Bureaucratic Classifications

In Australia, the Secretary is a department’s senior official. The Secretary is responsible for all aspects of the department’s performance and provides policy advice to the responsible minister of state. The Secretary is usually a career public servant, not a political appointee in the American sense. The equivalents in the Office of National Assessments (ONA), Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) are called ‘Director General’. The Department of Defence is a ‘diarchy’ where the Secretary and Chief of Defence Force (a General or equivalent) have separate responsibilities, but are jointly responsible to the Minister of Defence.

The classifications below the Secretary in most departments are (compared to equivalent Australian Army officer ranks):

• Deputy Secretary (Army equivalent: Lieutenant General)
• First Assistant Secretary (Army equivalent: Major General)
• Assistant Secretary (Army equivalent: Brigadier)
• Director (Army equivalent: Colonel)
• Deputy Director/Assistant Director (Army equivalent: Lieutenant Colonel)
• Policy Officer (Army equivalent: Captain or Major)