The APS classification system structures could operate more effectively by:

- having minimum formal qualifications for each APS levels and minimum staff supervision quotas in place. There are too many APS 6 in comparison to APS 5 staff members, who are responsible for delivering work along with their APS 5 teams.

- Ensuring KPIs are adhered to and accountability is a requirement, particularly for APS 6 and above. There are so many examples of failures in position performance that go without any disciplinary action or performance improvement plans. The below APS classifications fix up these failures repeatedly and it affects morale.

I think that the APS - wide classification system is the only way to ensure transparency in wage structures across the levels of responsibility and demonstrate gender equality in wages.

To what extent do you think of your role in terms of your classification, and how does that affect your work? In the last 18 months our group went through a restructure. The staff members involved in providing input into the restructure all had APS 6 and above levels assigned to their speciality, except mine. I was not invited to participate in the representative group in this process. I did provide feedback in a group meeting on the restructure that went nowhere. My speciality was literally the only speciality that had no career progression attached above APS 5. After questioning why only my specialty had no progression above APS 5, the answer was "we never even used to have this specialty as a position 20 years ago". My role is a national role with national program accountability. I am responsible for delivering diagnostics with a national focus for the department, developing and implementing national scientific trials directly used for the development of policy; collect, manage and deliver and communicate scientific data and findings for enforcement operations prepare papers for EL2 level management to submit to SES, FAS etc.; deliver training etc. I have honours qualifications in science with additional certification in specialist topics, formal diploma qualifications in project management and over a decade of experience managing multidisciplinary teams, ensuring quality control systems in place etc. In contrast, my new supervisor has none of this experience, was offered her role off a merit list that she didn’t apply for. I was told it would be too time consuming to advertise externally so she was offered the role. She has no experience in her new role and after twelve months, still hadn’t delivered any APS 6 level work in relation the new role. In fact I was asked by this person and my EL1, to perform various functions of her APS 6 level role (in addition to my APS 5 role) because I had the experience in these areas and she needed to learn how to do it all. The responsibility attached to my role are easily APS 6 level, but due to the way the group has been structured, there is no opportunity for career advancement at all. My new APS 6 supervisor also has never supervised anyone before and clearly needs training in multiple areas, and has only one staff member to supervise. This is a glaring fault of the system.

COVID 19 hasn’t brought about any positive changes to my position. Others in the group (including staff delivering technical roles such as myself) are regularly working WAFO post COVID lockdowns. During the lockdowns, I consistently delivered remote diagnostics and routine work, as well as working directly at the border handling high risk produce and cargo for diagnostics and risk assessments. I received excellent feedback on this work. I large part of my role comprises remote diagnostics nationally for first points of entries across Australia. Recently I requested to WAFO for two hours to perform remote diagnostics for a national enforcement operation. My new supervisor told me remote diagnostics wasn’t an essential part of my role and I had to reschedule that work for the following week – even though this duty is written into my job description. This delay has affected data delivery for enforcement operations and I have had to since work overtime to deliver this work in time for compliance visits. There are many examples like this where poor decision-making and falling back on old ways of working puts the department backwards and makes it far less efficient than it could be. There are so many examples like this. Where we are denied performing routine business functions efficiently to the detriment of the business goals. This is not innovation or new ways of working, but are examples of what not to do. The APS levels should have efficient ways of working as prescribed KPIs.

How can the APS classification structure best support the attraction and development of technical and specialist skills, for example data, digital and cyber expertise?- provide minimum classification levels for specialist, skilled staff.

-focus on attraction and retention of specialist staff by prescribing minimum professional development quota requirements annually.

- provide flexibility in delivery of the roles.

- allow specialists to deliver special issue projects in line with business goals that are communicated externally to promote the work of the department.