Authorities say the federal government must tackle staffing shortages to enact its agenda. 

Federal public sector agencies are reportedly poaching staff from each other, leading some to call for more flexibility to attract the public service talent needed for the sector to compete for talent against private white-collar firms.

“We’re getting into this situation where government agencies are poaching among themselves,” Neal Woolrich, director HR advisory at Gartner, has told reporters.

“They can’t get that talent externally, so they’re now starting to poach from among each other. So it is musical chairs within the public sector.

“We’re seeing the sort of same challenges at state and federal level, even local government level as well.”

Mr Woolrich says top public sector managers and experts are being poached by the private sector “for pretty significant pay rises”.

“We’re starting to hear anecdotally that public sector employees are getting poached for 20 per cent increases and even 30 per cent increases in critical roles,” he said.

”Regulators, lawyers, economists, those kinds of people, are getting poached over with big salary increases by the big law firms, the big consulting firms, those sorts of organisations.”

Mr Woolrich said government jobs used to have the most flexibility.

“But now after everything we’ve gone through over the last 2½ years, the private sector is catching up on flexibility,” he said.

“I get really concerned when I hear government leaders say they need to get our people back into the office to revitalise our CBD. They’re really at risk of kicking a big own goal there.”

Australian Public Service Commissioner Peter Woolcott says the APS is feeling the effects of wide-spread skill and labour shortages.

“APS Agencies report that skill shortages are most prevalent in digital and data roles, with data analysts, cyber security specialists and business intelligence developers coming in as the most difficult to recruit,” Mr Woolcott said.

But the commissioner says the public sector is offering a more flexible approach to remote working than previously.

“Access to flexible working arrangements have been an enduring feature of the APS employee value proposition, and will be a mainstay for the APS to be seen as an employer of choice,” he said.

“Strong competition for specialist talent and expertise will demand flexible and innovative ways to attract and retain staff.

“Decisions about flexibility and where we work can remove the geographic boundaries of recruitment and allow the APS to tap into national labour markets.

“Expanding our recruitment also opens up opportunities for a more diverse APS workforce – to effectively serve a modern Australia we need our teams to reflect the diversity of our nation,” Mr Woolcott said.

Unions say arbitrary staffing restrictions are still holding the public sector back. 

“We see staff shortages and recruitment delays in the APS as directly related to two key issues - staffing caps and bargaining,” says Melissa Donnelly, Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary.

“A direct result of the Coalition’s staffing cap is that agencies are prevented from directly employing the staff they need, so have turned to employing workers on insecure and labour hire contracts.

“The resulting increase in job insecurity has led to higher staff turnover.”