| Merit Protection Commissioner | |
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Boris Budak |
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Merit Protection Commissioner's report : Transmittal letter : Merit Protection Commissioner's review
Role, function and structure
Merit Protection Commissioner's review
TThe APS Values, articulated in the Public Service Act 1999 (the Act), provide a framework of enduring principles of good public administration. One of those values is that the APS provides a fair system of review of decisions taken in respect of APS employees—paragraph 10(1)(o) of the Act. A key part of the Merit Protection Commissioner’s role is to provide support for this value by providing independent external review of actions affecting individual APS employees.
The review system established under section 33 of the Act and the Public Service Regulations enables non-SES APS employees to apply for review of actions that relate to their employment. Except in the case of promotion decisions, where the decision of a Promotion Review Committee (PRC) is binding on the relevant agency head, after reviewing an action or decision the Merit Protection Commissioner will make a recommendation to the agency head who is required to advise of their decision on the recommendation and the reasons for that decision.
As in previous years, in 2006–07 virtually all recommendations made by the Merit Protection Commissioner were accepted in full by the relevant agency heads.
Information on the number of applications for review during the year, their subject matter and discussion of trends is provided under ‘Analysis of performance’. Compared with previous years, the numbers of individual cases have decreased in most categories. In particular, there was a significant reduction in the number of PRCs. This may, in part, have been due to more agencies recognising advantages of using Independent Selection Advisory Committees (ISACs), especially in large-scale staff selection exercises. The current active labour market conditions may also have a bearing in this respect.
On the other hand, the number of completed fee-for-service activities, other than ISACs, was higher than in 2005–06. Selection work for the Australian Federal Police, undertaken under a Memorandum of Understanding, continues to be the main fee–for–service activity conducted on behalf of the Merit Protection Commissioner.
Significant work continued throughout the year with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), in supporting aspects of their Workforce Availability Initiative. This included presentations by the Merit Protection Commissioner and Acting Merit Protection Commissioner to the Executive and senior staff of the ATO and to a joint meeting of the ATO and staff associations. ISACs, utilising innovative selection methodologies supported by third party industry providers, were established in the ATO for a number of waves of major national recruitment exercises. Initial indicators are that these processes have saved considerable cost and time and enabled more efficient placement of successful candidates. Work is continuing on these methodologies to continue to improve the candidate experience.
During the year, the Merit Protection Commissioner addressed several APS agencies and other government organisations, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Defence, the ATO, the Australian Federal Police and students of the Australian National University. He presented at a number of APS development programmes and conferences, hosted events and provided information to international delegations or officials from Indonesia, Chile, Vietnam, Thailand and the Pacific Islands on his role and that of the Australian Public Service Commission generally.
Recently, the Acting Merit Protection Commissioner addressed the 2007 National Administrative Law Forum. The speech focused on the Merit Protection Commissioner’s role in external review of employment-related actions or decisions in the APS as part of the statutory framework designed to uphold values-based management and decision making by APS managers.
The National Public Sector Appeals Conference, held in Adelaide between 20–22 September 2006, was attended by the Adviser to the Merit Protection Commissioner and the Regional Director, South Australia. The conference is held annually and provides an opportunity for the exchange of views by senior Commonwealth, State and Territory public sector representatives engaged in external review of employment-related decisions.
A review of timeliness targets was conducted at the start of the financial year. Among other things, the review analysed the: basis on which previous targets were set; performance against those targets; reasons advanced for not meeting those targets; how review work was performed and benchmarks and quality targets of like review agencies. The outcome of the review was agreement on new targets and a new benchmark of 70 per cent of cases to be completed within those targets. In addition there was agreement on the implementation of new business and governance processes to better reflect delays that were outside the control of the Merit Protection Commissioner. Given the new target times and governance processes, it is difficult to benchmark performance against previous years. Nevertheless, it is pleasing to note that there has been an improvement in the average time to complete cases in all review categories (Tables M1 and M1.1).
Late in the year, a decision of the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia in Walworth v Merit Protection Commissioner & Anor [2007] FMCA 24 (23 February 2007) had a general impact on the conduct of reviews by the Merit Protection Commissioner of cases involving breaches of the APS Code of Conduct. The case is referred to again later in this report.
I have continued the practice of including case studies to illustrate the more significant issues encountered during the year. The four case studies in question can be found at the end of this report.
Outlook
In 2007–08 there will continue to be a focus on improving the quality of review activities. Also, as mentioned in previous reports, work will continue on providing information on APS employee review rights and the Merit Protection Commissioner will continue to perform activities associated with education about his role and functions.
