'The APS is not some enclave', says former commissioner John Lloyd says

The Thodey review recommended the public service move to consolidate hundreds of different wage scales and work arrangements.

There are currently more than 100 enterprise agreements in force across the Australian Public Service, covering around 150,000 staff.

It means an APS level 5 executive assistant at the Australian Government Solicitor earns almost $18,000 less than they would in the same job at the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

It also means a graduate at Geoscience Australia earns about $12,000 more than they would if they worked at Comcare.

"These changes will remove complexity, improve efficiency and mobility, and support employees better across a united service," the review said.

But the Morrison government rejected the recommendation on advice from the Secretaries Board.

In its formal response to the review, released on the same day, it said current policies around pay and conditions were working well.

"Employees and agencies are agreeing to new enterprise agreements or productivity-based pay rises on existing terms and conditions, in an efficient and effective manner," the government's said.

READ MORE:

Another former Public Service Commissioner, Australian National University Professor Andrew Podger told The Canberra Times last week he didn't know if anyone in the public service thought that was the case.

"We all know it causes problems for mobility," Professor Podger said.

But Mr Lloyd said a move to common pay would be completely unworkable.

"The APS is not some enclave that should be divorced from workplace relations reality," Mr Lloyd said.

"We have an entrenched bargaining system in place that delivers modern enterprise agreements. APS employers, like most other employers in Australia, have to bargain and engage with their employees on pay and working conditions.

"Some of the commentary about the difficulties posed by differential pay and conditions is nonsense. It is often pedalled by people longing for a return to a past era when the workplace relations system was markedly different.

"Also, the differential pay and conditions train has well and truly left the station. The workplace relations challenges of returning to common scales would be extremely protracted and would itself create much disharmony."

Mr Lloyd also said the current processes to hire and fire departmental secretaries were "sensible" and "pass the pub test".

The Thodey review said there needed to be more transparency about leadership appointments and terminations in order to build trust in the public service and ensure confidence in agency heads.

The government rejected this, again on the advice of the secretaries board, saying the current process "works effectively".

It came a week after five departmental secretaries were sacked, when the number of government departments was consolidated from 18 to 14.

"These people are in highly paid, very responsible jobs," Mr Lloyd said.

"Like anybody at that level, whether they're in the public or private sector, there's no guarantee of permanent tenure."

On the public service restructure, Mr Lloyd said: "The government appropriately retains the right to structure departments as it sees fits."

"What's happened here is no different from a takeover in the private sector," Mr Lloyd said.

Mr Lloyd was surprised the long-awaited public service review did not delve more into the structural problems in the Commonwealth bureaucracy.

He said there were "boundary issues" with some corporate regulators that created confusion in the corporate world.

Mr Lloyd, a former director of the work reform and productivity unit in the Institute of Public Affairs and Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, was public service commissioner from 2014 to 2018.

During his time in the job, he advocated for a new public service workforce, predicting traditional hierarchical structures and union consultation will go, while "on-demand workers" and flexibility were the way of the future.

He left the role amid a possible investigation into his connections to the right-wing thinktank. He now works part time for Victorian Liberal Leader Michael O'Brien.