Our vision is ‘A great future for every Queenslander'.
Our purpose is to give all children a great start, engage young people in learning, create safe and inclusive workplaces, and invest in communities for a stronger Queensland.
Our strategic direction
Our
Strategic Plan 2021–2025 was published on 1 July 2022 with an update on 1 December 2022 to reflect the new government objectives. The department’s education strategy,
Equity and Excellence: realising the potential of every student (Equity and Excellence), was released in February 2023, which also supports the department’s future strategic direction.
The Strategic Plan 2021–25 outlines how we will achieve our vision through 6 strategic objectives:
- a great start for all children
- every student succeeding
- building Queensland communities
- safe and capable people delivering our vision
- fair and safe workplaces and communities
- a sustainable racing industry in Queensland.
Each objective has a set of strategies to help meet our objectives and performance measures to monitor our progress.
Our service areas and objectives
Our strategic objectives are delivered through our service areas, which provide responsive services to support government and departmental commitments and priorities.
|
A great start for all children |
Early Childhood Education and Care Queensland children engaged in quality early years programs that support learning and development, and strengthen successful transitions to school |
Every student succeeding |
School Education Queensland students engaged in learning, achieving and successfully transitioning to further education, training and work |
|
Fair and safe workplaces and communities |
Industrial Relations To improve the wellbeing of all Queenslanders by making Queensland safer and supporting fair and productive workplaces |
|
A sustainable racing industry in Queensland |
Racing Administer the
Racing Act 2002 (Qld) and manage programs that support a viable, prosperous racing industry in Queensland |
The following strategic objectives support our service areas:
- safe and capable people delivering our vision
- building Queensland communities.
Each service area includes performance information about how we deliver services efficiently and effectively to achieve desired service delivery outcomes. More information on performance measures is available in
Appendix C and
Appendix D.
Our opportunities
We also identified opportunities to deliver on our strategic objectives.
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Prepare young people for the future: Building lifelong learning and the skills to prepare young people for the future of work.
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Evidence-informed decisions: Informing our approach using research, data and evidence to integrate new thinking into everyday practice.
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Place-based responses: Improving outcomes through the collaborative efforts of community, stakeholders, industry and government.
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Workforce culture and leadership: Developing leadership at every level and a skilled workforce to deliver quality outcomes for Queenslanders.
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Embrace diversity: Harnessing the experience, skills and perspectives of diverse cultures, languages, abilities and identities.
Our challenges
In delivering on our strategic objectives, we identified the following challenges.
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Safety and wellbeing: Addressing complex issues impacting the wellbeing and safety of children, students, communities and our workforce.
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Overcoming disadvantage: Reducing the impact of disadvantage through targeted interventions and culturally appropriate support.
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Fit-for-future investment: Investing for future generations and responding to the needs of our dispersed and diverse communities.
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Contemporary practice: Leveraging technology and adapting our approach to advance teaching, learning and new ways of working.
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Building resilience: Strengthening our prevention and preparedness approach and building resilience for disruptive events and climate impacts.
Queensland Government's objectives for the community
The government's direction is informed by its broad objectives for the community. The objectives reflect the government’s vision for Queensland and outline its plan to build future prosperity and growth across the state. We play a key role in contributing to the following objectives.
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Educating for the future by giving children and students the best start and investing in our teachers and schools.
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Backing our frontline services and our diverse workforce by engaging healthy, safe and capable people across Queensland communities.
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Keeping Queenslanders safe by supporting wellbeing and safety in early childhood services, schools, communities and workplaces.
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Building Queensland by creating jobs and driving fit-for-future investment in social infrastructure and technologies.
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Connecting Queensland by leveraging technology and innovation to connect all students to world class digital learning.
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Growing our regions by driving economic prosperity and sustainable investment in services across our diverse and dispersed communities.
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Investing in skills by educating young Queenslanders for the future of work and to prosper in the economy.
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Protecting the environment for future generations by investing in energy-efficient and cleaner, greener technologies in schools and workplaces.
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Honouring and embracing our rich and ancient cultural history by supporting culturally responsive learning in early years and schools and strengthening cultural capability in our workplace.
Queensland public service values
Our employees' behaviour and decision-making are guided by the Queensland public service values.
- Customers first
- Be courageous
- Ideas into action
- Empower people
Our Mandatory All Staff Training and Management Foundations programs include a component that emphasises the importance of adhering to, and promoting, the Queensland public service values.
Public sector ethics
The department is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity. We demonstrate the standards and values within the Queensland Government Code of Conduct, our departmental Standard of Practice and the
Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (Qld) (PSEA).
The department complies with the PSEA and the
Public Service Act 2008 (Qld) through the following measures.
- All employees undertake mandatory training annually or within 1 week of joining the department for new staff, which includes an ethics and integrity component.
- All leaders and staff who manage people and/or have a financial delegation complete the Management Foundations program, which builds understanding of the legislative, regulatory and operational responsibilities and accountabilities of leaders in our department.
- Ongoing implementation of our Integrity Long-Term Plan to strengthen controls and processes for ethical decision-making and integrity, with areas of focus in 2022–23 including recruitment and selection, conflicts of interest, close personal relationships, information security and privacy, and purchasing and procurement.
- Updates to our reporting contact with lobbyists procedure and complaints involving the ‘public official’ (Director-General) procedure to provide clearer guidance about decision-making and ethical obligations.
Our people
As at 30 June 2023, we had over 96,000 employees (headcount) or over 76,000 full-time equivalents (FTE). Approximately 95% of the workforce are based in schools.
The table below shows the FTE as at 30 June.
Table 1: Staffing
| Early Childhood Education and Care | 319 | 324 |
| School Education | 75,567 | 75,015 |
| Racing | 3 | 2 |
| Office of Industrial Relations | 885 | 874 |
| Total FTE1 | 76,774
| 76,215 |
Notes:
- 2022–23 target/estimate is per the FTEs in the 2022–23 Service Delivery Statement (SDS). The 2022–23 actuals are based on 30 June 2023 minimum obligatory human resource information (MOHRI) reporting and split out based on the same mapping as per the SDS FTEs.