The employee census collects information on important workforce issues, such as job satisfaction, employee engagement, performance management, leadership, and general impressions of the APS. 

The APSC has legislative responsibility to report to Parliament each year on the 'state of the APS'. Findings from the APS employee census provide vital input to the State of the Service report by capturing insight into employee views about the APS, their agency and their workplace. Currently, the APSC releases APS-wide results through the State of the Service report as well as publishing de-identified employee census data on data.gov.au.

You can find further information about the APS Employee Census on the APSC website.

In April 2020, the Secretaries Board agreed in principle to facilitate voluntary public release of agency-level APS employee census results. The Secretaries viewed the public release as a way to:

• increase transparency and accountability of people management in the APS;
• improve employee perceptions of being heard; and
• contribute to a stronger culture of acting on results.

If you are planning to analyse data from our employee census results, we encourage you to consider it in context. The APS is composed of more than 100 agencies of varying sizes and functions. Similar agency sizes and functions should be taken into account when comparing data. More information on interpreting, benchmarking and comparing agency-level results is available on the Australian Public Service Commission website.