Hiring, firing and performance management in the Australian Public Service are all due for a shake-up under the long-awaited "contestability review", according to the federal workplace authority.
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And Commonwealth public servants enjoy work benefits equal to or higher than "community standards" and they should accept the wage deals they have been offered, Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd said.
Mr Lloyd says the main public sector union is engaged in a self-interested campaign against the new generation of workplace agreement that is letting its members down.
The CPSU returned fire on Friday, accusing Mr Lloyd of giving "misleading and deceptive advice" to public service minister Michealia Cash.
The Commissioner also says that human resources experts from Qantas, the ANZ bank, Telstra and Australia Post will soon be advising departmental bosses on how to run their operations.
Writing in The Australian newspaper on Friday, Mr Lloyd says that life in the public service is good and that the Community and Public Sector Union's pay claim had hurt the bargaining process, resulting in pay rises being delayed for years.
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Much of the 152,000-strong Australian Public Service remains embroiled in a bitter wages stand-off with the Coalition government, with most public servants not having had a pay rise since 2013.
"It's quite an exciting time, actually.
"The aim is to update the way the APS recruits, develops talent, measures performance, facilitates staff mobility and arranges separations."
Mr Lloyd believes that life remains sweet within the federal bureaucracy.
"APS employees also enjoy generous conditions," the Commissioner wrote.
"The entitlement to various forms of leave, overtime and shift penalties, remote locality allowances, assistance with childcare, travel, training and education are of a high standard.
"Most entitlements are equal to or higher than community standards.
"Defined benefit superannuation schemes have closed.
"The super of most commonwealth public servants is now provided through accumulation funds.
"The employer contribution to those funds is set at 15.4 per cent. This is well in advance of the 9.5 per cent employer contribution for most of the workforce."
CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood hit back strongly on Friday, saying the commissioner had misrepresented the key aspects of the dispute.
"We are delighted that John Lloyd has written this piece because it exposes the sort of misleading and deceptive advice he has been giving to Minister Michaelia Cash and through her to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull," the union leader said.
"Mr Lloyd's piece seriously misrepresents crucial aspects of the dispute and goes a long way towards explaining why public service bargaining remains an unresolved mess."
Ms Flood said the Mr Lloyd's opinion piece contained serious factual misrepresentations.
"Mr Lloyd's piece is littered with misrepresentations, such as the blatant fiction that the CPSU hasn't moved on pay when we changed our pay position almost a year ago," she said.
His suggestion that our union never works with employers on reforms will come as a surprise to DHS, Immigration and Border Protection, Tax and Defence, the four largest Government agencies who all have union involvement in recent reform processes."
