The public servants' union has long campaigned to abolish the more than 100 wage agreements in place and replace them with a single salary classification structure.

The existing system allows one public servant to be paid up to $30,000 more than another at the same level in a different agency.

A Community and Public Sector Union submission to the Government last year pointed out that, in some cases, an APS level 4 officer could be promoted to an APS5 position in another workplace, but be paid $5000 a year less.

Ms Gillard told senior union delegates yesterday she could not yet reveal what decisions she had made about rectifying the problem.

But ''the Government is interested in streamlining current APS bargaining arrangements''.

''I believe that agency-level bargaining has led to significant productivity improvements over time and that this is the most flexible approach for agencies to bargain terms and conditions of employment with their employees that suit the needs of the agency's operations. However, the Government is keen to look at APS wages and classification issues more broadly.''

A review of the public service, headed by Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Terry Moran is expected to publish this month its plan to overhaul the bureaucracy's personnel policies.

For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.