Women in Treasury's senior executive levels now represent 43.6 per cent of roles, marking a 1.6 per cent increase on the previous year, but still dominate the lower public service bands.
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It comes just a year after criticism was levelled against the Department of Treasury for having overall gender parity but fewer female representatives in more senior positions.
The latest figures show while the central agency's gender split across the board is almost even, women still fall behind at the senior and executive levels but hold a lead in the lower APS bands.
Treasury's 2019-20 annual report shows it's made strides toward fixing those numbers with females now representing 44 of the 101 roles across the senior executive service (SES) or 43.6 per cent.
"At 30 June 2020, women comprised 43.6 per cent of the operative SES cohort, inclusive of higher duties arrangements," the annual report read.
"Treasury's target for female representation in the SES is gender parity."
Of the five SES 3 levels, four are held by women.
While there was year-on-year growth at the executive levels (EL) for women, it was still beat by higher year-on-year growth for men.
Women at the EL 2 band, the highest before entering SES, represented 46.3 per cent of the roles but only grew by 7.4 per cent year-on-year compared with 19.6 per cent of growth for men to that level.
The two EL bands had women filling 44.7 per cent of roles, a dip of nearly 3 per cent on the previous year.
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At the lower pay bands, women overtake men with 55.4 per cent taking up roles between APS 3 and APS 6.
After the SES 3 band, the next highest percentage of women was at the APS 5 level with 65.4 per cent, followed by APS 6 with 56.7 per cent.
While men held onto higher percentages of the roles at the senior leadership and executive levels, they also were highest at the APS 3 and APS 4 levels.
While Treasury faced criticism for not having higher levels of women in senior leadership positions, it was also occurring at the entry level. In 2019, Treasury's graduate program was filled with 28 men and just nine women.
Deputy secretary Meghan Quinn told a Senate estimates in October 2019 the agency had realised the error and worked to resolve it for future years.
"We did have a look at the outcomes of that and realised it wasn't something we supported at the executive board level and there was a very clear-eyed focus on the recruitment process for 2020 to make sure we could ensure the same thing didn't happen again," Ms Quinn said.
The Canberra Times confirmed with Treasury its gender split for the 2020 graduate intake included 12 females and 19 males. For 2021, there will be 66 graduates with 34 of them female and 32 male.
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Sarah Basford Canales
I'm a federal politics and public sector reporter with an interest in national security, integrity and regulation. Contact me with general tips and thoughts at sarah.basfordcanales@canberratimes.com.au or confidential tips to sbasfordcanales@protonmail.com.
I'm a federal politics and public sector reporter with an interest in national security, integrity and regulation. Contact me with general tips and thoughts at sarah.basfordcanales@canberratimes.com.au or confidential tips to sbasfordcanales@protonmail.com.
