The union representing federal public servants, the Community and Public Sector Union, welcomes today’s announcement that the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) will commence work on APS leadership capability.
The APSC’s approach, in response to the Hierarchy and Classification Review report, will prioritise leadership behaviours and the capability of supervisors and managers.
We are pleased with the APSC’s commitment to continue to engage with CPSU representatives so that employees have a strong voice in these changes through their union.
It is vital that employees have a clear voice in this process.
CPSU members have very clear views about the current issues with the APS classification structure and what needs to be addressed.
We look forward to working with the APS leadership on these issues and welcome their commitment to hearing directly from employees and their union representatives.
The CPSU welcomes the decision to focus initially on leadership and capability changes.
It is encouraging that the APSC has acknowledged the complexity of the more ambitious proposals around classification reform and will consider the approach to those proposals in consultation with staff and other stakeholders in future.
The new Labor government’s commitment to restore genuine bargaining in the public service provides an important opportunity to address the historical undervaluation of work more likely to be performed by women, First Nations employees, employees with disability, and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, usually performing frontline, service delivery work.
There are also opportunities to create meaningful career pathways for specialists and professionals, including in the critical areas of digital and data. These areas are critical to ensuring the APS has the skills and capability it needs to serve the Australian community now and into the future.
Genuine bargaining, and the commitment to negotiate with employees and unions at the service-wide level, provides a great opportunity to achieve positive change and greater equity for public services through that bargaining process.
