Centrelink Annual Review 1999 - 2000From our CEO
'1999 - 2000 has been a year in which tangible outcomes and achievements have begun to demonstrate the full potential of the Centrelink model for delivery and linking of human services.' Centrelink Chief Executive Officer, Sue Vardon. 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 across-the-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 DevelopmentThe Hon. Larry Anthony MP was appointed Minister for Community Services on 29 July 1999. 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. Improved Access to Services through an extensive NetworkThe Family Assistance Office will provide assistance, information and payments to more than two million families. The Family Assistance Office was launched nationally on 1 July 2000, creating a one-stop-shop for families and simplifying payments and services. 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 client 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 personalised 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. Overview of Performance and Financial ResultsThis year's report gives an account of our achievements against our outcome, output and our goals and we are able to report strong results in most measures, including a pleasing lift in most areas of staff satisfaction, an area we targeted for specific improvement in last year's report. Relationships with our clients have continued to improve this year, however we have been disappointed with our performance in meeting key performance indicators. This applies particularly to the indicators in the Business Partnership Agreement with DEWRSB. While there were a variety of reasons for this less than optimal result-some outside Centrelink's control - many lessons have been learned about setting of targets and the management of achievement of those targets. As a result of these lessons, enhanced management information systems are a priority to facilitate easy access to information on the performance of individual offices and teams. We have also negotiated 'stretching' but achievable targets with our clients rather than accepting targets where we had grave doubts that they could be achieved. The success story in 1999 - 2000 has been the turnaround in Call Centre performance. Productivity increased by nearly 50 per cent and customer satisfaction by 15 per cent with average response times reducing from 177 to 70 seconds. Despite answering 22.5 million customer calls, an increase of more than 2 million on 1998 - 99, our busy rates declined by nearly 60 per cent. Further improvements are planned for 2000 - 01. Overall service standards have improved and customers, particularly those in rural Australia, have reported an increase in satisfaction with Centrelink's people, services and information. On top of this, we have received our highest ever customer ratings for our Customer Service Centres and Call Centres. Centrelink produced a sound financial result for the reporting year with its annual Financial Statements again being signed by the Auditor-General without qualification. We achieved:
Responding Quickly to the Needs of People and CommunitiesCentrelink staff in Cairns Customer Service Centre, Area Central and North Queensland, recently responded to calls for assistance to help Australian citizens evacuated on the HMAS Tobruk from the Solomon Islands due to civil unrest. Staff assessed eligibility for payments and were also instrumental in linking the evacuees with a range of other available community support. Developing Relationships in Remote CommunitiesThe Maningrida Customer Service Centre, Area North Australia, was officially opened in June 2000. The Maningrida community is an Indigenous community in Western Arnhem Land NT, located 500 km from Darwin with an average population of 2000. The office is a fully functional Centrelink office staffed by a non-Indigenous manager and four Indigenous customer service officers drawn from the local community. The Next 12 Months and BeyondThe theme for Centrelink's Business Plan 2000-01 is Doing our Current Business Better. The Business Plan identifies seven key objectives, which are outlined in full in the Centrelink 1999-2000 Annual Report, Chapter 1, Introducing Centrelink, page 2. The Business Plan will be used throughout the organisation as the basis for detailed business improvement plans. Centrelink has embarked on the development of a new service delivery model. The new model means that Centrelink will deliver one-to-one service based on a customer's 'life events'. 'Life events' are experiences such as having a baby, looking for a job, planning for retirement or arriving to settle in Australia. The Centrelink 'life events' model of service delivery is being developed in consultation with client departments. The first critical step in developing the new service delivery model was the implementation of one-to-one service, which was completed at the end of 1999. Centrelink's one-to-one service is a personalised approach to service delivery and is increasingly being delivered around the 'life events' approach. We are also exploring how to take advantage of the Internet for online service delivery and to position Centrelink for the Government's Welfare Reform Agenda. Considerable progress was made last year in the critical area of people management. Further improvement in this key result area will be a key factor in our readiness to meet the demands of the new model. People management will continue to be the target for substantial effort at all levels throughout Centrelink during 2000-01. The effective delivery of programs and services in rural and remote areas will continue to be a key priority with a particular focus on increasing services through agents and electronic service delivery. During the new year, we intend to sharpen our focus on outcomes and improve consistency through the continued development of a performance-driven culture. While we have been able to demonstrate excellence in specific areas, our challenge for the future is to exceed expectations across all activities at all times. We will need to refine and possibly reduce the present number of key performance indicators to better measure performance in an environment of continuous improvement and the pursuit of excellence. ConclusionI thank the ever increasing number of clients for putting faith in us to deliver services in a way which meets both their own and their customers' needs. I also thank members of the Board for their contributions to Centrelink during 1999-2000. In particular, I want to acknowledge Mr Robin Marrett, the inaugural Chairman of the Board, who retired on 26 July 2000, for the part he played in guiding Centrelink's development. I also acknowledge the efforts of Mr Philip Pearce, who was a member of the Board and Chair of the Quality Committee until he passed away on 22 October 1999. The Board was pleased to welcome its new Chairman, Mr John Pascoe AM, and new member, Mr Don Fraser, who bring to it a wealth of experience in corporate strategy and planning and customer service networks. Most of all, I want to particularly acknowledge the hard work of our people - they have coped well with a rapidly changing organisation and an array of new government policy initiatives over the past 12 months. Centrelink will continue to make a difference to the people of Australia by delivering the Government's social policy agenda at increasing levels of service and cost efficiency. We intend to exceed the Government's expectations of the organisation. Sue Vardon. Did you find what you were looking for? You can also try the A-Z list, quick links, search, site help or send us feedback on how to make this a better website. |