Optus hack a lesson for public service, Finance Department secretary Jenny Wilkinson says

Public sector organisations would never be able to remove all the risks but can be acutely aware of them, she said.

Ms Wilkinson, speaking at the Institute of Public Administration Australia's national conference in Canberra on Thursday, said the preparations for last year's census was one model for learning from cyber incidents following the 2016 "censusfail" controversy.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics prepared for the 2021 census by using "ethical hackers" to test its cyber security to prevent a repeat of the errors leading up to the "censusfail".

She said the Optus data hack gave lessons for the public service.

"It's a reminder that we need to not just have the governance in place, but also actually be using different methods to robustly test our systems," Ms Wilkinson said.

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The Finance secretary, who has taken on the role after long-serving predecessor Rosemary Huxtable's retirement this year, also said the department was monitoring the success of working from home for its staff after the pandemic.

More than 50 per cent of Finance Department staff were back working in the office, however flexibility had increased after the pandemic and staff were able to do late night work preparing for the upcoming budget at home, she said.

However Ms Wilkinson said graduates and new staff had reported finding it hard to integrate into the department while working remotely.

"We want to strike a balance," she said.

"The big question is about how much time people work from home and work in the office, and how you arrange yourself so that teams do spend enough time together that they are benefiting from the sort of non-transactional interactions you have with people."