Centrelink annual report 1999 – 2000 Contact officer
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- Navigate this page:
- National Support Office
- Customer Service Centres and Area Support Offices
- Purchasing Card Transactions
- Complex Procurement Actions
- New Chief Executive Instruction
- Customer Charter Statusand Customer Feedback Handling Report
- Average Time to Resolve Feedback
- Improvements to Service Delivery Made as a Result of Customer Feedback
- The Four Most Common Complaints
- Links to Customer Feedback System
Appendix xPurchasing ActivityUp until 30 June 2000, Centrelink purchasing has operated in a devolved and geographically dispersed purchasing network. Purchasing activities were primarily undertaken in three business units within the Centrelink organisational structure:
National Support OfficeCentrelink currently operates a central procurement unit which conducts less complex purchasing activities for much of the National Support Office. A proposal has been developed which will require that all such purchases for the National Support Office be undertaken by that unit. Purchasing is carried out in accordance with the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1996, Centrelink Chief Executive Instruction (CEI) and the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines Core Policies and Principles. Purchases are made through the raising of Purchase Orders from the Agency’s Financial Management Information System (Infolink) and through the Australian Government Credit Card (Purchasing Card) for transactions less than $2000. Customer Service Centres and Area Support OfficesApart from the purchasing card, all purchasing activity from 1 July 2000 has been centralised to a specialist purchasing unit in each Area Support Office. Some of these staff already have procurement competencies and experience in purchasing. An initial purchasing training program was completed in June 2000 to prepare staff for the transition to the new arrangements. Work is underway to commence higher level competency assessment for all Area Support Office purchasing staff. This restructure has reduced costs for training and has enabled targeted policy implementation. It also has the added benefit of creating an identifiable and consolidated purchasing function in which, staff may be able to develop specialist skills. Purchasing Card TransactionsCentrelink has approximately 1072 purchasing cards, each of which can be used for purchases up to $2000 in value. For the period 29 June 1999 to 30 June 2000 there were 20 096 individual transactions with an aggregate value of approximately $4.7 million (an average of $233.94 per transaction). Complex Procurement ActionsFor the more complex purchases (usually consultancies valued at over $30 000 and goods/services valued at over $100 000), all requests regardless of where they originate throughout the Centrelink network, are routed through the National Purchasing and Contracts Unit in the National Support Office. That unit is staffed with experienced procurement and contracting specialists as well as an in-house contracts lawyer and is tasked with developing and providing tender and contract documentation and providing associated policy advice to project officers and delegates on key steps in the tendering and contracting process. The volume of referrals to the National Purchasing and Contracts Unit in the six months to 30 June 2000 as compared to the six months to 31 December 1999, has increased by 45 per cent. There is recognition of the role of competitive tendering and contracting in contributing to Centrelink’s cost efficient operation. The routing of complex work through the National Purchasing and Contracts Unit allows a focus on these issues and affords the opportunity for value added from procurement specialists. New Chief Executive InstructionOn 1 July 2000 a new ‘Chief Executive Instruction’ on complex procurement was released online located on CentreNet and is available to all staff. The new instruction includes:
Standard Documents‘Standard Documents’ have been developed for tendering and contracting with the aim of improving consistency and protection across the organisation. Centrelink is evaluating the potential for those documents to be housed in a purpose built database designed to further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of compiling the documents and also speed up the implementation of changes to them. National ContractsCentrelink has been increasing the number of national contracts primarily for support services such as property management, travel, managed voice services, photocopying and desktop printers and that trend is expected to continue. These national contracts are subject to competitive tendering processes and managed by the National Contracts Management Unit in the National Support Office. This strategic approach to procurement in Centrelink is estimated to deliver significant savings and the benefits of the contracts are maximized with fewer contractual problems. AuditsCentrelink has undertaken a program of audits to monitor the purchasing function with further audits planned in 2000–01. Appendix xiCustomer Charter Statusand Customer Feedback Handling ReportCentrelink’s Customer CharterCentrelink’s commitment to its Customer Charter was recognised when, in December 1999, it won the silver award for ‘Excellence in Integrating Service Charter-driven customer service outcomes with core business practices.’This was one of nine awards in three categories to Commonwealth agencies that competed in the inaugural Service Charters—Awards for Excellence in Customer Service scheme. (See also Chapter 9, Corporate Overview, page 120 for details of other awards.) Following its second annual review, the third edition of the Customer Charter was issued in November 1999. The content of the Charter stood up very well to this round of consultation and review, with customers saying that its content is still relevant and important to them. Customers strongly supported the addition of a reference to the one-to-one service delivery approach introduced in 1999 because they saw it as a service priority and its inclusion in the Charter would create an image of a more personal approach to service. To help raise awareness of the Customer Charter, a placemat version was developed and introduced in late 1999. The Customer Charter Placemat contains the key elements of the Charter and is intended to be displayed on the desktop of all customer service staff, facing the customer. The Customer Charter was also made more accessible to customers whose first language is not English. A Customer Charter Fact Sheet was created and translated into 24 languages and made available to customers on Centrelink’s web site and to staff via the Intranet. In March 2000, the third and most extensive annual review of the Customer Charter got underway. As usual, the review process involved consultation with customers, community groups, client departments and staff. The main focus for this review is possible inclusion of:
The fourth version of the Customer Charter is due to be released in September 2000. Customer awareness of the Charter has risen by 4 per cent in the last year (from 8 per cent in May 1999 to 12 per cent in May 2000) but remains low. Further strategies are being either explored or implemented to further embed the Charter into the business over the next year. Customer FeedbackThe Customer Charter encourages customers to provide feedback if they are happy or unhappy with our service. The four main ways that customers provide feedback to Centrelink are by either:
Use of FeedbackInformation from feedback on customer service is used in the following ways:
Feedback ActivityThe instances of feedback (not including general information calls) requiring issues to be resolved were much lower this year. This is because a large proportion of the 1998–99 feedback received included ‘Call Centre Busy’ complaints. The number of Call Centre Busy complaints reduced dramatically during 1999–2000 dropping as low as 193 in September (the previous year saw the figure exceed 7900 in a single month). In 1999–2000 there were 66 000 instances of feedback requiring issues to be resolved compared to 90 782 during the previous 12 months. A high proportion of customer contacts received by the 1800 Customer Relations staff are general information calls. Around 100 000 general information calls were received nationally. These calls averaged around 8000 per month and were in addition to customer feedback contacts.
Feedback SystemCentrelink’s Customer Relations Line services are delivered nationally from 14 sites around the country (most are based in Area Offices). All customer complaints, compliments, suggestions and general information requests are recorded by Customer Relations staff onto a database at each site. At the end of each month the feedback is collated nationally and refined ready for reporting. Improvements to Service Delivery Made as a Result of Customer FeedbackMany improvements have been made as a result of customer feedback. Area South Australia for example, received a number of calls from customers complaining that they had not been able to do business with us on behalf of someone else. This was usually because their ‘permission to enquire’ had not been recorded on the customer’s record. After some investigation it was noted that ‘permission to enquire’was often overlooked by the customer service officer when recording customer details as it was not placed in a prominent section of our various forms. The forms were subsequently redesigned and the ‘permission to enquire’ section is now located at the signature block making it much easier for the customer service officer to see and then enter onto the customer’s record. The Four Most Common Complaints
The Four Most Common Compliments
Links to Customer Feedback SystemIn conjunction with the Social Security Appeals Tribunal Centrelink has established a facility to link the tribunal with the Customer Feedback System. This enables tribunal members to provide feedback on service delivery issues which may come to their attention but which are not strictly relevant to the decision of a customer appeal. Some Centrelink advocates took part in a pilot project conducted by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the early results of which indicate a significant reduction in the time taken to resolve disputes about entitlements. The advocacy team involved will continue to work within the shorter timeframes achieved for the pilot project and Centrelink is studying the possible application of the project elsewhere, with the cooperation of the tribunal. Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
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