Revised capability review framework coming in weeks

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A revised capability review framework will be published in the coming weeks, according to an APSC spokesperson.

The revised framework was focused on engagement standards and how departments should engage with their stakeholders.

“We’re looking at — how do we benchmark departments and agencies to international standards of engagement,” APS commissioner Gordon de Brouwer told a Governance Institute of Australia conference earlier this week.

An APSC spokesperson told The Mandarin the APS currently “has an existing framework for engagement and participation, which is closely aligned to methodologies such as IAP2”.

Thus far in the pilot program, capability reviews for the APSC and the Department of Health and Aged Care have been published.

The APSC review called for “careful workforce planning” within the commission, while Health’s outlined the department’s challenges in a post-pandemic world.

Two more are underway: one on the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts and another on the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

APSC will continue to refine the framework throughout the pilot to reflect lessons learned from reviews.

“We will publish an updated version in the coming weeks that draws on the first three reviews,” the spokesperson said.

One of the amendments to the Public Service Act was to legislate for capability reviews. The amendments were recently recommended to become law by the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee.

The committee has asked the government why capability reviews are not required for every APS agency.

It has also called for documents related to the reviews to be tabled in parliament alongside documents related to long-term insights reports and action plans.

Coalition senators will seek to amend the bill so ministers are consulted as part of the capability reviews.

Capability reviews were run regularly seven years ago, from 2011 to 2016. Bringing them back was one of the Thodey recommendations.