Monday, 13th February, 2006

Until mid-way through last year the job of deciding whether unemployed people had special needs for assistance because they were disabled, mentally ill or disadvantaged was performed by Centrelink public servants. The task was taken over by the Job Network service providers - some privately owned and some owned by community organisations - with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) taking on a supervisory role. At the time, reported The Australian this morning, the change was described as "like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank" because the amount earned by Job Network providers depended on the classification they made; the more disadvantaged they judged a person to be the greater the payment received from the government for helping them.

The temptation to wrongly classify was undoubtedly present so it was natural that DEWR took on the task of monitoring the outcome. That this task was performed efficiently was shown when the departmental watchers noticed an increase under the new system in the special payments. A detailed audit of Job Network has already resulted in the Salvation Army's job placement subsidiary making a multi-million dollar repayment and others are expected to do so shortly.

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