The Australian Public Service (APS) has made a commitment to increase the employment of people with disability across the APS to 7% by 2025 as part of the Australian Public Service Disability Employment Strategy 2020-2025 (the Strategy). The Department of Finance (Finance) was responsible for Action 10 of the Strategy which involved identifying common accessibility barriers across APS tenancies.
In line with the overall intent of the Strategy, Action 10 considered the perspective of a person living with disability. A sample of APS tenancies were audited by participating entities with reports provided to Finance for analysis of accessibility barriers across the APS. The report focuses on dignified access as a means of creating inclusive workplaces and highlights accessibility barriers faced by current staff, potential new staff and visitors and makes recommendations to address these.
The report made 3 recommendations to identify and reduce dignified access barriers by:
- strengthening existing frameworks
- developing tools and resources to support entities to reduce property barriers in APS office premises
- undertaking further research to understand how property barriers impact neurodivergent staff.
