New general duties for Commonwealth officials

Key Points:

Commonwealth officials (including APS employees) will soon be subject to new general duties based on the director and officer duties contained in the Corporations Act.

As part of a move to base duties on concepts understood across the public and private sectors, new general duties will apply to Commonwealth officials from 1July 2014 under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act).

The PGPA Act consolidates the governance, performance and accountability requirements for the Commonwealth, and will replace the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) and the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997 (CAC Act).