Embedding the APS Values

Grouping the Values

As mentioned, values-based management is about relationships and behaviours. For the APS, it is about our relationships with the government and the parliament, our relationship with the public, relationships in the workplace, and personal behaviours.

While some of the Values set out in the PS Act could readily be mapped into more than one of the four groups, the following categorisation should prove useful and appropriate on most occasions when the Values are being explained to staff or stakeholders.

Key Values: Relationship with the Government and the Parliament

The APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner.

The APS is openly accountable for its actions, within the framework of Ministerial responsibility to the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public.

The APS is responsive to the Government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the Government's policies and programs.

Key Values: Relationship with the public

The APS delivers services fairly, effectively, impartially and courteously to the Australian public and is sensitive to the diversity of the Australian public.

The APS provides a reasonable opportunity to all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment.

Key Values: Workplace relationships

The APS is a public service in which employment decisions are based on merit.

The APS provides a workplace that is free from discrimination and recognises and utilises the diversity of the Australian community it serves.

The APS establishes workplace relations that value communication, consultation, cooperation and input from employees on matters that affect their workplace.

The APS provides a fair, flexible, safe and rewarding workplace.

The APS focuses on achieving results and managing performance.

The APS promotes equity in employment.

The APS provides a fair system of review of decisions taken in respect of APS employees.

Key Values: Personal behaviour in the APS

The APS has the highest ethical standards.

The APS has leadership of the highest quality.

The APS is a career-based service to enhance the effectiveness and cohesion of Australia's democratic system of government.

APS employees will be aware that the APS Values, when applied in the real world of public service, should, of course, have meaning in more than one relationship. For example, impartiality is a Value that applies both in relations with government and in relations with the public. This grouping of the APS Values is simply an aid to examining the nature, extent and interaction of the matters which the Values cover.

While all the Values must be respected, there is no hierarchy whereby one Value is subordinate to another. The Values need to be read together as too much weight on one may conflict with another.

APS as an institution

The Values also reflect the role of the APS as an institution in Australia's democratic system of government. Various Values within each of the groups reflect the core principles of public administration that have applied in Westminster systems of government for over a hundred years:

the apolitical nature of the APS (s. 10(1)(a) of the PS Act)
accountability within the framework of Ministerial responsibility to the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public (s. 10(1)(e) of the PS Act)
responsiveness to the elected Government (s. 10(1)(f) of the PS Act)
impartial, as well as fair, effective and courteous service (s. 10(1)(g) of the PS Act)
the merit principle governing employment decisions (s. 10(1)(b) of the PS Act)
the highest ethical standards (s. 10(1)(d) of the PS Act).

Each of these Values is critical to the role and responsibilities of the APS. They complement each other in defining the professional behaviour expected of public servants. They are also supported by the provisions in the Code of Conduct.

Further guidance on each of the groups of Values, together with related good practice material from the agency studies, is provided in Section 4 of this guide.

Agency Values

Most agencies that participated in the project, like many APS agencies, have developed and are actively promoting their own values, principles or behaviours to reflect and support the way in which their agency functions. Some employees are well aware of these agency-specific values, behaviours or principles and their impact on their work, but are less familiar with the APS Values and Code of Conduct and the bottom-line nature of their legal responsibilities. All APS employees are required under the Code of Conduct, set out in section 13 of the PS Act, to behave at all times in a way which upholds the APS Values.

It is important that any agency-specific values, principles or behaviours do not detract from staff knowledge and maintenance of all the APS Values. In particular, they should not be seen as displacing the APS Values or the agency's identity as part of the APS.

There are often business grounds for focusing on a subset of the APS Values, for example:

to highlight particular areas that are crucial to an agency's business
as a short-term measure to focus on new behaviours or to remedy a defect in organisational performance.

To ensure that the agency values reinforce the APS Values and will not prejudice employees' understanding of their obligations towards the APS Values, agencies should draw on the grouping of the APS Values, and cross reference agency values to the APS Values. For example, a service delivery agency might highlight values relating to relations with the public (e.g. customer or client focus), but should not ignore its important relations with the government and the parliament. Similarly, a central policy agency might highlight values relating to relations with the government and the parliament, but should not ignore the importance of merit in its workplace relations.

Alternatively, agency-specific principles and behaviours should not be represented as 'values', and their status should be clearly distinguished from the statutory APS Values.

Where an agency promotes its own agency-specific principles or behaviours, an explanation of the relationship between those and the APS Values would be useful when presenting agencyspecific materials to employees and possibly other stakeholders. This would help to reinforce the APS Values and the responsibilities that accompany them.

Agencies should, of course, avoid agency-specific principles or behaviours that may conflict, or create confusion, with the intent and purpose of the APS Values and Code of Conduct.

Downloads:

On our site:

Site help

Site menu