Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra, Hockey said "Human Service Agencies are responsible for delivering over 200 services - bringing them together provides the opportunity to review their operations and gauge their efficiency from a customer's perspective."
The Department of Human Services, for the first time, brings together under one umbrella six of the Government's most important service agencies: the Health Insurance Commission, Child Support Agency, Centrelink, CRS Australia, Health Services Australia and Australian Hearing.
Collectively, the Human Service agencies are responsible for delivering over $80 billion in benefits and services each year, the equivalent of around 10 percent of Australia's GDP to over 20 million Australians.
This is the official transcript of the National Press Club speech by the Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey.
Making Life Easier – the Role of Human Services in
Improving Commonwealth Service Delivery
The most common question I am asked these days is:
What is Human Services?
In short, Human Services is what it says – it’s
about providing services to people.
Through the umbrella of my Department of Human Services, the
Australian Government distributes over $2600 per second.
That’s $2600 every second, of every hour, of every day each
year.
Some flippantly refer to my role as that of Paymaster General.
It is however a little more complicated than spending a few hours
signing some very large cheques.
I see my role as making people’s lives easier and more
secure through simpler and more effective access to Government
services and benefits.
As I will explain in more detail today, we will achieve this
objective in a number of ways, chiefly through an improved customer
service focus, better targeted communication and the sensible use
of new technology.
We will also improve accountability within the Agencies. And we
will form partnerships within the public sector and with the
private sector to ensure that Government policy intention is
carried through in the delivery of programmes.
The Australian social security support system can trace its
origins to the early 20th century with the introduction of the Aged
and Invalid Pensions. The first maternity allowance soon followed
in 1912. We have however come a long way since then as the health
and welfare sectors have expanded enormously under successive
Governments.
Today my Department of Human Services is the major delivery hub
for Australian Government programmes and services. John McDonnel
described Human Services in an issue of Quadrant earlier this year
as "a major financial institution". That is a reasonable analogy.
Another is that it is effectively "the retail arm of your
Government". We distribute around 10% of Australia’s Gross
Domestic Product every year to approximately 20 million people in
Australia and more than 50,000 Australians overseas.
This is currently done through the six Agencies:
- Centrelink
- The Health Insurance Commission – which includes Medicare
and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
- CRS Australia (formerly known as The Commonwealth
Rehabilitation Service)
- Australian Hearing
- Health Services Australia
- and the Child Support Agency
With 36,000 staff, 850 outlets Australia wide and an annual
operating budget of over $3.5 billion, my Department and our six
Agencies deliver over 200 different services for 14 Commonwealth
and a number of State Government Departments.
Obviously our major stakeholders are our customers.
Almost every Australian is a customer of Human Services and many
Australians are multiple customers, obtaining a range of services
from the different Agencies.
The support the Australian Government provides through these
benefits varies enormously depending on the type of customer and
the services they receive. Some services and benefits are means
tested, others are not.
For the Health Insurance Commission there is no customer means
test on a Medicare rebate. And all Australians gain access to
subsidised medicines under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
At Centrelink our customers could be a farmer needing urgent
drought relief or a mum with a new born baby receiving the
non-means tested Maternity Payment.
CRS Australia assists over 41,000 income support clients a year
with vocational and occupational rehabilitation services,
disability management and injury prevention.
Health Services Australia provides services as varied as travel
information for people going overseas through to medical testing of
new recruits for the Department of Defence.
And Australian Hearing ensures many Australians have an improved
standard of life through the provision of hearing tests and hearing
aids. It provides more than 40,000 paediatric services each year
and has a significant outreach programme with over 100 visiting
services travelling to some of the most remote Aboriginal
communities on the continent.
The diversity of our customer base is further illustrated by the
Child Support Agency.
The CSA’s primary customers are the 1.1 million children
in Australia that are growing up relying on child support payments.
These children come from every demographic category in
Australia.
And whilst the CSA’s role is to ensure children whose
parents separate are financially supported by those parents, it is
not an easy task. The more than 700,000 failed relationships on the
Agency’s books may require intensive case management. Each
case may involve working with a father and a mother and their
financial commitments to their children. But it may go beyond that
and involve step parents, guardians, defactos, employers and
carers. Some of the cases even involve international
transactions.
Many Australians would be unaware that 40% of non custodial
parents pay only $5 a week to support all of their children.
Usually it’s the taxpayer who picks up the bill for the
difference between child support and the cost of living.
So with such a diverse customer base there is no simple way for
Human Services to deliver the one stop shop – the kind of
support our customer base demands and the Government expects.
Therefore we must become agents for change. The first step is
engendering in each of the service delivery Agencies the customer
first focus.
We want to put the "service" concept back into service delivery.
We want our staff to go the extra step in assisting people where
they can.
So in practical terms, how will this be achieved?
Firstly, we need to improve our communication with
customers.
Some people complain that they don’t understand the
services provided by the Australian Government. They know something
is out there – they just don’t know what it is or how
to access it.
I believe that Human Services has a binding agreement with the
Australian people for the continued supply of meaningful
information about Government assistance programmes. I intend to
ensure that Human Services makes optimum use of the most effective
communication channels to ensure that accurate and timely
information reaches our customers. As a result of our diverse
customer base we need to be smarter in how we communicate.
In the past there has been a tendency for Governments to
announce new policy programmes through a high profile marketing
campaign and then to leave ongoing communication to discreet
messaging through community groups and even the bush telegraph. I
am looking to change this with a marketing programme that maintains
a year round community profile for programmes provided by the six
Agencies.
Beyond marketing, the traditional communication channels remain
important. Each working day my Agencies provide 250,000 face to
face services and answer 180,000 phone calls in 40 call centres
across the country. Of course face to face services will continue
to be essential for programme delivery.
Human Services also sends out over 100 million letters each
year, that’s 400,000 letters each working day. Common sense
would say that is a staggering figure, and a costly exercise. SMS
and email represent a more cost effective means of communication
with customers. And whilst we do occasionally use these channels,
it is uncommon and needs significant expansion.
A choice of communication channels is particularly important
given that many of our customers have work and family
responsibilities and are time poor. They want fast information and
convenient interactions with Government.
We are therefore, examining a range of alternative communication
channels for customers that have consumer usability as the basis
for development.
Each new channel usually means new technology. I want to make a
confession here – when it comes to new technology I am
cautious. I would rather learn some lessons at other people’s
expense. I recall the opening of Hong Kong’s new Chep Lap Kok
airport in 1998. At the time, airport authorities boasted that the
baggage handling system was the most advanced in the world.
Unfortunately the new technology had some teething difficulties and
a reported 10,000 suit cases went missing – a large number of
those belonged to journalists. Needless to say the next airport to
open chose a more trusted and less ambitious technology.
We are closely analysing the distribution systems that work in
other industries across Australia. Traditional customer focussed
industries such as retail and financial services initiated the
widespread use of multi purpose card technology for us. Swipe cards
and web based services have supplemented existing branch and shop
front infrastructure. Phone banking is common but has become more
of a support tool rather than a product provider.
Putting on my old hat as Financial Services Minister, I think
most Australians would accept that banking is easier today than it
was 30 years ago. Today, web based banking, EFTPOS and competition
in financial product delivery has meant that you can do your major
banking at home using a computer or a customer can swipe a card at
a shop or at an ATM – anywhere in the world.
However in Human Services we still grind along under an
unacceptably high level of paper based communications and face to
face interactions. For example 80,000 Australians still drop by a
Medicare Office every day to get a cash rebate.
These often time consuming and unnecessary visits could easily
be replaced with a more progressive approach to transactions. With
that goal in mind we are looking to ramp up the electronic claiming
of Medicare benefits. This means that those of you with busy
working or family lives will be able to use your Medicare card at
the Doctor’s surgery to trigger payment of your Medicare
rebate.
Of course some General Practitioners have already taken up this
technology through HIC Online. However HIC Online has some
operational challenges that must be addressed for it to become more
user friendly – for doctors and patients. We will have more
to say about this later in the year.
Most Australians have a Medicare card in their wallet or purse.
The Medicare smart card initiated by my colleague the Minister for
Health Tony Abbott, has received bipartisan political support. The
positive feedback from consumers in Tasmania is that they are
looking for new ways to access Government services and they want
the card to offer access to more products. The creation of Human
Services provides us with a unique opportunity to deliver multiple
service applications across health and welfare.
I should say at this point that we are mindful of the need to
protect the privacy of all customers receiving services from the
Government. Privacy concerns will weigh heavily on our thinking as
we explore opportunities for the expansion of service delivery.
However, the benefits of these changes are significant for
consumers. It means less paperwork and less time visiting Human
Services’ offices.
Smart cards are also one mechanism by which we can reduce health
and welfare fraud. We have a duty to ensure that this
country’s health and welfare systems are used by those who
are entitled to use it and no one else! For example, I read with
interest the recent story of a person whose Medicare card was
stolen and the thief availed themselves of a free kidney operation.
That operation was not free – you and I as taxpayers paid for
it.
What the smart card represents is one set of keys to open a
number of doors to a range of Government services and benefits.
It would appear that both the health and welfare sectors may be
assisted through the implementation of this mezzanine technology. I
say mezzanine because it is not the end game in service delivery
technology. In a perfect world, in 2005 all service delivery would
be web based with multiple practical applicators such as hand held
web based products and smart phones. Of course in a perfect world
everyone would want to use those products too. However we must set
realistic goals and smart cards are a reasonable step forward.
Even State Governments agree that it is too big a jump for the
entire community to use only web based services. I note that a
number of State Governments are considering the implementation of
smart cards for public transport and other state services. There
are compelling reasons for us to ensure common standards for this
technology. This will hopefully prevent us from winding up with a
new technology repeat of the mixed rail gauges debacle of the
1800s.
Australia is not the only country exploring smart card
technology. In fact we lag behind many others. Three weeks ago it
was reported that the German Government is considering a smart card
for the health insurance and social services sectors. Many states
in the United States are in a similar position. They follow the
lead of many European and Asian Governments who have already
introduced smart card service delivery.
In setting realistic goals I acknowledge a multiple purpose card
has merit but represents a significant challenge for our back end
infrastructure.
Even though consumers currently prefer card based technology we
cannot neglect the development of other service delivery channels
including a significant expansion of web based services.
Already over 500,000 Australians have registered to use
Centrelink services online. They can check the timeliness of their
payments, note when the next payment is due and customers can
update some of their personal information. The Centrelink site is
now receiving 3.3 million page hits per month but given that they
deal with 1.3 million customers a week it remains a very small part
of their business and it still has a long way to go.
This is simple customer communication through direction
interaction. Based on projections, there will be growth over the
next twelve months in the use of online services. This will result
in a reduction of nearly 5 million letters over the next financial
year.
More importantly we will also be able to save customers’
time.
In the very near future, students applying for Austudy or Youth
Allowance can do so online. This means that for the 370,000
students who receive this payment each year they may never have to
visit a Centrelink office. Updates can be delivered online or by
phone. Of course this reduces Centrelink queues and frees up staff
for more intensive case management work.
We do however want to go further and back end partnerships can
also deliver front end benefits. For example, we are trialling a
project that links universities with Centrelink. Currently if
students change their courses they must hand deliver or send to
Centrelink their university "change of course" information.
That’s paperwork for the student, paperwork for the
university and paperwork for Centrelink. Through this new
partnership we can regularly update a student’s course load
with the Centrelink mainframe. This automatically delivers students
the correct rate of Austudy payments. It’s easier for the
student, they are less likely to incur a debt, and it takes the
pressure off call centres and customer service centres through
alternate means of updating customer information.
Web based back end solutions can deliver real and obvious
benefits. Of course the success of new technology depends on the
simplicity of the web based programmes and a customer’s
willingness to use this technology.
Young Australians are generally more comfortable with web based
services. But some web based services may be popular across the
entire age spectrum. In this regard the most obvious benefits of
online services can be delivered through Medicare.
Since mid 2004 Australian families could register online for the
Medicare Safety Net. In the last three weeks we have extended this
service so that customers can regularly check their Medicare Safety
Net balance online. We will be extending this service to the PBS
Safety Net. We also expect to deliver full online services for
organ donor status and child immunisation history in the near
future. This will be of significant assistance to families.
Of course none of the anticipated improvements in service
delivery will occur if the technology doesn’t live up to
expectations.
Therefore we will be focusing intently on how well each of the
six Agencies is managing their major IT projects. The
Auditor-General’s report released last week into the failed
EDGE project in Centrelink indicates an urgent need for increased
and more careful management attention to major projects. I expect
constant vigilance and clear governance structures.
There is a need to change the old fashioned expectation in the
public sector that pumping in more money will fix projects that are
behind schedule or poorly managed. My experience in the private
sector is that projects that fail are canned and relevant
management are held responsible for failure to deliver. I will be
taking the same position with major public sector projects in Human
Services.
Moreover new technology will only be rolled out when it is able
to deliver the benefits customers expect.
One of the key reasons the Department of Human Services was
established was to improve the level of accountability of the
Agencies both to the Australian Government and to the customers
they serve – that is, the Australian people.
An obvious first step in improving accountability is to address
the governance structures of the organisations.
The existing Boards had an important governance role when
Agencies were part of a sectoral portfolio such as Health and
Ageing or Family and Community Services. However, with the new
administrative arrangements, the Government is keen to have a more
direct ministerial role in the running of these Agencies.
I can announce today that I will be introducing legislation in
the winter sitting of Parliament to make the necessary changes to
bring the Health Insurance Commission and Centrelink closer to
Government by recreating them as statutory Agencies.
Under this structure the heads of these Agencies will now report
directly to me through the Secretary of the Department of Human
Services. They will no longer be accountable to Boards.
The existing boards of the Health Insurance Commission and
Centrelink will be dissolved.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the current and former
members of these Boards for their excellent service to government
over the last 8 years for Centrelink, and over the last 30 years
for the Health Insurance Commission.
Some of these Board members are here today and I would
particularly like to thank the current chairs Elisabeth Montano and
Peter Bunting for their outstanding service. The Boards have served
a very useful role when Ministers had Agencies within their policy
portfolios. However with the creation of Human Services comes
direct accountability to a Minister. This was the clear
recommendation of the Uhrig Report which the Prime Minister
endorsed when he announced the creation of the Department of Human
Services in October of last year.
Quite obviously, a further outcome of these initiatives is that
the Health Insurance Commission will no longer be a commission. As
a statutory agency it will have the same role but a different name.
Commonsense says rename it and we will. From the date of statutory
agency approval the Health Insurance Commission will be renamed
"Medicare Australia".
This name reflects what almost every Australian recognises
– that Medicare is the way in which the Government supports
them with their health services. It is one of the strongest brands
in Australia and it reinforces the Howard Government’s strong
support of Medicare.
Following these changes a number of stakeholders will want a
more formal process for consultation with Human Services. I intend
to engage with all parties on the most appropriate mechanisms for
consultation going forward.
To address points made by some media commentators, the role of
the Department of Human Services is not to duplicate the
administration of the Agencies. Its role is to co-ordinate the
Agencies, liaise with key stakeholders and, importantly, it is
accountable for providing input into policy development that will
hopefully ensure we don’t end up with well-intentioned
Government policy that is difficult to deliver.
The largest of our 14 Australian Government clients is the
Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. This is followed
by the Department of Family and Community Services, the Department
of Health and Ageing and then the Department of Education, Science
and Training and others. We already have a clear line of
communication with policy Ministers and their Departments.
This cooperation is already evident in Human Services’
timely delivery of a range of 2004 election commitments. These
include measures such as:
Improved Access to Child Care Benefit for Grandparents.
The Seniors Concession Allowance and Utilities Allowance where
nearly 300,000 self-funded retirees and all Aged Pensioners have
received their first instalment of their annual payment to assist
with utilities and maintenance costs.
We have also delivered the new 100% Medicare Rebate for some GP
Services. As a result of this 300,000 Australians each day are
benefiting from higher Medicare rebates
In addition we have delivered ahead of schedule the $300
increase in Family Tax Benefit (part B).
Remaining election commitments on track for implementation
include the 30% Child Care Rebate and the extension of the Youth
Allowance, AUSTUDY and ABSTUDY Payment to New Apprentices.
At this point I wish to thank the many outstanding staff working
in all of my Agencies. From the front end staff visiting the Tiwi
Islands to our tech heads here in Canberra, the dedication and
energy of the Human Services team is something I am very proud
of.
If anyone needs proof of that commitment then it was best
displayed during the Asian Tsunami Crisis over January. Across the
country my agency staff worked around the clock to help others in
need. And they do that every day of the week.
Perhaps my most significant challenge is to ensure my Agencies
continue to deliver the already long list of existing Government
programmes whilst undertaking the changes necessary to achieve our
goals.
When taking a customer perspective one of the key challenges we
face is the complexity and range of services we deliver. As I have
already mentioned, the Human Services’ Agencies are
responsible for delivering over 200 different services.
By bringing these Agencies under the one umbrella of Human
Services, we have the opportunity for the first time, to review how
they operate from a customer perspective. We must repeatedly ask
whether the original policy intention is carried through in the
delivery of the programme.
From early 2006 we will assess how well existing policies are
travelling and what can be done to improve the delivery of the
policy. Given the large number of initiatives we deliver this
review programme will be a long and extensive process.
Our 20 million customers have little regard for sectoral and
bureaucratic differences. Instead they just expect the Government
to deliver services in a timely, efficient, cost effective and
easily understandable manner.
We will be looking outside existing agency boundaries if there
is a service that can be provided to us in a cheaper and more
efficient manner by the private sector.
We are already making progress in this area. You can currently
drop off your forms for the Family Tax Benefit at a Medicare
office. This is an outcome of the Family Assistance Office
initiative which was introduced with the New Tax System in 2000.
What is changing is that we have begun training Medicare office
staff to use Centrelink IT systems so that you can obtain the full
level of family assistance services at your local Medicare office.
This improves service delivery to families who will be able to
enquire about and claim family assistance benefits in the 238
Medicare offices around Australia as well as the larger network of
Centrelink offices.
These internal partnerships can deliver new outcomes for
customers.
There are other examples of this new partnership at work. When a
new baby is born mothers will be given better information on how to
claim the full range of services offered by the Australian
Government. These services include the maternity payment of over
$3,000, information on the Family Tax Benefit, Medicare enrolment
forms, childhood immunisation details, child care benefit details
and information about obtaining child support. It makes access to
services simpler and easier – even though there are still too
many forms to fill out!
The new arrangements also provide us with an opportunity to pool
resources for specialised services. For example, Centrelink and the
HIC have found new synergies in the delivery of services to
Indigenous communities. Remote communities are regularly visited by
Centrelink staff. In future, these visits will also provide access
to Medicare services. This can be as simple as putting staff from
the two Agencies in the same four wheel drive rather than sending
them separately. The service will be extended across all of my
Agencies. This improves service and saves money.
We must also extend services across Government. For example by
extending the already strong relationship between Centrelink and
the Australian Taxation Office the Government can now automatically
include welfare payment details in tax returns. This is a voluntary
initiative that can save families time and significant
inconvenience. This will complement the successful HIC trial where
taxpayer’s Medicare financial histories were used to provide
details for the Medical Expenses Tax Rebate.
I have asked my Agencies to work together and identify other
programme initiatives that improve customer service and free up
resources for those services most in need.
The new Department has also been tasked to ensure that the
Agencies become more efficient. An efficient organisation looks to
utilise synergies and streamline processes to increase productivity
and reduce operating costs.
Efficient organisations are professional, well organised, have
excellent management control, are able to remedy problems quickly
and are responsive to customer and stakeholder concerns.
There needs to be greater focus on cost effectiveness too.
We can achieve efficiencies in our travel, property, banking,
legal services, communications and mailout budgets. After all, my
Agencies are big consumers in these areas and they can drive good
deals in the market place with their buying power.
I want the Agencies to collaborate in their purchasing efforts
– Government spends $3.5 billion running the DHS Agencies
each year and we need to find synergies in purchasing to produce
better outcomes for less money.
We are already pursuing a number of opportunities in procurement
and in service delivery that will reduce the cost to the taxpayer.
For example an early indication of the capacity of this is the
recent decision by Australian Hearing to team up with CRS Australia
to achieve considerable savings in its upgrade and purchasing of
laptops, PCs and flat screens for its 78 hearing centres Australia
wide. The taxpayers saved more than a quarter of a million dollars
on this contract alone.
One area where my Department will have an important role to play
is in the delivery of the Government’s policy for encouraging
people to move from welfare into work.
The 2002 Inter-Generational report states quite clearly that we
must lift Australia’s labour force participation rate if the
tax burden is not to rise unacceptably over the next 30 years as
our population ages.
Immigration will not of itself deliver this result. If we sought
to keep the current age dependency ratio through to 2044, the
Productivity Commission estimates that we would need net
immigration each year, five times higher than current levels.
So in our search for more workers we have to focus on those of
working age who are currently out of the workforce and are
receiving benefits, this is a pool of around 2.7 million
Australians. Naturally not all of these people are work ready but
we will address their barriers to employment within a compassionate
and tolerant framework.
The Government recognises that there are those who are
permanently unable to work at award wages. They will obviously
continue to have access to pensions, such as the Disability Support
Pension. Fear campaigns by our political opponents will not succeed
because Australians know that positive reform is necessary, in
fact, it is long overdue. Human Services will have a major role to
play in assessing and supporting individuals who seek to either
re-enter the workforce or are entering the workforce for the first
time.
This is more than labour resources and economics. It’s
about people, it’s about self esteem and it’s about
families.
Time and again we see that those most likely to go back
into the workforce are those who most recently have come out of the
workforce.
Since December in partnership with the Minister for Workforce
Participation Peter Dutton, I asked Centrelink to proactively
improve the rate of referrals of people already on parenting
Payments to the Job Network.
So far we have than tripled the number of voluntary referrals
for clients such as those receiving Parenting Payment up from
around 4,000 a month in October 2004 to 12,000 for March 2005.
What is interesting about this data is that preliminary
information indicates that around 35% of single parents are already
working and are receiving the Single Parent Payment as well. This
puts to bed the argument that somehow the Government would be
breaking new ground by asking single parents to work a few hours
each week.
One of the more pleasing outcomes of these results is that so
many of the parents contacted by Centrelink have been willing to
undertake part time work. In fact many parents do! Moreover some
parents were not aware that they could use the Job Network service.
Others just needed the extra encouragement to take the first
step.
In conclusion, I must reassure you that I am very mindful of the
enormity of the task before us in Human Services.
Given that the Prime Minister has just visited China I feel a
little more comfortable quoting that famous Chinese proverb that a
journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I am also
mindful of Mao Tse Tung’s warning that "passivity is fatal to
us".
With that in mind we have begun the Human Services reform agenda
with many small steps.
It will be a partnership with staff, other Agencies and the
private sector.
Distributing $82 billion a year is no easy task. Making sure it
goes to those most deserving is even more challenging.
But we are treating every dollar as if it were our own. We are
treating every customer as if it were ourselves.
In the end outcomes matter, and for $2600 every second,
Australians expect us to make their lives easier.
The Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey, today outlined his new Department's role in improving the delivery of health and welfare services.