An Independent Report Has Slammed Centrelink’s “Deficient” Robo-Debt System
What's the government's next move on the #FakeDebt saga?
Last summer will forever be known as the Summer of #FakeDebt. Amidst the heat and humidity, tens of thousands of Australians were hit with debt notices from Centrelink, demanding repayment and threatening fines.
The problem with this attempt to recoup nearly $2 billion in outstanding debt was that many of the notices were totally wrong. The debt notices were automatically generated through a system that regularly miscalculated an individual’s income, and therefore the amount of money they owed.
For months the government refused to acknowledge there was a problem, even though recipients of the notices were ringing up Centrelink and reporting they felt suicidal.
Centrelink has apparently now issued 220k debt notice letters. Even if as few as 10% wrongly issued it's a major problem! #RoboDebt
— SACOSS (@SACOSS) April 10, 2017
The Commonwealth Ombudsman, an independent federal agency, today released a report into the whole saga and its conclusions are pretty scathing.
According to the acting Ombudsman, Richard Glenn, “There were issues with the usability and transparency of the system”. “There were deficiencies in DHS’ service delivery and communication to customers and staff when implementing the system. Many of these problems could have been reduced through better project planning, system testing and risk management,” Glenn said.
The report found that the debt notices “were unclear and deficient in many respects” because they didn’t include the Centrelink compliance hotline and failed to explain “that a person could ask for an extension of time or be assisted by a compliance officer if they had problems.”
When the Ombudsman puts it like that, you have to admit it does sound pretty bloody deficient.
The report makes a number of recommendations, including making the debt notices clearer, providing contact information and better explaining how the income calculations work so recipients can understand what might have gone wrong.
The social services minister, Alan Tudge, has tweeted that the government will adopt the recommendations.
Ombudsman's report on OCI shows system calculates debt accurately & data-matching reasonable. Recs to improve usability which we adopt.
— Alan Tudge (@AlanTudgeMP) April 10, 2017
So it looks like the robo-debt program will continue, but in a slightly less cooked way than before.