The following section provides information on remuneration outcomes by employment instrument, by sex and by employment category.

5.1 Employment instrument

An APS employee may have their terms and conditions set by one of the following primary employment instruments:

• Enterprise agreements (EA);
• Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA);
• Public Service Act Determinations (s24(1) and (3)) (PSAD); or
• Common law arrangements (CLA).

A secondary employment instrument, an individual flexibility arrangement (IFA), may be used to vary the terms and conditions of an enterprise agreement subject to the employee being better off overall than they would have if no IFA were agreed to.

Employees in the non-SES classifications are usually employed under an EA with very small numbers at these levels using AWAs, PSADs and CLAs. While there has been a reduction in the number of AWAs from 2011 to 2012, the use of PSADs and CLAs has increased, but in only small numbers.

As at 31 December 2012, IFAs were in place for 3,184 APS employees. At the non-SES classifications IFAs were used most commonly at the EL 2 level with 1,652 or 12.6% of EL 2 employees.

As shown in Table 5.1, the most commonly used primary employment instrument at the SES levels was a PSAD.

For non-SES classifications, PSADs tended to deliver a lower median Base Salary compared with other employment instruments. Note that at the non-SES classifications PSADs are used as a short-term interim instrument during periods of structural change, such as machinery of government changes. CLAs provided the highest median salary outcomes at the non-SES classifications, but CLAs are used rarely with EL 2 having the highest use of only 0.4%.

At the SES classifications, there is no pattern as to which instrument provided the highest median value. At the SES 1 it was AWAs, SES 2 PSADs and at the SES 3, CLAs provided the highest median Base Salary. There was little difference between the median values provided by AWAs, PSADs and CLAs.

5.2 Remuneration data by sex

This section provides information on the key remuneration components based on sex by classification level. Reporting on this dimension commenced in 2008 and the 2012 Report continues this time series.

Table 5.4 provides data on womens’ median base salary as a proportion of mens’ Base Salary. In 2012, womens’ Base Salary as a proportion of mens’ Base Salary was 100% or over at four classifications and varied from 97.4% at the APS 1 classification to 100.7% at the SES 3 level.

There were no significant differences between the sexes across the three key remuneration components: Base Salary, TRP and Total Reward across all classification levels at the median values. Across the 5^th to 95^th percentiles, the only variation is some deviation towards men at the 95^th percentile at the SES 3 level.

5.3 Employment category

APS employees may be engaged on either an ongoing or non-ongoing basis. Table 5.8 provides detail on the Base Salary by employment category and classification. Note, casual employees (non-ongoing employed for duties that are irregular or intermittent) have been excluded.

With the exception of the APS 1 classifications, employees were overwhelmingly engaged on an ongoing basis. This is consistent with the Public Service Act 1999 s22(3) that “the usual basis for engagement is as an ongoing APS employee”.

At the APS 1 classification, 66.5% of employees are employed on an ongoing basis. APS 2, 3 and SES 3 have non-ongoing employee populations of between 10.7% and 11.3%.

The number of non-ongoing employees at 31 December 2012 was lower than 31 December 2011.

The median Base Salary for employees engaged on an ongoing basis was consistently higher than non-ongoing employees with the exception of the SES 3 classification. As engagement on a non-ongoing basis is time limited, there is not the same time available for these employees to move up salary spans. Hence the trend of higher median Base Salaries for employees engaged on an on-going basis is not unexpected.