Unions are warning of longer wait times when calling Centrelink as Services Australia cuts the amount of work it outsources to labour hire firms by 30 per cent.
Services Australia, the department responsible for overseeing Centrelink, has told The Guardian it has informed four of its ‘service delivery partners’ it will be cutting the amount of work sent to them by around 30 per cent.
The four firms – Datacom, Probe, Concentrix and Serco – were contracted by the federal government in 2017-19 to provide additional call centre workers for Centrelink.
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Services Australia says the instruction has come after a drop in demand for Centrelink services, which is expected to lead to job losses. Services Australia says it will be employing casual staff ‘in-house’ from 1 July to address any shortfall.
“With COVID-19 measures now winding down and less activity supporting job seekers, we no longer require the current level of service delivery partner support,” says Hank Jongen, general manager of Services Australia.
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“As part of new financial year adjustments, we will be bringing staff back in-house instead of using labour hire, to fill a range of casual service delivery roles across the agency. We will continue to adjust our service contracts and staffing levels, based on changing priorities, demands and the economic climate into the future.”
But the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) says the move will affect wait times when trying to access Centrelink. CPSU national president Alistair Waters says the reduction is a direct response to funding cuts made in the previous government’s Budget.
“This has meant that Services Australia is now scrambling to balance service delivery needs with a depleting budget,” he says.
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“CPSU members have grave concerns that service standards and Services Australia’s capacity to serve the Australian public will fall off a cliff after 1 July because of Scott Morrison’s final budget. It is absolutely critical that the essential services that all Australians rely on are properly funded.”
Wait times to get through to an operator at Centrelink have been notoriously bad since before the pandemic. The wait times exploded even further during the height of COVID, as thousands of people suddenly found themselves needing to apply for support for the first time.
Although demand has certainly dropped since those heights in 2020, the pandemic is ongoing and many still require support.
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