Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd says the generous pay offer made to his own staff is not a sign that the rules are relaxing.

The 250 workers at Public Service Commission have been offered the best deal seen so far in the Australian Public Service's bargaining so far; 1.5 per cent per year, no requirements for working extra hours or loss of time-off work.

This came while public servants at other departments were offered rises as low as 0.5 per cent, combined with the loss of conditions and entitlements.

Mr Lloyd said years of pruning staff numbers and cutting costs meant the agency was able to make an offer that others could not.

Public sector unions say Mr Lloyd had paid for his bargaining offer by counting past spending cuts as “offsets”.

They say this method is forbidden to other Canberra mandarins.

A spokesperson for the commissioner tod Fairfax this week that the agency's “offer is not unique or unusual”.

“There has been no shift in the government's bargaining policy,” the spokesperson said.

“The policy states that 'Genuine productivity gains are demonstrable, permanent improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness and/or output of employees, based on reform of work practices or conditions, resulting in measurable savings. Enterprise agreements must be funded from within agencies’ existing budgets.”

Mr Lloyd’s representative conceded that the definition of “productivity initiatives” had been broadened.

“The commissioner has advised agencies that he is prepared to consider a broader range of productivity initiatives than had previously been the case, particularly where those initiatives have not been able to be precisely quantified but would clearly result in a productivity gain,” she said.

“These would include, for example, removing restrictive working arrangements from agreements which, once implemented, would lead to cost savings, or initiatives to reduce unscheduled absences.”

“Workforce re-profiling and business re-engineering or restructuring have been available as productivity offsets for bargaining since the introduction of the Bargaining Policy in March 2014.”