Appendix 3: Evaluation methodology
During 2004–05, the Commission conducted an evaluation on agencies’ workplace diversity programmes as part of its evaluation programme. Information on the evaluation methodology used is provided below.
Evaluation of agencies’ workplace diversity programmes
The evaluation of APS agencies’ workplace diversity programmes was aimed at assessing how effectively the statutory requirements for workplace diversity programmes, as set out in Chapter 3 of the Directions, have been incorporated into written programmes.
All agencies were assessed in relation to the requirements to establish and review their workplace diversity programme, and to provide a copy of their workplace diversity programme to the Commissioner (clauses 3.3 to 3.6 of the Directions). However, the degree of specificity of Chapter 3 of the Directions is such as to make it impractical, given the Commission’s limited resources, to evaluate every APS agency against each aspect of the requirements. Therefore, only a sample of agencies were examined against the criteria relating to the measures required to be included in written workplace diversity programmes (as outlined in clause 3.3 of the Directions).
For the purpose of the evaluation, agencies were regarded as ‘within scope’ if they participated in the 2004 agency survey, but had not been included in the 2004 workplace diversity programme evaluation (see State of the Service Report 2003–04).1 The sample included nine large, eight medium and seven small agencies (AAT, ABS, AEC, AHL, AIATSIS, AusAID, AUSTRAC, Centrelink, Comcare, CSA, Defence, DEH, DEWR, DFAT, DITR, DVA, EOWA, Ombudsman, Family Court of Australia, Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, HREOC, NLA, NNTT and PM&C).
Assessment of the workplace diversity programme of each agency in the sample included cross-referencing to relevant data from APSED and, in the case of large agencies, from the 2004 employee survey. This data was used as a point of comparison between the rhetoric of the written workplace diversity programme and the reality of the agency’s workforce.
1 Australian Public Service Commission, State of the Service Report 2003–04, 2004, <http://www.apsc.gov.au>
