (553 or 2.5%), Health (522 or 12.1%), FaCSIA (513 or 19.8%) and DIAC (443 or 7.0%). Smaller agencies with large proportional increases in total numbers of employees included AGD (276 or 22.5%), ACC (125 or 29.1%), AUSTRAC (106 or 75.2%) and the CrimTrac Agency (28 or 52.8%).

Specific examples of new initiatives include:

additional staff to support operations, intelligence and security measures at Defence
implementation of the recommendations of the Parkinson report, In the Best Interests of Children—Reforming the Child Support Scheme (2005) and additional vocational rehabilitation service delivery to support Welfare to Work initiatives at DHS
increased compliance activity at ATO associated with high-wealth individuals
a range of substantial new initiatives at Health, including the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) mental health and health workforce initiatives, aged care complaints resolution, private health insurance and strengthening Indigenous communities
a Stronger Families and Community Strategy, Welfare Payments Reform Implementation and the Child Care Management System Taskforce at FaCSIA
the development and implementation of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, the new citizenship test, and the Onshore Compliance Strategic Plan at DIAC
expansion of activities in relation to national security, crisis communication and emergency management initiatives at AGD.

This year, only a small proportion (5.9% or 548 employees) of the total increase in APS numbers was due to machinery of government changes involving existing Australian Government agencies, Austrade and the National Institute of Clinical Studies (NICS)—now part of the National Health and Medical Research Council—moving under the Public Service Act. There were other machinery of government changes this year that involved the movement of staff between agencies covered by the Act. These included the establishment of the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal (MRT/RRT), previously part of DIAC, as a separate statutory agency. It also included the establishment of Cancer Australia and the National Health and Medical Research Council (both functions previously part of Health), and the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), whose employees were previously part of AGD. Employees of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) moved into AGD. DEH was renamed DEW, and gained some staff and functions from DAFF and PM&C. A small number of employees also moved from DITR to the Productivity Commission, and from DEWR to OWS.

3 ABS, Wage and Salary Earners, Public Sector, Australia, Cat. No. 6248.0.55.001, June 2007, ABS, Canberra. The 2007 figure reflects the privatisation of Telstra in November 2006. These figures exclude members of the permanent defence forces.

4 ABS, Wage and Salary Earners, Public Sector, Australia, Cat. No. 6248.0.55.001, June 2007, ABS, Canberra. These figures exclude members of the permanent defence forces.

5 ABS, Wage and Salary Earners, Public Sector, Australia, Cat. No. 6248.0.55.001, June 2007, ABS, Canberra. These figures exclude members of the permanent defence forces.

6 ABS, Labour Force, Australia, Cat. No. 6291.0.55.001, August 2007, ABS, Canberra.

7 APSED data for DHS includes CSA and CRS Australia which are both part of DHS. All three agencies submitted separate responses for the State of the Service agency survey and are considered separate agencies for that purpose. Separate employee survey results for DHS, CSA and CRS Australia, are provided where they differ significantly from the APS average on important variables.