A delicate dance continues this week between tens of thousands of public servants and the departments they work for.

Reports say the Australian Taxation Office will make a pay offer “soon” while staff at the Murray Darling Basin Authority and CASA will have to keep waiting.

The Defence Department left 20,000 staff knowing nothing new after it postponed the details of its pay offer this week.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has managed to put together an offer - just 0.7 per cent a year, less than a third of the inflation rate.

But the staff in Tony Abbott’s office are yet to hear about extra cuts to conditions and entitlements.

Negotiators for the Murray Darling Basin Authority and Civil Aviation Safety Authority have held back their offers, and will miss their schedule release date next week.

ATO management has told the agency’s 20,000 employees it is still in the process of obtaining approvals for its pay offer.

The Australian Services Union says the ATO’s tactic is a breach of good faith bargaining requirements, which are set out in legislation.

The union says ATO management will not attend or participate in meetings at reasonable times, but it is difficult to tell which party is being more obstinate.

“The ATO says it wants to have discussions on February 12 in case it has approval to discuss remuneration,” ASU tax representative Jeff Lapidos told Fairfax Media.

"The ASU is not able to meet on February 12 ... we have made our ongoing work arrangements based on our agreement with the ATO and the CPSU that we meet every other week,” he said.

ATO assistant commissioner Christine Dacey allegedly said in a response to the union: “We offered to you, and all other bargaining representatives, a full and frank face-to-face discussion about the ATO pay offer after we receive the necessary approvals.

“You emphatically rejected this proposal on the basis that you were not available for any time whatsoever next week, and that our suggestion to hold such a meeting was a breach of good faith obligations.

“I reject your statement that the ATO was unreasonably insisting that bargaining representatives meet at this time.

“We made it clear to you that this meeting was merely the start of a longer discussion about the remuneration proposal.”