APS leaders warned about conflicts of interest in procurement Tuesday December 3, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Australian Public Service leaders have been formally reminded they are expected to fully comply with the rules around managing potential and actual conflicts of interest… Read more
Premium Trends and research Why a 7% disability employment target for the APS really means a greater sense of inclusion and psychological safety Tuesday December 3, 2019 By Stephen Easton Community & Social When the Morrison government announced a 7% disability employment target for the Australian Public Service in May, it really meant that it aimed to have… Read more
Feds plan to join up government using computer science, on the way to service delivery ‘Nirvana’ Monday December 2, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology The federal government wants to create whole-of-government information technology architecture to underpin its ambitious plans to improve service delivery. Read more
SMEs take home more than one quarter of federal procurement contracts Monday November 25, 2019 By Shannon Jenkins Economy & Industry The value of federal government contracts going to small and medium enterprises has increased by almost 30%. Government procurement targets aim for at least 10%… Read more
Commonwealth adopts new procurement payment policy, encourages states to do the same Thursday November 7, 2019 By Shannon Jenkins Federal Commonwealth government agencies will soon be expected to pay e-Invoices to suppliers within five days, or else pay interest on late payments. Starting from January… Read more
‘The time has come’ for more centralised public service recruitment: Finance deputy secretary Thursday October 31, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Human resources is now the federal government's first formally recognised public service profession and a new centralised graduate recruitment program as a funnel into HR… Read more
Prizes for purchasing: there’s still time to enter the first ever APS procurement awards Wednesday October 9, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal There are now awards for federal public servants who feel they make the world a better place when they buy things, and they only have… Read more
Premium Insights and analysis Public servants tell harrowing tales of harassment after a mention in an FOI release. Their leaders want to shield them from the trolls, but anonymity comes with a price Wednesday September 25, 2019 By Stephen Easton Features The Australian government's guidelines for dealing with Freedom of Information requests help balance many of the competing interests that come with having a democratic, accountable… Read more
Australian public servants are uniting to demand a change to FOI guidelines Tuesday September 24, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Federal public service leaders want the official FOI guidelines changed to support their standard practice of shielding the names and contact details of staff below… Read more
PM asks APS to publish gift registers: News Corp achieves what the auditor-general could not Tuesday September 3, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology Prime Minister Scott Morrison has decided Australian Public Service agencies should publish their lists of gifts and benefits. Read more
New era of APS performance management: all staff and supervisors must pitch in Thursday July 25, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal APS commissioner Peter Woolcott has strengthened the obligations of all federal public servants with respect to their own performance, and those of managers at all… Read more
How about speaking normally? Jane Halton and Gordon de Brouwer on institutional trust Tuesday July 2, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal For institutions that need to rebuild public trust, “starting to speak normally" instead of in stiff bureaucratic language is a necessary step on the journey,… Read more
Cost recovery audit: APS still getting the hang of putting industry on the hook Thursday May 23, 2019 By Stephen Easton Case studies Setting prices for government services is not always a simple task but three federal agencies could still do a much better job of it, according… Read more
Federal Budget 2019: shared services and productivity Tuesday April 2, 2019 By Stephen Easton Economy & Industry The Australian Public Service is expected to save $17.3 million every year from 2019-20 onwards through shared corporate services, according to the budget, on top… Read more
How a WA department's graduate program came out on top of the nation Thursday March 21, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Australia's best public sector grad programs, indexed. Public sector agencies generally don’t do enough to explain what working in a government department is really like… Read more