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Jacinta Chow

Submission: 

My submission relates to the APS "acquiring and maintaining the necessary skills and expertise to fulfil its responsibilities". Similar to others, I believe that the APS is too Canberra and CBD centric. There needs to be greater flexibility in allowing staff to work from various locations around Australia. Not only will this attract more diverse people with the right skills, but it will also ensure that the APS are more representative of the wider Australian public. Being able to better service the public requires that APS staff are in touch and understand the real and everyday issues that citizens face. There is a growing body of empirical evidence that demonstrates that when you have a more diverse group or workforce, they actually produce better outcomes. See Kathy Phillips research. I also believe that the different pay scales across APS agencies and across state and local governments, restricts movement and the cross-fertilisation of skills, which naturally comes when staff move to different agencies and sectors of government. In my case, I am a psychologist with experience working in community agencies, private practice, Victorian state education and now the APS. I also live in outer Melbourne, on the far outskirts of the metro area. I am currently in DHS but 2 years ago I had an opportunity to move to Department of Health. I believe as a psychologist with many years of hands on experience working in the community sector, I could have made a valuable contribution to policy and tackling complex health and social problems. However I could not move across because I was not Canberra based and not Melbourne CBD based.