Centrelink annual report 1999 – 2000 Contact officer

2. The Year in Review

Report of the Chief Executive Officer

Since its inception in 1997, Centrelink has been working hard to create an efficient, customer-focused organisation that is highly responsive to government policy requirements. Major process improvements this year have produced important acrossthe-board efficiency gains, particularly in the high profile area of call centre responsiveness.

While much remains to be done, and plans are in place for further efficiency gains, this year’s work has provided a reliable platform from which Centrelink can now look forward and begin to deliver some of its real potential.

Summary of Significant Issues and Development

Throughout the year, Centrelink supported the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) in planning the provision of increased assistance to families, flowing from A New Tax System. As part of this exercise Centrelink consolidated 12 complex payments into three, all payable from a single agency—a new Family Assistance Office (FAO). This initiative has made it significantly easier for families to access services and payments. This major achievement was marked by the opening on 1 July 2000 of 550 FAO sites located in Centrelink, Medicare and Australian Taxation offices (ATO) across the country. This unique partnership involving three separate government agencies will provide a one-stop-shop service to more than two million families.

This year has seen the seamless introduction of the new Payment Cycles arrangements, which removed the fixed payment day that applied in many of the various payment streams. Our customers now have more choice about how they can access payments. At the same time, Centrelink tightened control on ‘over the counter’ part payments that were adding significantly to work load while offering little return in terms of outcomes for customers.

Centrelink has one of the largest information infrastructures in Australia. It supports high profile community support payments, protects private information and processes transactions on a scale not replicated elsewhere in the country. Year 2000 represented a threat to that security and reliability. Centrelink took this threat seriously and put in place a contingency plan that included disaster modelling and a ‘time machine’ that tested every facet of our systems, rolling them into the Year 2000 and out again some 14 times. This was done at a cost much lower than both public service and industry standards for organisations of our size and complexity. We moved smoothly through the transition into the New Year without incident, thanks to the dedication and professionalism of our Year 2000 compliance team.

Good progress was made in the market testing of our Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. Considerable effort went into ensuring that the outcomes of this critical activity will be successful for both Centrelink and the chosen provider.

The National Support Office was restructured during the year to make it more clients focused and better positioned to anticipate and manage change. As part of this restructuring, we created a Service Integration Shop to support business development activities and achieve consistency and best practice across the organisation.

Centrelink successfully managed the transition from cash accounting to an accrual accounting framework for budget estimates. Centrelink is continuing to develop a business-like culture in managing expense and capital budgets and expects this process to be completed within 12 months.

During the year, Centrelink responded positively to the Welfare Reform, instituted by Senator the Hon. Jocelyn Newman, Minister for Family and Community Services, and to the Regional Australia Summit. Our involvement demonstrated that Centrelink is an important asset for government by virtue of its nation-wide infrastructure, its involvement with communities everywhere, and the trust and respect those communities accord the organisation. It is expected that the Government will want to build on these strengths in the coming year, especially in rural Australia.

We look forward to a strong role in making sure the Government’s plans for Welfare Reform are successful.

A feature of the year has been the increasing emergence of community partnerships and strategic alliances such as Rural Transaction Centres. Recent surveys indicate that the majority of our customers (95 per cent) strongly support the importance of having a Centrelink Customer Service Centre as an integral part of, and physically located in, their local community.

This year has seen continuing improvement in the employment market. Centrelink is funded in line with customer number variations, including job seeker numbers, and we have, therefore, had to adjust network resourcing levels in line with the decrease in job seeker numbers.

The Preparing for Work initiative was launched by Centrelink this year and represents a significant improvement in the delivery of employment services to job seekers. Promoted as ‘Helping you find work’, this initiative represents a more integrated, structured and personalized service for job seekers that reinforces Centrelink’s role as the gateway for employment assistance services. All job seeker contacts are now structured to incorporate the key elements of assessment, planning, referral and follow up.

New arrangements for the delivery of Job Network services took effect from 28 February 2000 with the commencement of Round 2 Job Network contracts. Working in close cooperation with the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business (DEWRSB), Centrelink played a major role in providing information about the changes and supporting the transfer of affected job seekers to new service providers.

There has been an increase in registrations by Indigenous job seekers as a result of cooperation between Centrelink, DEWRSB and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) on joint strategies. Through visits to Indigenous communities we have been able to identify Indigenous job seekers, link them to the Job Network and issue them with Indigenous Wage Assistance Cards. Centrelink also worked cooperatively with Community Development and Employment Projects (CDEP) to introduce the CDEP Participant Supplement from March 2000, which also provided access to social security ‘add-ons’ such as the Health Care Card and Rent Assistance.

With an enhanced focus on improving services to rural and remote Indigenous communities, Centrelink has opened a small office in Maningrida NT, and an Indigenous Call Centre in Kalgoorlie WA. We will continue to engage community leadership to help us to maximise services to Indigenous customers and communities.