r/AusPublicService

I feel like this question probably pops up a lot in this subreddit but basically I don't want to be too "annoying" by calling back, I feel like it is reasonable for the email to maybe take 24 hours but I don't know if that's just me making excuses.

They said I have a week to submit all the required information and that I start November 16th. I want to wait a day but partner says to just call now. What do you guys think?

edit: thanks guys, I'll chill.

Has anyone in the public sector experienced a botched redundancy recently?

A lot of people at my former workplace were caught up in a redundancy consultation process, but from what I experienced, I have serious concerns about whether the consultation was genuine or just a formality.

Has anyone been through something similar and challenged the process? Did you take it to the Fair Work Commission or even to court? What was the outcome?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences, especially if you successfully challenged a redundancy or felt the process wasn’t handled properly.

I am looking to primarily hear from other women in the APS and to get some advice, strategies, commiseration etc.

I don’t believe the APS has a broader sexism issue, or at least no more so than most workplaces.

However, the particular division I’ve landed in is insidious and the sexism is very apparent. An example is that it’s an unspoken (key, because this makes it hard to report) rule that women cannot attend the coffee runs/brunches the male staff go to at the head office. None of the women in the division go, if they’ve tried (which they have in the past) they are told to stay back and coffee will be brought to them.

Several of the male employees in this division go to the golf club together on the weekends. The women aren’t invited (and to be fair, probably aren’t sycophantic enough to go lol). One of these employees was promoted to EL2 over a female employee with 10 years more experience and 3+ years acting in the role in question.

Male employees are given training opportunities while female employees are told that there isn’t a budget. We, the women, have only figured out this is a pattern by asking each other behind closed doors. Acting opportunities are only given to male employees unless the team in question only has women at the appropriate level (which is rare). In an area with 15 directors, 3 of them are women. No SES are women. A team was explicitly reshuffled just because it had all women on it and it “wasn’t fair”.

I’ve personally as a woman in the division dealt with being asked if I’m single, asked the gender of my partner, told to grow my hair out etc

It’s also a weird division in other ways. R U Ok day, Wear it Purple, anything in that realm is ignored where as the rest of the department at least pretends at inclusion.

Obviously the solution to this problem is for everyone in this division who doesn’t want to deal with the culture to leave. But that’s proving difficult in this current climate. And the problem with the practices are that they are an embedded culture (coming from a band 1, who has been there forever and is the source of the problem) that is hard to evidence.

This isn’t even a broader department issue. People I work with in the office from other areas have a very different experience.

Myself and some of the other women (at this point, we have weekly meetings just to help each other psychosocially) are all close to breakdowns over this culture.

What can I expect career progression to look like at the treasury, specifically the sydney branch? I am interested in studying economics and working at the treasury as a policy advisor, however I would like to know what I can expect in terms of career progression with regards to salary and how much influence I will actually have over policy.

Can I expect to make around 120k+ within 5-10 years of working at the treasury? I have looked at the renumeration however I don't really understand at what point does my career stop naturally progressing and when I would have to start competing seriously to progress.

What level of influence do I realistically have over policy as well? It's something I am genuinely passionate about and would like to work with. At what point does my job stop being about policy and start being management as well as I progress?

If anyone who works at the treasury has any answers that would be appreciated.

A software engineer and academic, who once worked as a public servant, warns Canberra’s mismanagement of Australia’s data is a “national scandal”.

Samuel Spencer tells 7NEWS Podcast The Issue that sensitive data on the Budget, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and COMCAR (politicians’ travel) is being collected and stored on dated and inappropriate software, leaving it vulnerable to criminals and bad actors.

He is blowing the lid on what he believes are poor practises in the Australian Public Service.

“So before we even look at the cyber security risks, it’s the risks around errors, miscalculations, and even data being sent out the door.

“I think this is a national scandal.”

The Master Database – Special Appropriations is used to track created and abolished special appropriations, which includes more than a trillion dollars in federal government spending.

The Master Database – Special Accounts is used to track created and abolished special accounts including the portfolio responsible, sunset dates, investments, borrowing powers and purposes.

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance has told 7NEWS: “The Department of Finance does not use Excel to manage special accounts or special appropriations”.

“The referenced documents are internal, administrative documents, separate from the Central Budget Management System, which is the Australian Government’s authoritative system for appropriation management, budget development and management, and whole-of-government financial reporting.

“Access to internal documents and financial management systems is subject to established security controls and government security requirements, including role-based access controls, Multi-Factor Authentication, audit trails and compliance with the Protective Security Policy Framework and Information Security Manual.”

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says he has “a high degree of confidence about the way we are managing our information”.

“Australians should have that confidence as well,” Marles told 7NEWS.

“In the Australian Signals Directorate we have one of the best agencies in the world.”

Similar concerns with management of health data and politicians’ travel records

Spencer also claims records show MPs and Senators travel is collected and stored on Excel spreadsheets.

The Government’s Dataplace website says the COMCAR Automated Resource System (CARS) is on MS Excel and saves all trip, vehicle and driver data.

“Anthony Albanese’s private taxi service for himself and every politician in Parliament House and around Australia is managed in a spreadsheet,” Spencer said.

“This isn’t asking for a deep technical attack, this is just asking the right person to send you a file and you would then know the travel locations of almost every parliamentarian.”

Similarly, Spencer is concerned that the Department of Health collects details about Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme claims on an Excel spreadsheet.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing says it “publishes aggregate PBS claims data”, and that “these files do not contain patient-level records or any information that could identify individual patients, prescribers or pharmacies”.

Spencer also points out that the Prime Minister has had his phone number and bank details compromised in the last 12 months, and says that should push his Government to crackdown on the public service.

He also wants new national AI standards to include specific requirements for the federal government.

“He’s had his phone number leaked and he’s had his bank account details breached,” Spencer said.

“If he’s saying that he can protect Medicare, why doesn’t he start with trying to put in regulations that will protect himself? How’s he going to protect Medicare for us?”

After 9 months of job hunting I was very pleased to get a role which I started a month ago (role1).
This job is two levels below my “usual” level but I needed a job and so happily accepted it.
Role 1 is 6 month contract which may be extended but not certain.

Just before I started role 1 another role was advertised for over two years may go permanent (role 2). It’s also in a subject I studied in and have a genuine interest in. Salary is extra 20k.
After the interview for role 2 they told me I’m the preferred candidate.

I’m considered not accepting role 2 as Ive just started role 1 and my manager will not be happy. And I do understand why. It will be an inconvenience for them to recruit again and the project is very stressful for him.

Any suggestions? Thoughts? Similar experiences?

I’m currently an APS5 Software Engineer with around 3.5 years of experience and am considering applying for EL1 technical roles.

Most of my experience is hands-on development, haven’t led teams or fully designed anything. But I’ve contributed to technical solutions and helped onboard developers.

Is it worth preparing for EL1 roles at this stage, or would I be better off targeting APS6 first?

What do EL1 technical interviews typically involve? Are they mainly STAR/behavioural questions, or should I expect system design, coding and deep technical questions as well?

How much technical leadership and architecture experience do panels expect? One of the role still encourages application from lower skill level but don’t know if it’s written for formality sake.

Has anyone moved from the APS into private industry or contracting? How are you finding it particularly given the current job market?

Thanks

Reaching out to the brains trust, and sorry, it’s a bit of a long one!

I am an EL 1 who supervises one APS 5 staff member in a generally small team - without going into too much detail our team is meant to be high performing and fast paced, there’s a lot of work to do and we’re all constantly being pulled in 100 different directions at once. Personally, this type of environment really suits me and my working style.

I feel like I am really struggling with the staff member that reports to me - realistically the role should be at least a 6 and I feel like they are definitely not performing at that level, and quite frankly I don’t even think they’re a high performing 5. I am clear with my instructions and regularly check in, and feel like they do okay with very simple tasks, but we can have a conversation about implementing a process one week (which I of course seek feedback on to ensure collaboration and that it’s fit for purpose), they agree and say it’s a good idea, and then by the next week it all goes out the window. I can’t trust them to take ownership of anything strategic, and need to double check everything they’ve done to ensure it’s correct.

As mentioned above I do check in regularly, and I seek feedback from the staff member to query whether there’s areas that they would like more support in but I am constantly told no and that they’re doing fine. It’s getting to a point where I don’t know what to do - my own workload is almost unmanageable by the end of the week because I spend so much time having to make sure things have been done correctly and following up when they, for the millionth time, aren’t.

I have no interest in making anyone’s life a misery and don’t want to be seen as nasty, but what would you do? I feel like maybe my standards are too high because when I was a 5, and then a 6, I was incredibly autonomous and consistently achieved outcomes. I’m unsure how I support someone who just doesn’t seem to have that in them?

Context: I've been trying to get into anything on a Bachelor's of health science, Public health

I've been trying to get into anything entry level and haven't had any luck, as well as tried various supports.

Is there any genuine way for myself to get into anything APS level 1 or 2 on a Bachelor's of public health? I've been struggling for a long time now, I need genuine help, some way through all this, especially in Melbourne.

My baseline resume is trying to make use of my degree and I got a really limited Placement opportunity during lockdowns, so I've struggled to highlight that experience.

Does anyone else think we are getting a bit ripped off with RDOs? In my workplace, we have to work an extra 30 minutes every day which accrues to an RDO maybe once per month. We aren’t given a choice in the matter, but whatever.

What I don’t understand, is if we were working those same hours and being paid for it instead, it would be paid as overtime at 1.5x rate. But we don’t accrue 1.5x the RDO for it. How is this not being brought up by unions?? Am I missing something?

So I'm currently undertaking a graduate program and have had a lot of interest in my current team, which is an intergovernmental team. My current department is a central agency so being in this team has exposed me to a lot of national forums, in terms of preparation/creating meeting briefs and I've felt like I've broadly learnt about a lot of different subject matters. I've also had the opportunity to work closely with the Directors in my team. So overall, this team has been great exposure but my question comes from whether this breadth is desirable or is it better to be a subject matter expert?

I'm hoping to move interstate at some point and just wanted to know what is usually more desired by recruitment teams, particularly for APS3/4 roles? Would I have better chances by moving into a more specialised team or doing further study in a specific field, than staying in my current team post-program?

Recently had job interview. Job ad had mentioned about a course (desirable). Now, wondering how scoring works. If interview was not like 70% good, but that person has the course. Others interview would be 85% but no certification. How scoring would rate and which one would be first option you think?

Any ideas on that if you think can share would be helpful.

I’m feeling like I’ve made the wrong choice with an internal move and honestly don’t know what to do now.

I’m currently in a pretty unstable team.

My current line manager and one of my coworkers have a close personal friendship and I’ve felt like I’ve been overlooked for development for a while, so I applied for an internal opportunities register.

A Director from another team reached out and offered me a vacant position on his team. I asked questions before saying yes, around expectations, portfolio, where I’d be working and who I’d report to.

I was told I could work from my preferred office and that I’d be reporting to a manager I already have a good rapport with. They’re good with development and that was a pretty big deal breaker as to why I said yes.

I accepted, and it’s now been announced to both teams that I’m transferring.

I met with the AD in the new team where I was told I’ll actually be working from a different office and reporting to a different manager.

I did explain to the new AD that I was under a different impression because the director had told me the exact opposite.

The office part is a dealbreaker because I have kids and it means a significantly longer commute and changes a lot of my arrangements.

I’ve also worked with the manager I’m going to be reporting to before and they’re a difficult personality, so that’s made me even more nervous about the transfer.

I just feel a bit blindsided and slightly misled because I specifically asked about these things before I agreed to move.

The hard part is my current AD is new and is actually starting to fix a lot of the problems in my current team. They’ve also been pretty upfront with me and said they think my current manager and my coworker has been holding me back development wise.

At the same time, my current AD thinks the area I’m moving to will give me much broader opportunities and have basically said that despite the difficult manager, I should probably still take the opportunity and even gave me some advice on how to work with them.

I feel damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Stay where I am and potentially keep getting held back, just as things are finally starting to improve.

Or go somewhere with potentially better opportunities and career development, but where two of the major things I was told before accepting have now changed.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

A part of me wants to go back to the Director who offered me the job and say this isn’t what I understood you were agreeing to.

I also have no idea how it would be perceived to back out now that both teams have already been told I’m moving.

Just feeling pretty lost with the whole thing and would appreciate some perspectives.

There is some weight to the argument that the RT handle all Federal pay increases, with the same increase across the board, all paid at the same time. It takes the elitism out of the issue, and saves individual agency bargaining costs . Thoughts?

Posted this on Auscorp and one reply suggested to post here… so here I am! Deal with Vic Gov agencies a few times a week and interested in unpacking culture around teams recordings… so far mostly ok in my experience but had some interesting feedback last week. Thanks!

Hi!

Interested in any feedback from State or Federal Public Servants as well as corporate on concerns with Teams recording / transcripts.

I am ASX top 50 group and most of us individually use it as default. Very helpful for post meeting notes and actions and can focus on discussion at hand than writing half arsed notes on the background.

Have never really had strong objections to it use from others, although occasionally some hesitancy. Of course at times someone will ask for it to be turned off to talk something specific.

Interesting one last week with a Vic Gov body… never been an issue in the past but at the end was asked to turn it off, no issues, where some political matters were noted with Vic election in November. The person (quite senior, one below CEO) then said there will be a policy coming out on not allowing teams recording across the board, with the concern being Freedom of Information requests than privacy or other.

Interested to hear what others know about this concern. First for me

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Do vic police officers get to choose what station they like to work at? Or can the be posted in rural areas?