Capability and leadership

The Australian Public Service is increasingly innovative in its approaches to developing capability and investing in leadership.

There are many and varied ways for talented and motivated people to join the APS and build rewarding and successful careers. Pathway programs and traineeships present options for joining the APS to serve the Australian Government and the Australian community.

Once in the APS, employees have unique opportunities to undertake important and interesting work in one or more agencies and locations, developing and sharing their knowledge, skills and experience across their career.

APS Professions continue to build the specialist capability of the APS, currently supporting over 25,000 human resources, digital and data professionals. The professions of procurement and contract management, evaluation, and complex project management are being added in 2024–25 to improve public administration.

The APS Academy promotes a continuous learning culture across the public service, using a networked model to partner with agencies, academia and non-APS partners to build capability across government. The APS Academy currently focuses on uplifting capability in leadership, integrity, partnerships and engagement, and policy design and implementation.

The APS Strategic Commissioning Framework was released in October 2023. It sets the expectation that core roles and functions will be delivered by APS employees, reducing reliance on external contractors and consultants, and building in-house capability.

The APS continues to build workforce planning capability to address skills gaps across the service. An APS Data, Digital and Cyber Workforce Plan is being developed to support the vision outlined in the Data and Digital Government Strategy and the Australian Cyber Security Strategy.

Australian Government Consulting is delivering services to APS clients across strategic policy, organisational performance, and process optimisation projects. It is strengthening APS capability to deliver projects that would otherwise be outsourced.

The Australian Centre for Evaluation began operating in July 2023. It aims to improve the volume, quality and use of evaluation evidence and embed a culture of evaluation across the Australian government.

Individual APS agencies, and multi-agency collaborations like the Digital Atlas of Australia, are building and sharing specialised data expertise with government, industry and community organisations. This supports evidence-based insights and decision-making across Australia.

Investments in leadership are having a positive impact. Assessments of almost 450 APS leaders by the Secretaries Talent Council and Deputy Secretaries Talent Council indicate that participants are becoming increasingly self-aware, collaborative and inclusive. Building on this success, there is now a strong focus on developing a pipeline of First Nations leaders for the APS.

A leader’s behaviour sets the tone and creates the psychological safety necessary for frank and fearless advice and high performance. A key feature of the new Senior Executive Service Performance Leadership Framework is the principle that behaviours are as important as outcomes.

The Capability Review Program published 5 reviews in 2023–24. These reviews give agency heads the information they need to improve their agency’s readiness. They facilitate discussions around an organisation’s desired future state, highlighting strengths and identifying organisational capability gaps.

Ten Capability Reinvestment Fund (CRF) Round 1 projects involving 14 APS agencies were completed in 2023–24, and 9 Round 2 projects involving 24 APS agencies were selected to start 2024–25. The CRF supports the development and implementation of scalable and impactful activities that help all agencies to better prepare for current and future challenges.