Just half of Australian federal police staff have faith in the agency’s senior leadership and only 61% believe they act with integrity, an internal document shows.
Earlier this year, the AFP tasked private consultancy Orima Research to conduct its major yearly survey of staff for 2021.
The survey, seen by the Guardian, obtained responses from 4,838 out of 7,188 AFP staff, a response rate of 67%, including sworn and unsworn members, protective services, new recruits, and ACT policing members.
Results were strong for commitment, engagement, loyalty, job satisfaction and the performance of immediate supervisors. But the survey contained worrying scores for those higher up in the AFP’s chain of command.
In a section asking about the performance of senior leadership, only 55% of staff responded positively to the statement “I have faith in their leadership”. Almost one-quarter responded negatively. Another 22% gave a neutral response.
Prompted with the statement “they operate with integrity”, 61% of AFP staff responded positively and 16% responded negatively.
Only 37% of staff said the AFP’s senior executive service staff “work as a team”.
The survey reveals significant numbers of AFP staff are feeling burnt out by the demands of the job. Almost one-quarter of staff said they were well above capacity in terms of their workload and 37% said they were slightly above capacity. Just half of AFP staff said they felt like the AFP “cares about my health and wellbeing” and 59% said they were satisfied with the recognition they got for doing a good job.
About 15% of staff said they had personally experienced bullying and 17% had witnessed it happening to someone else.
Scores were also low for the AFP’s administrative processes. Only 20% gave positive responses to a question about the barriers posed by administrative processes. Respondents had significant concerns about having to deal with multiple layers of decision-making. Just 31% gave a positive response when asked about “the technology within the AFP”.
The document also highlights significant concerns about the AFP’s recruitment and promotion decisions.
Just 26% of AFP staff gave positive responses when asked about whether recruitment and promotion decisions were based on merit. Almost half of AFP staff responded negatively to that question.
A spokesperson for the AFP said it was aiming to improve the perception of its leadership, and said cultural change was long-term in nature.
“In late 2020, the AFP introduced a formal SES development program and the senior executive meets regularly to discuss matters including staff survey results,” the spokesperson said. “The AFP is also continuing its efforts to improve productivity and efficiency by reducing red tape and implementing technological enhancements.”
The spokesperson said the agency performed relatively well in the three key areas of the survey.
“Across the three key outcome indicators of engagement, commitment and loyalty, and staff satisfaction, the AFP is comparable (or scores above) the Australian public service census results,” the spokesperson said.
