Centrelink Annual Report 1998-99

Centrelink Annual Report 1998-99

Introducing Centrelink

Our Strategic Framework

As a developing organisation, a key priority for Centrelink has been to drive change by implementing a Strategic Framework that encompasses a vision for the future, sets goals, promotes shared behaviours and enables future planning.

The Strategic Framework is reviewed annually in consultation with key stakeholders to ensure it continues to provide a powerful basis for Centrelink’s operations and future development. In 1998–99, Centrelink’s Strategic Framework 1997–2002 was updated and released as Our Business, Our Future—Centrelink Strategic Framework 1998–2003. This document was developed after consultation with client departments and agencies, some stakeholders from the community sector and Centrelink staff, thereby enabling us to build on the achievements of Centrelink’s first year of operation.

The first part of the Framework, Our Business reinforces and develops the framework and concepts on which Centrelink was founded to be first choice of Government; the premier broker and service provider for our customers. It defines our vision, mission and goals, and the underlying philosophies and activities necessary to achieve them.

The second part of the Framework, Our Future concentrates on Centrelink's business outcomes, linking the goals to performance indicators and their associated practical strategies, actions and timeframes.

The Strategic Framework maps the strategies to be put in place over the next five years in order to achieve the Government’s aims when it established Centrelink as the ‘one stop shops’ for service delivery to the Australian community.

The Framework is the key element in engaging Centrelink's people in a common purpose and approach while taking the organisation into the new millennium. It is maintained at the local level by Customer Service Improvement Plans which outline how each Centrelink team will improve service delivery and contribute to achieving Centrelink's goals and realising our vision.

Our Vision

Making a difference to the Australian community through responsive, high quality government services and opportunities, and giving value for money.

Our Mission

Building a stronger community through:

·  providing opportunities for individuals through transitional periods of their lives;

·  delivering innovative, cost effective and personalised services for individuals, their families and community groups;

·  being an organisation committed to quality;

·  making the best use of available dollars;

·  listening to the community’s ideas for giving better service; and

·  building a quality relationship between customers and Centrelink.

Our Goals

To achieve the commitments to Government and client departments, customers and staff, Centrelink has set six goals to be achieved progressively over the next five years:

Client Partnerships

To build partnerships with client departments that delivers the required results and provides value for money.

Customer and Community

To increase customer and community involvement and satisfaction with services.

Centrelink People

To create an environment where Centrelink’s people will give value to customers, client departments and the community through their skills and commitment to service.

Cost Reduction

To return an efficiency dividend to Government.

Innovation

To provide innovative and personalised solutions, consistent with Government policy.

Best Practice

To be first choice and benchmarked as the best practice in service delivery.

Our Quality First Policy

Linking the strategic with the operational is Centrelink’s Quality First Policy. The Quality First Policy is simply a structured way of thinking about providing quality customer service.

Key elements include:

·  ensuring that all our operations are customer driven;

·  strong leadership throughout the organisation;

·  team based working arrangements to optimise the involvement of our people;

·  an integrated customer service improvement planning and review cycle operating at all levels of Centrelink and linked back to the Strategic Framework;

·  measuring performance using a strategic Balanced Scorecard approach; and

·  focusing on performance improvement and developing a culture that supports and fosters constant learning and innovation within the organisation at all levels.

Our Shared Behaviours

They are:

·  listening to customers and the community;

·  solving problems and developing opportunities;

·  mutual respect for customers and for each other;

·  exploring and putting in place innovative and cost effective ways to provide the right outcome; and

·  behaving with integrity and in an ethical manner.

Our Business Outcomes

The Strategic Framework leads to a series of business outcomes for Centrelink, which are to:

·  be first choice of Government for the provision of government services;

·  meet Government expectations of performance;

·  achieve outstanding customer service across all service centres;

·  achieve commitment to, and active promotion of, Centrelink and its services by its people;

·  achieve pre-eminent technologies which enable customer access and support decision making and knowledge management;

·  establish Centrelink as the model for service delivery excellence in Australia; and

·  achieve recognition within Australia by strengthening local communities.

Our Client Business Partnerships

As of 30 June 1999 Centrelink had business partnership agreements with:

·  Department of Family and Community Services;

·  Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business;

·  Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs;

·  Department of Transport and Regional Services;

·  Department of Health and Aged Care;

·  Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry;

·  Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts;

·  Department of Veterans’ Affairs;

·  Tasmanian State Government; and

·  all State and Territory Housing Authorities.

Note: Following the October 1998 Federal Election, Administrative Arrangements Orders were changed with a number of department names changing and various transfers of functions.

Our Business

Table 1: Our Business

OUR BASE
Functions / Income support, other payments and referral services
OUR DIMENSIONS
Number of sites / 421 sites Australia wide*
Number of staff / 22 641†
Number of client agencies / 9 key agencies
Payments on behalf of client agencies / more than $45 billion per annum
Online transactions / more than 2.5 billion per annum
OUR CUSTOMERS
Number of customers / 6.1 million
Number of individual entitlements / 9.2 million
Letters to customers / more than 84 million per annum
Home visit reviews / 116 000 per annum
Booked office appointments / more than 6.5 million per annum
New claims lodged / 3.6 million per annum
Newstart and Youth Allowance continuations / 19.2 million lodged personally
3 million lodged by mail per annum
Telephone calls answered / more than 19.9 million per annum
Internet web site hits / 28.9 million per annum

Notes:

*Includes non-customer service delivery sites.

*Includes paid and unpaid permanent and temporary staff.

Access to Centrelink Services

Customers can now access Centrelink services in a variety of ways, which include:

·  in person (visiting a Customer Service Centre, Specialist Service Centre, or a Centrelink agent);

·  over the phone (including Telstra multi-media pay phones);

·  electronically (on the Internet and using one of Telstra’s multi-media pay phones); and

·  by mail.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Report of the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer

Centrelink's first Annual Report in 1998 recorded the story of the creation of Centrelink which was formed by the Government to provide exceptional service to the community by linking Australian government services and to achieve best practice in service delivery. In that report we told of the initiatives taken to launch and develop the organisation towards those lofty objectives.

The past year has seen the consolidation of those founding initiatives as well as the development of better and more cost effective ways to deliver government services. Centrelink is rapidly transforming into a customer focused, outcome oriented and cost conscious organisation.

To achieve our commitments to Government, client departments, customers, our staff and the community, Centrelink has set itself five goals in the areas of client relationships, customer and community satisfaction, Centrelink people management, cost reduction and innovation. We have also developed and implemented key performance indicators which measure our performance against targets in each of these areas’ our Balanced Scorecard. This year's Annual Report gives an account of our achievements against those five goals.

In summary, the organisation has, on average, achieved results consistently above target with one important exception, Centrelink people management. Our goal to create an environment where people in Centrelink are highly committed to its aspirations and objectives is an area where we have fallen short of our target. This is not unexpected in a new organisation undergoing significant transformational change. However, it is not an acceptable outcome and the Board and Management have put in place a number of initiatives during the past twelve months to address this area of underperformance. These are described in the body of this report.

Performance targets set in Business Partnership Agreements with client agencies were, for the most part exceeded.

An efficiency dividend of $96.1 million has been returned to Government. The $96.1 million incorporates a four per cent reduction in fees paid by client agencies, a standard efficiency dividend of one per cent of total net operating costs and an Information Technology special dividend of $5.9 million.

Our operating result is a significant improvement over our first year of operation with a surplus before extraordinary and abnormal items of $20.4 million.

Financial stewardship is sound and again this year Centrelink's Annual Financial Statements have been signed without qualification by the Auditor-General.

In October 1998 Centrelink announced a major restructuring of its operations with consequent staffing reductions. While most of the restructuring was funded internally, it was necessary to borrow $31 million for this purpose. It is intended that this loan will be repaid over the next two years.

Overall service standards have been improved and the staffing reduction targets have been met against a background of industrial harmony ‘a harmony that was fostered through the successful signing of the second Centrelink staff development agreement.

However, the year has not been without its difficulties. For a period at the beginning of the year our service levels dipped below where we had targeted them to be.

The introduction of the Youth Allowance on 1 July 1998 and the implementation of the Job Network in the latter part of 1997–98, together with the bedding-down of the Newstart Common Platform, a major change to computing operations, put considerable pressures on Centrelink particularly its Call Centre and Customer Service Centre networks. This was a difficult time for customers and staff alike and from it, Centrelink learned some valuable lessons.

We recognised quickly that we needed to put in place strategies to improve the range and quality of services we provide to customers and client agencies through the Call Centre network as well as in the Customer Service Centres.

The changes made to Call Centre operations are now producing real gains. The number of busy signals callers would receive before they were connected to an operator has dropped markedly. Waiting times and speed of answer have also improved significantly and we are now operating consistently better than target.

With the strong support and active participation of our people we embarked on a new approach to customer service providing customers wherever possible with access to a single point of contact each time they do business with a Centrelink office. As well as the obvious efficiencies that this can produce, customers do not have to repeat their stories to several people and this style of service builds a more personalised relationship between our people and their customers.

We know our customers do not like queues and we have become more competent at managing queues with an emphasis on service by appointment and a focus on personalised ‘one to one’ contact for customer service.

The productivity gains we made in the Call Centres over the past year and the improvements we achieved in service to customers would not have been possible without a concerted effort to reduce backlogs in our Customer Service Centres. We want to acknowledge the work of Centrelink managers throughout the network in making certain their staff pared back outstanding work so that we were able to approach our planned improvements with a clean slate.

The foregoing efficiencies have had a direct impact on the cost of delivering services. In addition, not only do they demonstrate Centrelink’s flexibility and innovation, they also show we are well placed to deliver a complex range of services that will change frequently in accordance with Government policy initiatives.

The Next 12 Months and Beyond

When Centrelink was established we built in the philosophy of transition, that is, our responsibility was to help people move through difficult times and, where possible, to reduce their dependency on government based programs. This has been particularly important in our approach to jobseekers as we began a proactive approach towards encouraging people to seek work rather than just to get a payment.

It has also been important outside the urban areas. In rural and regional Australia, where we have already been able to increase our presence with the addition of extra agents and new offices, we will be extending our operations to bring a wider coverage and innovation in our services to people living in these areas. The Internet will play a key part in this.

In this year of consolidation we have also focused on planning for the next phase of Centrelink's development the new service delivery model and its â life events' approach to customer needs.

One of the major benefits the Government saw in its creation of Centrelink was the development of a ‘one stop shop' so that the people of Australia could access a large range of services from one location. Through the ‘life events' approach, Centrelink will be able to tailor a range of government services to meet the particular needs of customers at a point of transition in their lives for example, leaving school, having a child, becoming unemployed or retiring. This approach contrasts with the traditional model that expects customers themselves to know about and apply for a range of assistance measures. It means that Centrelink, rather than the customer, will sort out the complexities of government assistance programs.

To introduce this new model successfully, we are making major advances in information technology aspects of service delivery and this will require new and special skills to be developed by Centrelink's network of Customer Service Officers, particularly their ability to use the technology.