in general, i heard the public service working culture is okay. confirm less politics than private sector. not everyone will go back at 530 or 6pm though.
I went for interview at SLA 2 weeks ago. HR commented that they are in need of people. They just reposted their vacancies again on careers@gov. Anyway, the interview will be an essay question done on a windows 98/95 laptop (what the heck...) followed by interview with 7 deputy directors or head of dept. Be prepared to consider the different vacancies available besides the one you applied for. I got rejected though... haha.