State of the Service Report highlights critical challenges

The State of the Service Report tabled in Parliament on 30 November 2004 identified a number of critical challenges facing the APS. These challenges stress the need for:

building and sustaining the capability of the APS
improving our whole-of-government capacity to address major and complex issues
ensuring diversity in the APS
ensuring an effective relationship between the APS and the government and parliament
embedding the Values and the Code of Conduct.

The findings emphasise the need to ensure that the Service attracts and retains employees, brings learning and development in line with the needs of a modern Service, and strikes the right balance between leadership capabilities, management skills and technical or professional skills. Each is critical given the continued ageing of the APS and the challenge this presents for managing succession to the future leadership of the APS.

The report also stresses that diversity is an important dimension of organisational capability and how important it is to address the long-term decline in employment of Indigenous people and people with a disability.

The findings also emphasise the importance of the APS Values, reinforcing their importance in relationships with Government and the parliament and increasing APS staff confidence in interactions with Ministers and advisers.

The report noted that employees’ understanding of the APS Values and Code of Conduct, and their appreciation of the relevance of these to their day-to-day work, has improved, but stressed how important it is to be consistent when handling allegations of misconduct.