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Last updated: 22 December 2004
Ongoing employment – Recruitment and related issues
Please note: This document is no longer current and is provided for reference purposes only.
Stage 1: Preparatory Work
Step 5. Is opportunity open to all members of the community?
In general, an employment opportunity that may result in an engagement, or promotion of an ongoing APS employee, should be open to all eligible members of the community.
In deciding whether to restrict access, an agency must take into account the APS Value which requires reasonable opportunity for all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment opportunities (section 10(1)(m)). There are two circumstances in which an Agency Head can restrict community access:
- an employment opportunity may be identified as open only to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants or to people with an intellectual disability where this is consistent with Commonwealth discrimination legislation (Directions 4.2(1), 4.2(6) and 4.6A(7)). Agencies should refer to the Commission's website for more information
- an employment opportunity may be restricted to APS employees, if the Agency Head decides that it is necessary on the grounds of cost or operational efficiency. Opportunities with restricted access on the grounds of cost or operational efficiency are marked in the Gazette with a clover symbol (♣).
Agencies should note that if the employment opportunity is a training classification or an APS1 or similar classification, access cannot be restricted to APS employees on any grounds.
When an Agency Head decides to restrict access to an employment opportunity to APS employees on the basis of cost or operational efficiency, there are groups of people who are still eligible to apply. These groups include:
- employees in certain non-APS agencies
- staff in the Parliamentary Service
- parents seeking engagement after resigning for child-rearing purposes
- certain people formerly covered by the Part IV mobility provisions of the repealed Public Service Act 1922
- a non-ongoing APS employee employed at the time of the Gazette notification.
A full list of these groups can be found at Appendix B which reproduces Schedule 2 to the Directions.
