The public sector union hit back saying the government had failed to the take seriously the urgent need to improve working conditions and lift public sector wages, which have fallen behind inflation and other sectors over the decade.

The survey, sent this week by the Australian Public Service Commission team working on harmonising a standard set of conditions across federal government workplaces, asked employees to name their top five most-wanted conditions.

Respondents could choose just five personal priorities from a supplied list of 15 conditions, each long considered staples of public sector workplaces to make the government careers competitive with the private sector.

Public servants were also asked to identify five conditions they think should be standard for all employees across the APS.

The survey is one point of consultation, a spokeswoman for Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said. There will be two components to the APS bargaining.

The first aims to improve equality in pay and conditions across the APS. Some agencies have conditions far behind others and could take several cycles of bargaining to catch-up to the level of other agencies.

The second will be agency-level bargaining, where agencies will negotiation their own terms suited to their agency after APS bargaining is complete, the spokeswoman said.

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The public sector union urged the government to commence the enterprise bargaining process.

Melissa Donnelly, the CPSU national secretary said the union had been consulting its members over many months to establish a claim which is near being finalised, and recognised the APSC survey as a part of the government's internal processes in preparing for the upcoming bargaining.

"What the survey fails to capture, is urgency - the need for bargaining to commence without delay so that the process of rebuilding the APS by lifting wages and improving working conditions can commence as soon as possible," Ms Donnelly said.

"We know APS employees are finding rising cost of living pressures tough and want to see real pay increases as soon as possible."

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While election campaigning, Labor had made solid commitments around being a model employer and lifting wages, she said.

"The CPSU is ready to help them get to work on fulfilling both of those promises but can't do so until bargaining commences."

The APSC has been consulting for the upcoming bargaining for the past four months.

Deputy public service commissioner Peter Riordan wrote to public servants in the latest round of consultations seeking "views and priorities" by Friday, February 3.

He reminded employees that this process was part of the initial steps to "reduce pay fragmentation across the APS".

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