Backlog of Over 1 Million Claims at Services Australia Will Be Eased by New Staff

A Medicare and Centrelink office sign is seen at Bondi Junction in Sydney, Australia, on March 21, 2016. Matt King/Getty Images

Australians who have made claims with Services Australia face a long wait for approvals with over one million claims still to be assessed by Services Australia, which has conducted mass hirings to ensure a dent is made in the huge backlog over the coming months.

Services Australia, formerly the Department of Human Services is the agency responsible for delivering Centrelink and Medicare payments and age pensions to eligible clients.

It is amid a staffing crisis brought on by a post-COVID hangover, outages with the myGov portal, what some critics view as succession planning failures, and an under-investment in human resources.

Services Australia’s Chief Executive David Hazlehurst told a Senate estimates hearing on Feb. 14 that he was “optimistic” the agency would be able to wrangle the number of claims to a manageable level over the next few months, on the back of the receipt of $228 million (US$147 million) in federal funding used to hire additional staff.

The hiring process is completed and the new staff have trickled into 3,000 new positions created in Western Sydney, Melbourne, Southeast Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, and Canberra.

Mr. Hazlehurst cautioned that the backlog would take some time to reduce to acceptable levels, saying he hoped to reduce the 1.1 million claims down to between 400,000 and 500,000 by April.

“I would expect that by the middle of the year, particularly in relation to new claims on hand, we'd expect to see things back more towards what we would expect to be a reasonable standard,” he said.

Bill Shorten said the former Liberal government had eroded government services across Australia. Martin Ollman/Getty Images

Playing catch-up was not without its challenges, and Mr. Hazlehurst added that the agencies’ mechanisms were affected by experienced staff committing their time to training new hires.

“That, of course, has an implication in the short term for our performance as well because they’re not answering calls or processing claims,” he said.

“We do anticipate things starting to accelerate once the staff that have been on-boarded come out the other side of their training, but in the meantime, things will be a little uneven across any week, or any month.”

The impact of the recent hires has been tangible, with official quoted figures showing that the average speed of calls being answered has come down from 32 minutes to 20 minutes since the hiring process began, and the average wait time for those after employment services stood at 48 minutes.

In a parliamentary release, Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten trumpeted the decline in wait times brought about by the 3000 new staff.

“The Australian government is delivering on its $228 million commitment to deliver the positions in metropolitan and regional Australia. From regional Queensland to Tasmania, these recruits are being trained to improve customer experience, processing claims and answering calls,” he said.

“The extra staff are improving access to Centrelink and Medicare payments and services. This government is committed to supporting Australians when they need it most.”

Mr. Shorten laid the blame for the staff shortage at the feet of the former Liberal government.

“Since Labor was last in government more than a decade ago, staffing levels at Services Australia have declined. In 2011-2012, there were about 37,000 staff employed at Services Australia. Today, even with the additional positions, staffing levels are more than 3,000 fewer than they were a decade ago,” he said.

“This boost has created jobs across the country and will deliver a better government services experience for all Australians.”