Victorian VPS selection criteria examples (VPS2 to VPS6).

I demonstrate integrity in my professional conduct, including in situations involving competing pressures (restate the criterion). In my current role as a Senior Policy Officer (VPS4) with a Victorian government department, I led the policy advice on a contested ministerial decision (situation). The decision involved a proposal that had political support from the Minister's office but which the available evidence did not adequately support (task).

I prepared advice that set out the evidence base honestly, including the gaps. I did not understate the political dimensions of the issue, but I also did not let them shape the analytical content of the advice. Where the evidence was equivocal, I said so explicitly rather than presenting one interpretation as more settled than it was. I included an explicit recommendation that the Minister consider commissioning further analysis before committing to the proposal, while also including options for proceeding if the Minister judged that timing required a decision before further work could be done. I briefed my Director on the substance of the advice before it was finalised, including specifically flagging that the advice was not aligned with what the Minister's office had been informally signalling. The Director made a small revision to the framing but did not change the substantive conclusions (actions).

The Minister commissioned the additional analysis, which subsequently revealed two material risks not visible in the original proposal. The eventual policy decision diverged from the initial direction and was substantially better-grounded. My Director referenced the handling of the matter in my annual review as the kind of advice she expected from her senior officers (result).

I build and maintain effective working relationships with diverse stakeholders, including in situations where their interests do not fully align (restate the criterion). In my current role I am the primary departmental contact for three peak industry bodies, two unions, and the relevant Commonwealth counterpart on a federally co-funded regulatory program (situation). During the last program cycle, the peak bodies and the unions raised divergent concerns about a proposed reform to compliance requirements (task).

I met each stakeholder group separately rather than calling a single consultation forum. Separate meetings let each group raise concerns candidly without performing for the other groups. From those conversations I identified that the underlying disagreement was narrower than the public positions suggested — both sides were concerned about implementation burden, but for different specific reasons. I drafted a discussion paper that named both sets of concerns explicitly and proposed a phased implementation approach that addressed the most significant burden on each side. I circulated the paper to all stakeholders simultaneously, with a covering note explaining what each had told me and how the proposal responded. I held a single joint consultation forum two weeks later, with the paper as the starting point for discussion rather than open-ended consultation that would have re-litigated the public positions (actions).

The reform proceeded with substantive support from both peak bodies and one of the two unions. The remaining union maintained its formal opposition but did not actively campaign against the reform. The Department's senior executive sponsor referenced the handling of the consultation in the program's quarterly governance report (result).

I deliver quality outcomes against agreed deadlines, including coordinating inputs across multiple contributors under genuine resource constraint (restate the criterion). In my current role I lead the Department's annual portfolio statement preparation — a coordinated submission drawing on inputs from eight program areas, finance, ministerial liaison, and the secretary's office (situation). The submission has a hard deadline driven by Treasury's annual cycle, and the previous year's submission required three rounds of executive revision before finalisation (task).

I mapped every contributing input against the deadline working backwards, identifying which contributors needed to deliver what, when, and with what dependencies. I held a single 45-minute kick-off meeting with all contributing leads in week one to lock the timeline and clarify expectations before drafting began. I built in a two-week consolidation window between contributors' final inputs and executive review — previous years had compressed this and produced the review-rework cycle. I introduced a structured review against a quality checklist before sending sections to executives, which caught issues that would otherwise have appeared in executive review. When two contributors were tracking late at the three-week mark I escalated to my Director with specific remediation options rather than just flagging the issue. I treated each executive comment as a learning input for the next cycle, not just a comment to address (actions).

The submission was delivered two days ahead of deadline. Executive review required a single round of revision rather than three. The approach was documented as the model for subsequent cycles. The Department's secretary referenced the quality of the submission in the year-end senior executive review (result).

I identify opportunities to improve how routine work is delivered and implement changes that produce better outcomes (restate the criterion). In my current role our team handles a regular client consultation process that consistently took twice as long as the budget allowed for — consuming team capacity that was needed for other work (situation). The overrun had become normalised across three consecutive cycles (task).

I worked through the process step by step rather than relying on the documented procedure, which turned out not to match what the team actually did. The largest time sink was a manual reconciliation step that had been added two years earlier to address a specific data quality issue — an issue that had been resolved at the source 12 months later but the reconciliation step had stayed. I designed a revised process that removed the unnecessary reconciliation and added a single validation check at the relevant downstream point. I tested it against the previous cycle's data to confirm the validation caught everything the reconciliation had been catching. I documented the revised process clearly enough that anyone in the team could run it, not just the person who had been doing it. I rolled it out with a short briefing for the team explaining what had changed and why, and scheduled a six-month check-in to confirm the change had not introduced new problems (actions).

The following consultation cycle consumed half the previous time, returning the team to budget. The check-in six months later confirmed no downstream issues. Two adjacent teams have adopted the same approach for their equivalent processes (result).

I apply strategic perspective to operational decisions, including the longer-term implications of choices that might otherwise be treated as routine (restate the criterion). In my previous role I led the redevelopment of the Department's grants administration platform (situation). The immediate operational requirement was a system that handled the current grants program more efficiently (task).

I considered the system requirements in two horizons rather than one. For the immediate horizon, I identified the operational needs of the current program and the workflow improvements that would deliver efficiency gains. For the longer horizon, I looked at the Department's emerging policy directions and the likely shape of future grants programs over a three- to five-year window — including programs that hadn't been announced but were predictable from public direction. The two horizons pointed to different system design choices in three specific areas. I prepared a paper for the project sponsor that set out the operational design that would meet immediate needs, the strategic design that would also accommodate the likely future state, and the additional cost of the strategic option — about 12% of the project budget. I made the case in terms the sponsor would care about: avoided rebuild cost, deployment timeframes for future programs, and the political optics of building a system that would need replacing within three years (actions).

The strategic design was adopted. Two new grants programs announced in the subsequent 18 months were deployed on the new platform within their original timeframes — against industry benchmarks that suggested at least one would need a system rebuild. The project sponsor cited the strategic framing as one of the reasons for adoption when presenting the project at the Department's annual governance review (result).

I lead and develop staff with a focus on building capability for the next level of work and addressing performance issues directly when they arise (restate the criterion). In my current VPS5 role I manage six direct reports across VPS3 and VPS4 levels (situation). When I took on the role the team had high engagement scores but limited evidence of staff progressing to higher classifications, which the executive team had flagged as a capability development concern (task).

I established individual development plans for each direct report in the first two months, mapped to the VPS capability framework at the level above their current classification. For each, I identified one stretch piece of work and one development goal aligned to their progression interests. I held fortnightly one-on-ones structured around their work rather than mine. I made a point of identifying acting opportunities at higher classifications for team members ready for them — even where it meant losing capacity from my team temporarily. I addressed one underperforming direct report through a structured performance discussion within six weeks of identifying the gap, with a clear written summary and a four-week check-in — rather than letting it accumulate to annual review. I built a quarterly team development discussion into our team rhythm, where each person presented learning from a recent stretch piece of work to the rest of the team, which built capability across the group rather than just in the individual (actions).

Three direct reports were promoted to higher classifications across the development cycle. The underperforming team member responded constructively to the formal process and is now meeting role expectations. Annual engagement scores remained the highest in the branch and the team is now cited internally as a model for capability development (result).