Liberal Senator Gary Humphries is crying his crocodile tears for the Department of Climate Change where sackings have commenced:
ACT Labor have again found themselves in a web of dishonesty following the first round of forced redundancies being announced by the Department of Climate Change yesterday.
In an all-staff meeting, Department Secretary Blair Comley announced job cuts [...]

So with the news in the Budget that APS jobs are on the block again I was wondering if anyone out there knows how to calculate (even roughly) what payout one might get from an APS VR.
It would be good to get an idea of the potential payout before making it known that one is [...]

I have been looking for a new job in the IT field as the writing is on the wall for the one I have now. The new game seems to be contracting. No more solid walk in jobs based on years of experience. So, I dressed up and went to pimp myself and my skills [...]

In an article featured in Crikey today, the downfalls to the ‘efficiency dividend’ announced in December by Finance Minister Penny Wong are discussed. While the cuts were only from 1.5% to 4%, as the online questionnaire sent to 1000 Community and Public Sector Union delegates shows, a little goes a long way.
An online questionnaire [...]

For some years we’ve thrilled to the tales of the public servant who pulled a local while on a work trip to the country and monstered the hotel room fittings to the point a light came down on her face leading to a Comcare claim.
Comcare said no, the AAT said no, but five years later [...]

One of the most difficult things for an outsider to grasp about the APS is the complex system that determines staff recruitment and advancement through the ordinary ranks of the public service.  Anyone who has spent any time in the APS will soon become familiar with the two mechanisms used to manage that system – [...]

Hi Rioters!
So I work in a large agency, and have done for the 4 years of my time here in Canberra.
I recently stunned myself by being found the least-worst candidate for a position in a small agency. The position comes with a significant pay rise but I’d have to leave a place where is honestly [...]

Crikey has a cheerful analysis on why the public service will continue to grow:
While stories about staff cuts are attention-grabbing, we should also take into account that there will be other some other areas of the public service that will grow.
We already know, for example, that Ausaid is to expand enormously, with (roughly) a [...]

The ABC reports that the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency needs to downsize from 900 to about 600 staff to meet the demands of its budget.
Anyone else suddenly much happier with their job this morning?
[Photo by KaiChanVong CC BY 2.0]

The NCA are moving in on the acres of free parking around Barton enjoyed by our nation’s public servants.
The National Capital Authority (NCA) will commence upgrade works to the State Circle, Brisbane Avenue and Windsor Walk car parks in Barton on 2 April 2012.
The modifications will formalise the Windsor Walk car park and inhibit the [...]

It’s funny how different APS agencies have their own little idiosyncrasies.
I’ve experienced a few of them, but am possibly moving to a new job at the Dept of Finance, and would be interested to know what to expect?
So, what’s it like?

G’day,
I have a question for all the Public service Riot readers out there.  Is working for the APS really equal opportunity in regards to having a disability?  More specifically a mental illness?  A friend of mine is attempting to gain employment as an APS 1 or 2 but she is not sure whether to disclose the fact [...]

Markus Mannheim in the Canberra Times has an interesting story on a pretty major crackdown in the public service on tweeting and blogging by public service employees.
The commission’s head of ethics, Karin Fisher, said bureaucrats had the same right to freedom of expression as other citizens.
But that right was ”subject to legitimate public interests, [...]

Division and branch names in the public service are pretty bureacratic and standardised, such that they often have no meaning at all. I worked at a Department that had a ‘Strategy’ branch and a ‘Strategic Policy’ branch, for example (on different floors obviously).
But when you get down to team/section level, people start to get creative [...]

ANU are claiming to have the answers to transforming the Public Service!
The ANU Crawford School, the University of Canberra and the University of New South Wales have joined forces with the Australian Public Service Commission in a new project which will strengthen staff performance.
Together they will develop a strategy to build a high performance culture, [...]

The Daily Telegraph is incensed with the rising wages of the top end of the public service:
Now comes shock news of further federal government largesse, this time directed towards Canberra’s ever-expanding top tier of public servants, some of whom will now haul in annual salaries beyond $700,000.
Once public service pay hits the half-million mark, surely [...]

What are the ins and outs of the moves?
[ED - The Prime Minister's reshuffle has been announced. We'd value reader insights as to what it means for the public service here in Canberra.]

The Federal government over the last 5 years has gradually increased its spending on internal video production units. The small production industry, (yes, there is an industry here in Canberra – but largest on a per-capita basis) is starting to feel the pain from the decrease in video production outsourcing by government departments.
Some departments are [...]

With no apparent trace of irony the local Liberals’ Brendan Smyth taking to the barricades to protest cuts to the public service:
The Canberra Liberals will today call on ACT Labor to stand up for the Canberra community and publicly denounce Federal Labor’s plan to sack Commonwealth public servants. ACT Shadow Treasurer Brendan Smyth said Katy [...]

Filed under “Timing could have been better”: here is an email I’ve been forwarded, that Zoo decided to send out to its federal government clients, letting everyone know how they plan to spend a tiny bit of their profit margin pimped off the taxpayer, JUST as news of the budget cuts and efficiency squeeze [...]

Liberal Senator Gary Humphries is saying that Labor is duplicitous.
Senator Humphries says that while Labor Finance Minister Penny Wong refused to rule out involuntary redundancies, another Labor Senator, Kate Lundy, said there would be no forced redundancies.
“The best Senator Wong could come up with was a ‘strong expectation’ that there would be no forced redundancies. [...]

The excellent Annabel Crabb has been tweeting from Penny Wong’s MYEFO press conference and brings the bad news that an extra efficiency dividend will be hitting the public service.
Here are the tweets:
– Penny Wong has confirmed a one-off EXTRA efficiency dividend across the public service next year – 2.5 per cent.
– That is additional [...]

I’m interested to hear from Rioters whether this is unusual in the APS:
– Our AS has organised for my broader branch team to have two lunches.
– There’s a “director’s lunch” at an expensive restaurant,
– and there’s a “peasant’s lunch” for the rest of the branch at a cheap restaurant which the [...]

I have been applying for government positions in different agencies over the last year. I’ve made it through to interview stage a few times now, but seem to stumble at this last hurdle.
The interview situation brings me quite unstuck and the whole thing seems to fall to bits. As you can imagine the more often [...]

The Herald Sun has a story on the $15 million bill to media monitoring firms to allow departments to keep an eagle eye on a limited number of keywords used in the declining mainstream media.
If the value of staff time put into collating, disseminating, and absorbing this stuff was added on it would be a [...]

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Commonwealth Ombudsman is in the process of resigning over his ill advised estimates collusion with Greens’ Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
Emails released last week showed he had written questions for the Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young about the conditions inside immigration detention centres and the lack of funding that prevented [...]

Liberal Senator Gary Humphries has announced his discovery of plans to cut jobs at the Health Department:
A response to a question on notice from the Minister for Health and Ageing tabled in the Senate today has revealed that the Department of Health and Ageing is to shed 420 jobs next financial year.
The response says that [...]

The SMH has an excellent article on the scope of corruption in the Public Service and the lack of mechanisms to properly investigate it.
RiotACT has long lamented the lack of a dedicated corruption fighting body in the ACT and it seems the less savoury types have also noticed.
The SMH is looking for more stories and [...]

Who thinks it fair and equitable that after many, many years of successful, fun and safe Christmas Partying, our Govt Dept Executives have now banned our Dept. Christmas Party, to be replaced with an End of Year party?
At this gathering there will be no Christmas decorations, no Santa, no carols, no bons bons, no plum pudding, [...]

I’m hoping the RA brains trust can answer a question for me.
I retired from the APS about 5 years (hence the moniker) and am currently in receipt of a Comsuper pension.
I have recently applied for a casual APS job and have been told I need to have an AGS number.
 Am I able to re-use my [...]

The ABC is carrying a call from Senator Nick Xenophon for thousands of public servants to make good on what super they can get.
A Senate committee recently completed an inquiry into claims that public servants were wrongly told they could not join the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme.
One union alone – the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance [...]

The Centre for Policy Development have released their “alternative report” on the state of the Australian Public Service.
Contrary to assertions that APS staff levels have ‘exploded’, there are now approximately as many people employed in APS agencies as there were in 1990, despite the Australian population growing by more than 16%. Following the retrenchment of [...]