The public service is set to spend $250,000 in taxpayers' money on a talent quest, looking for the next big thing in departmental bosses.
Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd, the man enforcing the Coalition government's hardline wage restraint policies on its own Commonwealth workforce, is preparing to pay the money to a private provider for "talent development" for a small group of elite public servants.
The hand-picked group of high-flying public servants from the elite Senior Executive Service Band 3 will each be given up to 20 hours "talent management" under the plan.
It is all part of the the Australian public service's new approach to talent management to build "a strong and diverse senior leadership pipeline" and the commission says programs like these are common in the private and public sectors.
Fairfax revealed in October that the commission had spent $320,000 of taxpayers' money hosting luxury overnight get-togethers for high-ranking Commonwealth bureaucrats at exclusive resorts and golf clubs around Canberra and the NSW southern highlands.
Now the commission has made an "approach to market" looking for a private sector outfit to make expert appraisals of the group of bureaucrats, hand-picked by their departmental bosses, to see if they have what it takes to run a department or agency.
If the scheme takes off, potential judges have been told, it could be opened up to all 129 SES band 3s in the service and maybe even to more than 540 band 2s.
"The APS is investing in talent management to ensure it has a strong and diverse leadership group to serve future needs," an APSC spokeswoman said.
"This is common practice for private and public sector organisations around the world."
The secretaries board, a group of departmental bosses, want the successful bidder to give it "robust and objective data on an individual's potential, aligned to the APS leadership requirements for the most senior roles".
Each hopeful will be put through "a 360-degree feedback process, which is likely to involve interviews with managers, peers, stakeholders and team members".
Their behaviour in "action assessment such as a simulation exercise or observational activity" will be assessed and there will be "additional assessment interventions/activities as recommended by the supplier to predict potential", according to the approach to market documents lodged with AusTender.
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