In Western Australia, the Public Sector Commission's purpose is to bring leadership and expertise to the public sector to enhance integrity, effectiveness and efficiency. The Commission’s vision is of a high performing public sector serving the needs of the State now and into the future.
In accordance with section 22D of the Public Sector Management Act 1994, the Public Sector Commissioner reports annually to Parliament on the state of public sector administration and management, and on the extent of compliance with public sector standards and ethical codes. One of the primary information sources used for the State of the WA public sector report 2015 - Creating opportunities is the employee perception survey (EPS).
The EPS captures employee views about factors affecting their workplace, such as leadership, communication, work/life balance and performance development. This information helps to understand organisational culture across the public sector and is essential in identifying areas for further consideration and acknowledging good practice.
The EPS is typically conducted in each public sector body with more than 20 employees once every five years. Different regional offices for the largest agencies, Department of Health and Department of Education, are surveyed every year. To improve the representativeness of the sample, entities are selected across a range of sizes and portfolios. However, care should be taken in interpreting the EPS results because the sample may not be entirely representative of the broader public sector.
In June 2015, all employees in 20 public sector entities were asked to complete the survey (including two areas from the Department of Health and one from the Department of Education). The average response rate to the survey was 31%, with 11 405 valid responses received.
Three files are available for download on data.gov.au:
1) Public Sector Commission EPS 2015.pdf – the survey instrument sent to relevant employees to access online or in hardcopy
2) Public Sector Commission EPS 2015 data.xls – individual responses to the EPS, with a question key and response key. Please note that some variables have been removed or aggregated to protect the privacy and anonymity of respondents.
3) Public Sector Commission EPS 2015 data.sav – individual responses to the EPS, in .sav format to be used with SPSS. Please note that some variables have been removed or aggregated to protect the privacy and anonymity of respondents.
Further information about the EPS sample and summary results for 2015 are available in the State of the WA public sector statistical bulletin 2015.