Mike Pezzullo's colourful flourishes and penchant for using pop culture metaphors to describe the public service have earned him a certain level of celebrity and notoriety.

But the head honcho is looking to add a new title to his CV - a revolutionary.

In an IPAA event on Friday morning, Mr Pezzullo revealed he was a "revolutionary" when it came to his involvement on a board of the public service's most senior officials.

"Desirably, and, you know, Clare [Walsh from DFAT], that I'm the revolutionary in the secretaries board - I'm probably on the extreme," he said.

Specifically, he was talking about adopting more consistency across department products but we're sure our good comrade has other groundbreaking visions in store.

The secretaries board's membership consists of APS commissioner Peter Woolcott and public sector reform secretary Gordon de Brouwer among all the other department secretaries.

Unfortunately, the last meeting had no rousing speeches by Mr Pezzullo, according to the publicly available communique. But there is another meeting scheduled for mid-December and we eagerly await his possible uprising.

While the revolution won't be televised, it should be available in the form of meeting minutes within 10 to 15 business days. Viva Pezzullo?

Katy Gallagher may come to regret talking up how great transparency is for motivating public service organisations to do better.

We're certain FOI advocates will remember the Finance Minister's chat with IPAA ACT saying transparency must be a core part of APS business and urging all agencies to publish their employee census results, even if they show high levels of bullying.

The previous year, The Canberra Times spotted the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission was the most reluctant to publish its results, and only did so after we made inquiries.

It was immediately clear why it might not want the results seen by prospective hires with more than half its workers wanting to leave. Most departments have followed the minister's suggestion, but the Department of Defence is still holding out.

We've asked if they intend to, but no specifics yet.

The Home Affairs Department has officially updated its style guide following an embarrassing debacle over the use of a forbidden acronym.

In October, this column revealed a department staff member had erroneously sent an email containing an offensive acronym shortening "whole-of-government" to multicultural community members in Canberra.

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It stirred outrage and one of the recipients demanded an apology for the "provocative" usage, and called for a commitment to additional staff training.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has since written a letter to the community member, saying the department's style guide has been updated to include the use of "WofG" (pronounced double-u-of-gee) in future communications.

Its usage has been "reinforced" to the team responsible for the initial snafu, she added. And that's why style guides aren't just for grammar nerds.

Former US Navy secretary Donald Winter was among one of the big winners to arise from the AUKUS announcement last year.

The former advisor to ex-US president George Bush was engaged to provide the former Coalition government expert advice on sovereign naval shipbuilding capability, earning a tidy sum of more than a few million.

But due to being brought in by former prime minister Scott Morrison, there was a question mark over his ongoing involvement after the federal election.

That can now be cleared up.

In a recently published freedom of information request, Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Glyn Davis requested Mr Winter continue being on hand until the end of his contract, which expires at the end of 2023.

The public service head said the deal's expert advisory panel would remain the primary source of advice but Mr Winter's knowledge could become handy from time to time.

"From time to time, there may be specific activities or tasks that are better suited to your expertise than that of the Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel," Professor Davis wrote.

"This could be through my department or through Defence directly. In those instances, we look forward to the opportunity to work closely with you."

Winter isn't over yet.

Earlier this column reported the Department of Parliamentary Services pulled out of the APS-wide employee census, blasting the lengthy survey as "unpalatable" to its hard working staff who don't have hours to spare.

The parliamentary department's counterparts who run the Senate and House of Representatives, however, had their results published for the first time, despite not being part of the APS.

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Senate staff report being much happier at work than the public servants about town (83 per cent engagement), almost all think they're fairly paid (94 per cent) and would recommend working there to others (94 per cent).

The Reps staff responses - which look fantastic when compared to any APS department - come off just a little bit shabbier (75, 82 and 82 per cent, respectively) next to their red-leathered colleagues.

There's a new passport queue building up but it's not quite the one you've been hearing about preventing everyone's decadent European holidays.

Passport fraud referrals within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are averaging nearly one every two days.

In a recently answered question on notice, the department revealed there had been 77 referrals of fraud in total between the election and the end of September but 68 of them were specifically related to passports and 37 had been substantiated as fraud.

One of the six external fraud referrals had also been substantiated, resulting in $55 being returned. That's at least 10 coffees from the foyer cafe.

Have contractors in your agency been dumped suddenly following the election? Are you surprised to your agency's census results?

Email us at ps@canberratimes.com.au or send your tips and feedback through the form below.

Correction: The original version of this article stated the Department of Agriculture and DFAT had not published its APS employee census results when contacted by the Canberra Times. Both departments have since published the results on their website since the Canberra Times checked on Friday.