Australian public service commissioner stephen sedgwick

box m7: advice to agencies to assist in the conduct of promotion reviews

providing documents to applicants

The information supplied by the agency to the promotion review committee (PRC) relating to the original selection decision should also be made available by the agency to the parties to the promotion review. This assists the parties to the review in making a statement to the PRC setting out their claims for promotion.

As statements are due with the PRC within 14 days after the closing date for making applications, agencies need to provide access to the selection documents relating to parties within the 14-day period. Generally, access to information may only be given to candidates who are a party to the promotion review.

If there are delays in providing access to this material, it is important that the agency informs the office of the Merit Protection Commissioner of the delay and the reasons for it.

The type of information which needs to be made available includes:

• the selection report or other document that explains the recruitment decision, including a comparative assessment of applicants

• evidence in relation to the standard of work performance and personal qualities of the parties to the review, including results of any tests and referee reports

• statements of parties to the review addressing the selection criteria.

Agencies are advised to consider including in selection guidance material notification that selection advisory committee documents should be readily accessible until any promotion review period has expired in case a PRC needs to be established. Agencies are also advised to ensure that they have identified someone with responsibility for liaising with the office of the Merit Protection Commissioner, and the PRC if necessary, in the event of a promotion review.

advising applicants of their review rights

It is important for agencies to advise applicants for promotion of their review rights, including the 14-day deadline for lodging a promotion review (i.e. 14 days after a promotion for which they were an unsuccessful applicant is notified in the Public Service Gazette). It is also important for promotees to be advised of their rights to lodge a protective review.

There have been cases where recruitment areas within agencies have provided misleading advice to promotees in relation to protective reviews. A protective review involves lodging a review application against other persons whose promotions have been published in the Public Service Gazette from the same selection exercise. It does not prevent an unsuccessful applicant lodging a review against a promotion. What it does do is give promotees ‘a second chance’ by being assessed on their merits against other promotees nominated in their protective review should their promotion be overturned by a PRC.

Agencies need to be even-handed in the way they deal with all parties to a review and care needs to be exercised so that agencies do not create a perception of favouring the promotee.

independent selection advisory Committees

ISACs are established by the Merit Protection Commissioner at an agency head’s request on a fee-for-service basis. ISACs are independent, three-member committees that undertake a staff selection exercise on behalf of an agency and make recommendations to the agency head about the relative suitability of candidates. They are an important component of the framework for protecting merit in the APS at the APS 1–6 classifications.

An ISAC consists of a convenor nominated by the Merit Protection Commissioner and two members, one nominated by the Merit Protection Commissioner and one nominated by the agency head. ISACs work within agency recruitment policies and have the flexibility to accommodate a range of selection assessment techniques.

An ISAC’s recommendation is not binding on an agency—however, if it is accepted, any resulting promotion decisions are not subject to promotion review.

Agencies may choose to use ISACs for a variety of reasons. The most common ones are to provide assurance about the fairness and integrity of their recruitment decisions and to avoid delays in placing staff resulting from review of promotion decisions. An order of merit established by an ISAC can also be used to fill similar employment opportunities for 12 months from the date the employment opportunity was first notified in the Public Service Gazette.

Table M6 sets out information on ISAC activity for 2012–13 compared with 2011–12.

Table M6: Independent Selection Advisory Committees, 2011–12 and 2012–13
	2011–12	2012–13
On hand at start of year	11	6
Received during the period	37	14
Completed	37	15
Lapsed/withdrawn	5	1
Completed	42	16
On hand at end of year	6	4

The decline in the number of requests for ISACs has continued in 2012–13, falling by over 62%. The decline is likely to reflect the fall in agency recruitment arising largely from budgetary pressures on APS agencies.

Figure M4 shows the decline in ISAC casework over the last six years.

Figure M4: Independent Selection Advisory Committees casework, 2007–08 to 2012–13

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Table M7 sets out the number of ISACs established, by agency, and the number of candidates considered and recommendations made.

Table M7: Independent Selection Advisory Committees, by agency, 2012–13
Agency	Committees established and completed	Candidates considered	Candidates recommended
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry	4	361	105
Department of Defence	4	111	28
Australian Taxation Office	2	1,606	187
Department of Human Services	2	451	64
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency	2	68	9
Australian Customs and Border Protection Service	1	47	3
Total	15	2,644	396

In 2012–13, the average number of applications received per ISAC was 176, with an average of 26 candidates recommended. This compares with an average of 154 applications with 31 recommendations in 2011–12. The two ISACs conducted in the Australian Taxation Office represented 61% of all applications and nearly half of the number of candidates recommended. The applicant pools of the ISACs ranged in size from 12 to 1,028 candidates.