Chapter 3.4 Workforce Growth

Employment Growth

At 30 June 2019, the ACTPS comprised 23,208 employees. Employment, based on headcount, has experienced another year of growth with a 4.4 per cent increase or 978 employees during the  2018-19 reporting year. Full-time equivalent (FTE) employment also increased by 4.4 per cent, or 862.5 FTE over the same period. At 4.4 per cent, employment growth exceeds that of the general Australian labour force (employment growth of 2.6 per cent during 2018-19) over the same period.

While the ACTPS increased by 978 employees, 79.1 per cent of the total workforce were permanent, 17.5 per cent were temporary and 3.4 per cent were casual employees at the end of the reporting year. Table 3 displays ACTPS employment growth by directorate for the June 2018 to June 2019 period.

Table 4 below displays employment growth by classification groups. As shown, employment growth has been recorded in the vast majority of ACTPS classification groups. The largest percentage growth has been seen in the following classification groups: Ambulance Support Officers at 27.1 per cent, Transport Officers at 23 per cent, Judicial Officers at 21.4 per cent and Dentists/Dental Officers at 18.8 per cent.

Contractor Central – Contingent Labour System

In addition to the public sector employees, the ACT Government uses a contingent workforce management arrangement.

Contractor Central was introduced in April 2017 and is the Territory’s system for engaging contingent labour services utilising the NSW Government Contingent Workforce arrangement scheme. Comensura is the head contractor for the provision of this service supported by Fieldglass as the Vendor Management System provider.

The scheme makes it easier for all suppliers to do business with the Territory, including improving access by small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to Government goods and services procurement and assisting in reducing red tape.

The scheme acts as a simple, streamlined process for suppliers and allows the Territory access to greater choice, better leverage of the available talent pool and access to a supplier performance management framework which includes satisfaction reviews, invoicing accuracy, response times and system data collection requirements.

The scheme currently has 57 prequalified suppliers and is taking an average 18 days to fill a position. The top four worker categories being filled are IT Applications Database and Systems, IT Management Implementation and Support, administration and industry/trade.

During the 2018-19 reporting year, there were a total of:

• 633 individual contractors engaged;
• 129 business units engaged;
• 229 hiring managers engaged;
• 27 suppliers engaged;
• 673 job postings approved;
• 869 work orders created; and
• 20 suppliers have had active workers.

During this period, Contractor Central has delivered net savings to the Territory of $3.85 million.

Salary Growth

The average salary of the ACTPS was $94,406 at June 2019. This is 3.7 per cent higher than the previous reporting year when the average salary was $91,046 at June 2018. The ACTPS average salary is coincidently the same as the average salary of an individual in the ACT labour force ($94,406 at May 2019^[3]), and approximately $9,000 higher than the average salary of an individual in the Australian labour force ($85,282 at May 2019^[4]).

A five year average salary growth chart for the various diversity groups can be viewed at Graph 5 in section 2.3, Gender profile.

Salary growth amongst all diversity groups remained broadly similar during the reporting year. The most significant increase in this area was for employees identifying as people with disability. At  June 2019 the average salary of employees with disability was $95,276, an increase of 4.5 per cent since June 2018.

The average salary of female employees ($93,911) continues to be slightly under that of the average ACTPS salary, a trend that is likely attributable to the proportionally larger number of female employees choosing part time work across the ACTPS.

Meanwhile, the average salary of employees identifying as Culturally and Linguistically Diverse increased by 3.7 per cent over the reporting year. At June 2019 the average salary of employees identifying as Culturally and Linguistically Diverse was $90,465.

From June 2018 to June 2019, the average salary of employees identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander increased by 3.5 per cent from $82,798 to $85,657.

Table 5 provides an overview of ACTPS appointments and promotions from July 2014 to June 2019. The total number of appointments/promotions/transfers for the period 2018-19 has increased to 4,716 from the previous year of 3,444. Of this, appointments from a permanent transfer or promotion has had the highest proportion at 34.9 per cent. This was an increase of 7.6 per cent from the previous year.

During 2018-19, appointments from external applicants and promotion from Higher Duties Allowance were consistent with previous years.  A promotion from HDA occurs where an employee receiving a HDA is promoted into that position or into a different permanent position with the ACTPS following a recruitment process. From June 2018 to June 2019, appointments from temporary contracts reduced by 6.4 per cent, that is, the number of employees who held a temporary contract and were appointed to a permanent position with the ACTPS. During the same period the number of employees who received a permanent transfer or promotion increased by 7.6 per cent.

^[1] On 1 October 2018, ACT Health split into two organisations, Canberra Health Services and ACT Health Directorate.

^[2] On 1 October 2018, ACT Health split into two organisations, Canberra Health Services and ACT Health Directorate.

^[3] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 6302.0 Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, May 2019.

^[4] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 6302.0 Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, May 2019.