Launch of Delivering for Tomorrow: APS Workforce Strategy 2025

The Australian Public Service Commissioner, Mr Peter Woolcott AO, today released the whole-of-service APS Workforce Strategy, Delivering for Tomorrow.

The Strategy aims to enhance how the Australian Public Service (APS) operates as one enterprise, with a high performing workforce to deliver effectively and efficiently for the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public.

The Strategy, developed in line with the Government’s APS Reform Agenda, is the first of its kind.

“The Strategy outlines a one-APS approach to managing our workforce, with a focus on mobilising capability and developing the capabilities we need more of, for example data and digital skills,” Mr Woolcott said.

“To be positioned to respond to complex challenges in the future, we need the APS workforce to be agile and collaborative. We must work as one enterprise, across traditional boundaries and jurisdictions – taking an outcomes-based approach to delivery.”

The Independent Review of the Public Service (2019) highlighted the need for a whole-of-service workforce strategy to build and sustain the way the APS attracts, develops and utilises its people. The Government responded to this recommendation in Delivering for Australians  (2019) and agreed to develop and implement an APS Workforce Strategy.

The Strategy was informed by extensive research and benchmarking. The Commission consulted with agencies via focus groups, hackathons and refined the Strategy in light of achievements made in APS workforce management during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The Secretaries Board will drive implementation of the Strategy and use it to guide efforts to deliver on APS Reform initiatives.

The launch of this Strategy is supported by a number of practical actions to achieve the intent of the Strategy, many of which are already underway. These actions include:

• Professional Streams and the APS Academy – to focus development efforts on whole-of-enterprise capabilities, and shape the way we attract, recruit and retain specialist capabilities such as data and digital.
• Australian Government Graduate Program – to provide a whole of APS employee value proposition to attract high quality graduate candidates to the APS in various specialist or generalist streams.
• APS Reskilling Guide and tools – to support agencies to reskill and upskill the workforce for the impact of digital technology and for emerging roles where there is a skill supply shortage on the wider Australian labour market.    
• APS Mobility Framework – for the purpose of building capability and deploying capacity to deliver effectively against government priorities.
• Diversity and Inclusion – underpins all actions in the Strategy through implementation of the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Workforce Strategy, the APS Disability Employment Strategy and the APS Gender Equality Strategy and other relevant diversity action plans.

The focus of the Strategy is on building capability through workforce planning.  The Workforce Planning Centre for Excellence in the Australian Public Service Commission has been established to enable Strategy objectives and actions. Agencies will be supported to have modern, data-driven workforce management practices integrated as a key component of business planning and delivering workforce transformation aligned to business needs.

The set-up of this Centre of Excellence has received attention from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD are interested in profiling the Commission's work as a best practice case study in an upcoming Future of Work publication.

The outcomes of the Strategy will be monitored systematically through to 2025 to ensure the expected benefits are realised. The annual State of the Service Report will be used to report publically on implementation progress each year.

Mr Woolcott acknowledged the efforts involved in creating this Strategy. “Bringing this Strategy together has been a significant exercise. It reflects the valued contribution of many stakeholders both within and outside the APS. I thank all those that have shaped this thinking during the extensive consultation and engagement processes”.

Watch the Commissioner’s introductory video to the APS Workforce Strategy.

A copy of the Strategy can be accessed at APS Workforce Strategy.

For further information, contact media@apsc.gov.au.