At 30 June 2019, the ACIC had a staff of 770 Australian Public Service (APS) employees and statutory office holders, including 21 staff from the AIC, supplemented by 38 secondees from Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement and other Commonwealth agencies.

Our workforce includes investigators, intelligence analysts, financial profilers, operational and organisational psychologists, physical and technical surveillance operatives, technical and cyber analytics operatives, lawyers, specialist examinations staff, business and systems analysts, information architects, project and program managers, and corporate services staff.

We work with secondees from our partner agencies, some of whom are seconded to the ACIC to work in multiagency task forces and joint analyst groups. We also engage contractors and consultants to provide specialised services.

Staffing profile

Table 3.4 shows our staffing profile at the end of 2018–19. More details of the ACIC’s staffing are provided in Appendix D. Information on consultants is provided in the ‘Resource management’ section.

Table 3.4: Staffing profile at 30 June 2019

During 2018–19, we had four statutory office holders, which included three examiners and the CEO, all appointed on a fixed-term arrangement.

At 30 June 2019, we had a total of 38 secondees from 14 other agencies, on short-term or long-term assignment. During the year, we hosted a total of 64 secondees.

We coordinate and participate in joint task forces and joint analyst groups with partner agencies. At 30 June 2019, we had 101 task force members from 13 other agencies, on short-term or long-term assignment. During the year, we hosted 163 task force members.

Table 3.5 shows a breakdown of secondees and task force staff by home agency and jurisdiction at 30 June 2019.

Table 3.5: Secondees and task force staff by home agency and jurisdiction at 30 June 2019

Table 3.6 shows staffing profile trends over the three most recent financial years.

Table 3.6: Staffing profile trends

Location

During the year, our staff were based in eight locations around Australia and three overseas locations, as shown in Table 3.7.

Table 3.7: Australian Public Service employees and statutory office holders by location at 30 June 2019

Classification levels

As shown in Table 3.8, we have 12 different classification levels, including APS 1–6, Executive Levels 1 and 2, Senior Executive Service (SES) bands 1 and 2 and our CEO and examiners, who are statutory office holders.

Table 3.8: Australian Public Service employees and statutory office holders by classification level at 30 June 2019

A breakdown of classifications in our different locations is in Appendix D, tables D.1 to D.4.

Age

Our workforce includes staff from 19 to 74 years of age.

Diversity and inclusion

The ACIC is committed to creating an environment that respects and values the expertise, experiences and abilities of all our employees. In doing so, we are able to build an inclusive and diverse workforce that allows us to better serve the community by delivering on our key purpose of making Australia safer.

The Diversity and Inclusion Sub-committee of the Corporate Committee provides oversight of our Workplace Diversity Program and provides support for and input into the development, maintenance and implementation of our disability action plans. The agency has four diversity action plans for 2017–19, focusing on:

• gender equity
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• people with disability
• people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The Diversity and Inclusion Sub-committee meets quarterly and consists of SES-level Diversity Champions and Deputy Champions as well as diversity working group members. They actively promote, participate in and support initiatives to improve diversity awareness, access and inclusion within the agency.

Gender

The agency’s Gender Action Plan 2017–2019 outlines our commitment and intention to address gender equality and aims to build on our inclusive culture with a broader and more diverse talent base to strengthen capability and operational effectiveness.

In 2018–19, the ACIC:

• launched our Gender Equality Pledge at our agency’s 2019 International Women’s Day event
• assisted with coordination of the National Intelligence Community’s International Women’s Day event, which included a panel discussion that created awareness and education to support women’s progression into leadership roles affected by gender imbalance
• continued to offer opportunities to women to participate in leadership programs, such as Women in Law Enforcement Strategy mentoring
• developed and implemented an e-learning program on unconscious bias
• shared success stories of employees enjoying flexible working arrangements.

During the year, women made up 49 per cent of our organisation (Table 3.9). There are 119 more women than men at classification levels APS 1–6, but 127 more men than women at the EL 1, EL 2 and SES levels.

Table 3.9: Australian Public Service employees and statutory office holders by gender at 30 June 2019

A breakdown of gender distribution by classification is in Appendix D, tables D.5 to D.8.

Cultural and linguistic diversity

The ACIC acknowledges, respects and promotes the culturally and linguistically diverse demographic of our workforce.

In 2018–19, we continued to implement our culture strategy to foster an inclusive, positive and productive working environment by:

• celebrating significant events
• offering staff an opportunity to register their language skills
• holding a membership of Diversity Council Australia
• monitoring and tracking retention levels of staff across all diversity groups
• promoting the ACIC as an employer of choice for all position descriptions and diversity groups.

Of our staff, 22 per cent have self-identified as being from a non-English speaking background, 15 per cent have stated that they do not have English as their first language, and 16 per cent have stated that Australia is not their country of birth.

Reconciliation Action Plan

Our Reconciliation Action Plan 2018–20 was launched on 19 April 2018. The plan, which is supported by two Senior Executive Champions and a working group, allows the ACIC to foster respectful and productive relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. In implementing the plan, we are making a meaningful contribution to reconciliation.

During 2018–19, we took the following actions:

• The ACIC celebrated and promoted the Reconciliation Action Plan 2018–20 and encouraged employees to participate in National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week events. This included a cultural immersion and awareness program on country, and attendance at the National NAIDOC Awards. We also invited an Indigenous elder to conduct a Welcome to Country and dancers to provide a cultural experience for employees at our all-staff meetings.
• We held the agency’s inaugural Indigenous Employee Forum, which brought together all Indigenous staff, facilitated by a recognised Indigenous enterprise sourced through Supply Nation.
• We implemented the Acknowledgement of Country in all ACIC meetings by placing wording in each ACIC meeting room. Supporting guidelines are available on the intranet.
• We continued to participate in Indigenous programs, which included entry-level programs, the Indigenous Australian Government Development Program, the APS Indigenous Graduate Pathway and the Jawun secondment program.
• We held monthly Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group meetings to assist in the implementation of the Reconciliation Action Plan 2018–20.

Of our staff, 1.6 per cent have self-identified as being from an Indigenous background.

Disability

The ACIC is committed to changing attitudes and removing barriers by providing an inclusive workplace for employees and potential employees with disability.

The Disability Action Plan 2017–2019 has provisions to ensure an accessible and inclusive workplace. We are changing attitudes by:

• ensuring that our two Senior Executive Disability Champions promote access and inclusion in the agency
• continuing to maintain a silver membership of the Australian Network on Disability
• participating in the Australian Network on Disability’s ‘Stepping Into’ program
• developing draft reasonable adjustment policies, factsheets and an accessibility passport
• commencing development of a psychological health strategy which promotes mental health and wellbeing in the workplace
• implementing a disability awareness e-learning program available to all staff
• promoting and maintaining the Disability Working Group.

Of our staff, 2.1 per cent of staff have identified as having disability.

The National Disability Strategy 2010–2020 sets out a national policy framework to improve the lives of people with disability. Progress against the framework is tracked in a series of reports available from the Department of Social Services website www.dss.gov.au.

Remuneration and benefits

During 2018–19, our ACIC Enterprise Agreement 2016–19 covered all APS employees (not including our substantive SES officers or examiners). The agreement commenced on 30 December 2016 and will expire on 30 December 2019. It provides a range of flexible working arrangements and aligns key ACIC conditions with APS-wide conditions.

Non-salary benefits include flexible working arrangements for staff at APS levels 1–6, time-off-in-lieu arrangements for Executive Level staff, tertiary studies assistance and a comprehensive Performance Development System. We also offer free influenza vaccinations and an employee assistance program that provides counselling and support for staff and their family members.

Details of salary ranges available under the enterprise agreement are provided in Table D.14 in Appendix D.

Incremental advancement is available to eligible staff as part of our Performance Development System. The ACIC does not have a system of performance payments.

Executive remuneration disclosures

The nature and amount of remuneration for SES officers are determined through the ACIC Senior Executive Service Remuneration and Benefits Policy. SES salary increases take into account the complexity of the officer’s role, their current and previous performance, their contributions to corporate goals and values, the financial position of the ACIC, comparisons with other SES officers, and the quantum of remuneration relative to other ACIC staff.

The ACIC uses common law contracts for all SES employees to govern remuneration and entitlements. Details of SES total remuneration are in the financial statements (Note 4.2: Key management personnel remuneration).

As our CEO and ACIC examiners are statutory office holders, the Remuneration Tribunal sets their remuneration and entitlements.

Tables 3.10 to 3.14 provide details of executive remuneration in 2018–19.

Table 3.10: Key management personnel for 2018–19

Table 3.11: Summary of key management personnel’s remuneration for 2018–19

Table 3.12: Information about remuneration for key management personnel 2018–19

Table 3.13: Information about remuneration for senior executives 2018–19

Table 3.14: Information about remuneration for other highly paid staff 2018–19

Table 3.15: Details of accountable authority during the reporting period 2018–19

Staff retention and turnover

In 2018–19, a total of 170 staff left the agency. Reasons for leaving included moving to another APS agency, retirement, redundancy and the completion of non-ongoing contracts, as shown in Table 3.16.

Table 3.16: Australian Public Service staff and statutory office holders turnover 2018–19

In 2018-19, our average retention rate was 80.9 per cent.

Our staff retention strategies include:

• recognition and performance development
• performance feedback and support
• learning and development opportunities
• mentoring
• opportunities for higher duties
• involvement in cross-directorate projects
• short-term transfers to other business areas
• ongoing evaluation of feedback provided through staff surveys and exit surveys.

Learning and development

Our learning and development strategies support capability development in identified priority areas. The objective is to develop a responsive and high-performing workforce so that we can deliver on our strategic direction and priorities.

We adopt a blended learning and development philosophy, which recognises that experience within the workplace provides for the most effective learning, when blended with learning from others through coaching and mentoring and formal learning opportunities. This learning approach follows the 70:20:10 learning philosophy shown in Figure 3.4.

Opportunities

We provide learning and development opportunities in three key areas:

• Core—We provide learning activities to support positive workplace culture and fundamental organisational practices that enable employees to work successfully in the ACIC environment. Examples include induction, APS Core Skills programs, culture strategies, systems training, performance development training and project management courses.
• Intelligence and specialist capability—We work with internal subject matter experts, partner agencies and tertiary institutions to provide job-specific opportunities to enhance specialist and tradecraft capabilities. Examples include the delivery of training and qualifications in investigations, compliance, intelligence analysis, data analytics, national security policy, money laundering methodologies, strategic intelligence, criminology, telecommunications technology and information security.
• Leadership and management—We have worked closely with the Home Affairs portfolio to provide our managers and leaders with development opportunities through an executive leadership conference and the Leadership in Action series. We also provide leadership and executive coaching opportunities through external programs, such as those delivered through the Australian Institute of Police Management, the Australian Public Service Commission, the National Security College, the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, the Australian Federal Police, and the Women in Law Enforcement Strategy mentor program.

Figure 3.4: Learning and development 70:20:10 philosophy

Outcomes

In 2018–19, staff collectively attended more than 4,005 training and development opportunities and events through a combination of e-learning and face-to-face modes, on topics including core/business skills; coaching and mentoring; leadership and management; conferences/networking; specialist capability development (cyber, finance and international capability, as well as ICT, intelligence, investigations and psychology); induction; and compliance.

Specialist capability

In partnership with the AFP and AUSTRAC, the ACIC delivers foundation and intermediate criminal intelligence training as part of the Criminal Intelligence Training and Development Continuum. The continuum aims to develop intelligence professionals in both collection and analytical roles, to ensure a consistent, best practice approach to criminal intelligence. It awards vocational qualifications and is tertiary aligned, providing a formal pathway for staff to continuously develop and specialise in their roles.

In 2018–19, six iterations of the foundation-level Criminal Intelligence Development Program were delivered to staff within the agency. The course develops knowledge of intelligence processes and methodology and gives staff the skills to be effective in collection or analytical roles.

One iteration of the intermediate-level Criminal Intelligence Analysis Program was delivered to experienced intelligence analysts in the agency. The course gave staff advanced tools and techniques to ensure that they have the knowledge and skills to operate in joint agency task forces, and in an increasingly complex criminal environment.

Over time, our partnership with the AFP and AUSTRAC for the joint delivery of criminal intelligence training will increase the quality of intelligence outputs across the tactical, operational and strategic spectrum, enhancing the effectiveness and interoperability of Commonwealth, state and territory agencies operating in the criminal intelligence domain.

Business capability

We provide a wide range of management and core business development opportunities for staff, to enhance our workforce capability. In 2018–19, such programs covered:

• learning cabinet processes
• employment law reform
• APS ethics and values
• writing skills
• presentation and briefing skills
• certified IT security
• operational ICT systems
• leadership and management
• project management
• training and assessment
• unconscious bias
• cultural immersion
• work health and safety.

Studies assistance

The ACIC supported 25 eligible employees to undertake tertiary studies resulting in a diploma qualification or higher, in fields such as business; criminology; forensics; cybersecurity; fraud and financial crime; accounting; project management; psychology; computing; and law.

Evaluations

We conducted 66 evaluation processes for internal and external training and development programs. Our evaluations seek to assess whether we have met our intended objectives and achieved continuous improvement while using resources wisely and achieving value for money.

Employee engagement and WHS

Employee engagement

In 2018–19, 77 per cent of our staff participated in the voluntary survey.

Work health and safety

We are committed to preventing injuries and exposure to hazards in the workplace by taking all reasonably practicable steps to protect the health and safety of all workers at work through identifying, eliminating and minimising hazards. Appendix B of this report details our 2018–19 work health and safety arrangements, initiatives and outcomes.