Mr Lloyd was a controversial appointee from the moment Tony Abbott gave him the job. Although he is a career bureaucrat, he has long been associated with conservative politics; many of his senior promotions were the result of Coalition governments appointing him directly. As John Howard's building industry watchdog, he took an unashamedly hard line against unions. In his current role, he questioned long-held public service tenets, particularly security of employment, and openly opposed freedom of information law.

The head of the public servants' union, Nadine Flood, is hardly an objective observer. Nonetheless, the tone of her extraordinary farewell to Mr Lloyd, who will resign in August, is a sign of his impact on public administration. Ms Flood said Mr Lloyd had debased his office, misled a Senate inquiry, repeatedly attacked the public service, "used his position to promote his ideological preoccupations" and was unfit for the job.

It's little wonder there is so much interest in a complaint made against Mr Lloyd, about five months ago, alleging he had breached the public service code of conduct – a statutory code he oversees. The complainant's identity remains private, as do details of the alleged breach. That hasn't stopped many people from assuming it relates to allegations, raised in the Senate earlier this year, that Mr Lloyd used his office's resources to carry out work for the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing thinktank of which he is a member.

Mr Lloyd told Parliament this week that he first learned of the complaint against him after he had informed the government he intended to resign. There is no reason to disbelieve this, despite innuendo, echoed in the Senate, that he is being "forced out" of his job.

Nonetheless, it is deeply worrying that acting merit protection commissioner Mark Davidson took so long to deal with the complaint. The possibility now exists that the ensuing investigation might not conclude before Mr Lloyd leaves his job, by when the investigation, if it is still ongoing, would need to be cancelled.

This would damage the reputations of the government, Mr Davidson and Mr Lloyd. Regardless of the seriousness of Mr Lloyd's alleged misconduct, or the likelihood of a finding against him, there is a strong public interest in resolving this matter urgently. The office of the public service commissioner cannot be seen to operate outside of the law it oversees. It would open the government to charges of hypocrisy, especially given that the law was changed recently to allow similar misconduct investigations against lower-level public servants to go ahead even if they did resign.

Did the government learn anything from its farcical handling of allegations against then Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg last year, who was forced to wait nine months for a finding? The Lloyd affair's conclusion, or lack thereof, will tell us much.