Politics Centrelink

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SaintsSeptember said:
That still gives me the shits.
Insulation was a good idea, and it was not the government's responsibility to enforce work practices of those installing it. The government agency who's responsibility it was , were visiting factory's with good safety records for the umpteenth time.
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I agree with this, however it is the government's responsibility not to implement policy that would knowingly encourage reckless behaviour. They were warned that the incentives would encourage some cowboys and needed to have a little more control.
 

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JackOutback said:
I agree with this, however it is the government's responsibility not to implement policy that would knowingly encourage reckless behaviour. They were warned that the incentives would encourage some cowboys and needed to have a little more control.
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NO work practices are allowed to endanger employee's.
Installing insulation is hardly the most dangerous profession.
Cowboys.. should have purely and simply been illegal.
Workcare should have been onto them if they were doing their jobs instead of being another bullshit public service.
 
About 800 Centrelink call centre jobs will be outsourced in Brisbane as new figures show 48m calls to the agency went unanswered last financial year.

Announcing the move on Tuesday the human services minister, Michael Keenan, cited a report by accounting firm KPMG that the government says found outsourced staff performed better than full-time public servants. The government refused to release the report.

The 800 jobs in Brisbane have been contracted to Concentrix Services and bring the total number of outsourced call centre staff to 2,750.

It was revealed in Senate estimates hearings last week that Centrelink had again failed to meet its customer satisfaction targets, with complaints rising.

The 47.9m unanswered calls were an improvement on the previous year’s figure – 55m – but the Department of Human Services (DHS) conceded there was still room for improvement.

I would love to see the KPMG report where they found outsourced staff perform better than Public Servants. I wonder why they won't release the report?
 
So the big fix for the problem is to put on more staff.
( private or permanent won't make a long term difference).

Centerlink seems to be geared up that you need to ring the idiots all the time.

When they still had family tax benefit my wife was always ringing them.
She would ring them up with an estimate of my income, which being a salary was usually spot on.
She would then ring them up at the end of the year to tell them the income was actually what we'd estimated and not the other number they made up.
FINALLY she realized that it was easier to avoid center link completely and just get it as a tax return ( which i'd told her all along ).
One of the kids had a health care card, i can't believe the number of phone calls that entailed.

You can do stuff online, when you do it goes wrong and you need to ring them.
If you go into the centerlink office, THEY need to ring the hotline, and can't get through.

Yeah lets NOT avoid all these superfluous phone calls , just put more staff on.
i suspect centerlink costs nearly as much to run as the welfare they distribute.
 
Maggie5 said:
About 800 Centrelink call centre jobs will be outsourced in Brisbane as new figures show 48m calls to the agency went unanswered last financial year.

Announcing the move on Tuesday the human services minister, Michael Keenan, cited a report by accounting firm KPMG that the government says found outsourced staff performed better than full-time public servants. The government refused to release the report.

The 800 jobs in Brisbane have been contracted to Concentrix Services and bring the total number of outsourced call centre staff to 2,750.

It was revealed in Senate estimates hearings last week that Centrelink had again failed to meet its customer satisfaction targets, with complaints rising.

The 47.9m unanswered calls were an improvement on the previous year’s figure – 55m – but the Department of Human Services (DHS) conceded there was still room for improvement.

I would love to see the KPMG report where they found outsourced staff perform better than Public Servants. I wonder why they won't release the report?
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I'm shocked that a secret report authored by contractors apparently suggested that Centrelink hire more contractors.

SaintsSeptember said:
So the big fix for the problem is to put on more staff.
( private or permanent won't make a long term difference).
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It makes a huge difference - permanent DHS staff are paid more, yet cost the tax payer less, and they go on to gain the skills and experience to provide substantive help.

If how many calls are answered is the metric used for efficiency, of course contractors answer more - they don't actually know anything, they are just a cynical attempt to improve the number of people who call and actually get to speak to someone. Problem is you invariably end up spending another hour+ on hold anyway, cos the first person you speak to is a contractor who can't do any more than refer you to an actual DHS employee who can answer your question.

Contractors providing government services are the ultimate false economy.
 
nobbyiscool said:
I'm shocked that a secret report authored by contractors apparently suggested that Centrelink hire more contractors.



It makes a huge difference - permanent DHS staff are paid more, yet cost the tax payer less, and they go on to gain the skills and experience to provide substantive help.

If how many calls are answered is the metric used for efficiency, of course contractors answer more - they don't actually know anything, they are just a cynical attempt to improve the number of people who call and actually get to speak to someone. Problem is you invariably end up spending another hour+ on hold anyway, cos the first person you speak to is a contractor who can't do any more than refer you to an actual DHS employee who can answer your question.

Contractors providing government services are the ultimate false economy.
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Are you SURE! it was the same agency that did the report that they would hire contractors from? I mean if you are suggesting that there's a big private contractors guild, i'm not buying into it.

If i hire Acme Business consultants , and they suggest i use a logistics company , so i hire "Dodgy Logistics " for my warehousing. Unless there is some link between Acme and Dodgy there's no corruption.
It isn't one big private company up against the public service.

Now Contractors are not necessarily less skilled than permanent Centerlink staff.
Everyone in the world knows that public services seem to collect huge amounts of useless staff. Its the butt of jokes in many a book or movie. Only public servants deny it. However i do acknowledge the tendency for call centres in general , to have staff who read you the web page ( which you already read before calling ) and not being any the wiser than you are when the answer to the question isn't on it.
 
nobbyiscool said:
I'm shocked that a secret report authored by contractors apparently suggested that Centrelink hire more contractors.



It makes a huge difference - permanent DHS staff are paid more, yet cost the tax payer less, and they go on to gain the skills and experience to provide substantive help.

If how many calls are answered is the metric used for efficiency, of course contractors answer more - they don't actually know anything, they are just a cynical attempt to improve the number of people who call and actually get to speak to someone. Problem is you invariably end up spending another hour+ on hold anyway, cos the first person you speak to is a contractor who can't do any more than refer you to an actual DHS employee who can answer your question.

Contractors providing government services are the ultimate false economy.
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When the government uses its public sector recruitment providers, the contractual staff are paid more than permanent staff, however in the case of Centrelink, I don't think the company being used is a member of that panel and the reason why permanent staff might appear to cost less is because when contractual staff are hired you also have recruitment fees on top which comes to a percentage of the contractual staff's payrate.
 
Bombermania said:
When the government uses its public sector recruitment providers, the contractual staff are paid more than permanent staff, however in the case of Centrelink, I don't think the company being used is a member of that panel and the reason why permanent staff might appear to cost less is because when contractual staff are hired you also have recruitment fees on top which comes to a percentage of the contractual staff's payrate.
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If they are full time casual, they may have a higher rate, but also not have any paid leave.
 
Bombermania said:
When the government uses its public sector recruitment providers, the contractual staff are paid more than permanent staff, however in the case of Centrelink, I don't think the company being used is a member of that panel and the reason why permanent staff might appear to cost less is because when contractual staff are hired you also have recruitment fees on top which comes to a percentage of the contractual staff's payrate.
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They're actually not - contract staff are paid less. But they end up costing more after the contractor (Serco or whoever) make a mint in middle man costs.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
Are you SURE! it was the same agency that did the report that they would hire contractors from? I mean if you are suggesting that there's a big private contractors guild, i'm not buying into it.

If i hire Acme Business consultants , and they suggest i use a logistics company , so i hire "Dodgy Logistics " for my warehousing. Unless there is some link between Acme and Dodgy there's no corruption.
It isn't one big private company up against the public service.

Now Contractors are not necessarily less skilled than permanent Centerlink staff.
Everyone in the world knows that public services seem to collect huge amounts of useless staff. Its the butt of jokes in many a book or movie. Only public servants deny it. However i do acknowledge the tendency for call centres in general , to have staff who read you the web page ( which you already read before calling ) and not being any the wiser than you are when the answer to the question isn't on it.
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The way it works...

Govt defunds services -> services go to s**t -> govt says its service is inefficient -> govt hires contractors (eg Serco) to reinstate the services that they defunded -> govt gets another contractor (eg KPMG) to vindicate the use of contractors ie. tell the govt what it wants to hear-> use of contractors across the board becomes normalised and continues to increase, so Serco and KPMG (as the examples) win -> contractors donate money to govt* -> we do it all again

The circle of life...

All this when, once again, contractors invariably end up costing more for an inferior, less specialised service with the actual contract staff getting paid less than the permanent public servants (in the case of DHS - others like IT contractors generally earn more.)

And all this after Malcolm Turnbull spat venom on the night of the last Federal Election over Labor's "Mediscare" campaign where Labor claimed that the LNP would start selling off Medicare... which is exactly what they're doing by stealth - outsourcing elements of DHS (ie. Centrelink & Medicare) to the private sector.

* https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ustralia-s-major-parties-20180201-p4yz73.html
 

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nobbyiscool said:
They're actually not - contract staff are paid less. But they end up costing more after the contractor (Serco or whoever) make a mint in middle man costs.
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In my experience, public servants on contract are paid more than permanent staff so I am not sure where you heard they are paid less?
 
Bombermania said:
In my experience, public servants on contract are paid more than permanent staff so I am not sure where you heard they are paid less?
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Depends how specialist they are. The contract answering phone calls from you and I at Centrelink are paid less than permanent staff. The more specialised IT staff are earning more.

In all cases, the contractor providing those staff are making a bomb.
 
nobbyiscool said:
Depends how specialist they are. The contract answering phone calls from you and I at Centrelink are paid less than permanent staff. The more specialised IT staff are earning more.

In all cases, the contractor providing those staff are making a bomb.
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I'm talking more about ordinary public servants. As I don't think Serco is on the recruitment panel, I don't know if the same set up applies as it does for staff hired via the recruitment panel. The labour hire or recruitment agencies differently do very well.
 
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Does this government do a due diligence when it outsources work?

A company awarded a $70 million contract to operate outsourced Centrelink call centres was responsible for wrongly cutting tens of thousands of vulnerable people off benefits in the United Kingdom.

Concentrix — hired by the Australian Government to help improve service delivery from Centrelink — was slammed for "gross failings of customer service" after an investigation by the Work and Pensions Committee of the UK House of Commons.
"Vulnerable people lost benefits to which they were entitled through no fault of their own," the damning report by the cross-parliamentary committee found.

"Some were put through traumatic experiences as a consequence of avoidable failures.

More than nine in 10 people who appealed against Concentrix's decision to suspend or reduce benefits had their appeals upheld.

"These are extraordinary figures for any appeals process, let alone one that left people in hardship," the committee report observed.
 
Maggie5 said:
Does this government do a due diligence when it outsources work?

A company awarded a $70 million contract to operate outsourced Centrelink call centres was responsible for wrongly cutting tens of thousands of vulnerable people off benefits in the United Kingdom.

Concentrix — hired by the Australian Government to help improve service delivery from Centrelink — was slammed for "gross failings of customer service" after an investigation by the Work and Pensions Committee of the UK House of Commons.
"Vulnerable people lost benefits to which they were entitled through no fault of their own," the damning report by the cross-parliamentary committee found.

"Some were put through traumatic experiences as a consequence of avoidable failures.

More than nine in 10 people who appealed against Concentrix's decision to suspend or reduce benefits had their appeals upheld.

"These are extraordinary figures for any appeals process, let alone one that left people in hardship," the committee report observed.
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I'm not sure you can assume it was the contractor. I think it's likely that that the contracts focussed on financial outcomes rather than risk management.

Bearing in mind the risk is borne by the recipients of the service, not directly the government. A very cynical and quite possibly accurate reading might be the contractor willingly acceoted responsibility to reduce the risk to government.

I have no doubt the poor service from centrelink is at least partially driven by the simple fact that good service means more customers and more expense.

I've seen this logic used in public health as well, improving service means less people will opt for private healthcare. In welfare it means some people will be intimidated or lack the capacity to claim their entitlements.

As to this contract you might feel their record is a negative. To a bureaucrat it might be a major positive that did the nasty work, and dutifully took the fall of public criticism when the time came.
 
Kram said:
This is exactly why, and I doubt it matters who is in government either.
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I tend to agree. I have a fair but of experience in the public sector. There is an a natural pendulum where the government swings to the right and departments tend to move left to maintain the status quo and vica versa.
 
Katharine-Murphy.jpg

Katharine Murphy

One of the conference flash points, as we’ve alerted you to, has been whether or not the conference will agree to an increase in the Newstart payment. Left-faction delegate Darcy Byrne has been signalling for some months he would bring a motion to the floor arguing for an increase.

Given there’s been a motion drafted, there have been a range of discussions over the past few days. It’s been pretty obvious that the leadership did not want to be locked into an increase, given the fiscal implications. Increasing the payment would cost billions.

Given the reluctance of the leadership to go there, there will be no conference commitment to increase the payment.

The conference will, instead, agree to undertake a review into the payment within 18 months. I’m told the agreed motion will also commit the party to consulting unemployed people about the practical impact of trying to get by on such a low benefit




LOL that noise you can hear is a legion of lib voters deciding to vote labor after hearing this news.....................................
 
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