It's not uncommon for a handful of staff to act in higher duties while others are on leave or yet to be recruited.
The National-Anti Corruption Commission took this game of musical chairs to a new level at a recent parliamentary inquiry hearing on its functions.
NACC acting commissioner Kylie Kilgour, acting chief executive George-Philip De Wet, and acting deputy commissioners Jamie Lowe and Penny Shakespeare, among others, appeared before the inquiry on Friday, September 18.
After some questioning, Greens senator David Shoebridge established that more than half of the most senior staff at the organisation were acting in their current roles.
"Who else in terms of that senior management team is in their substantive role?" Mr Shoebridge asked Ms Kilgour.
"Rebecca O'Meagher, she is on the call today, she is the substantive manager of legal ... (and) Peter Ratcliffe is in his substantive position, which is the general manager of ops capabilities," she said.
"Like I say, he's on sick leave, but he'll be back at work next week."
Mr Shoebridge replied: "It's still less than half that are in their substantive positions, (and) more than half in acting roles.
"That speaks to an organisation in a bit of a mess, doesn't it?"
The inquiry heard that staff attrition at the NACC was about 15 per cent in 2025-26, down from 20.8 per cent in 2023-24, but still above the APS average.
Ms Kilgour attributed some of the staff turnover to poaching by other agencies.
"Some of our staff are young... they do a bit of time with us, then they get a promotion either internally, over to other functions in the commission, (and) sometimes they get promotions into other APS agencies," she said.
"Because the integrity conversation in the Commonwealth is about more than just us, there are a lot of Commonwealth agencies that are setting up their own integrity units and their own integrity practices.
"And our people get poached for that.
"We also have some people who have retired, we have people who have resigned because of personal matters in their own lives."
Of the 250 staff who work at the NACC, the inquiry heard, there were only two internal staff - witness liaison officers - dedicated to helping whistleblowers and witnesses manage the stress of an investigation.
"Where they are in contact with us, and where they do display the need for the witness liaison service, that's the resourcing that we've got at the minute," Ms Kilgour said.
"I'm not saying that's the answer or the final position; we always have to keep thinking about how we improve, (and whether) we need to put more resources into the witness liaison space."
Mr De Wet said to be fair to the NACC, it was often compared to state-based counterparts, which had more time in the game, and more time to mature their capability and processes.
"This committee understands the speed at which the commission was established... and the fact that from day one we were receiving referrals while trying to build everything else behind it," he said.
"We are on the right, upward trajectory, but we are not there yet."
The 90-day timeframe for the NACC to deal with substantive matters was unrealistic in many cases, the inquiry heard.
At the time of the hearing, there were still 12 matters from 2023-24 under preliminary investigation, Ms Kilgour said, and another 49 in the queue from 2024-25.
