What is happening within Centrelink? Centrelink are part of the Australian Government Department of Human Services, delivering a range of payments and services. At the moment they don’t seem to be doing it very well at all. In this election year pressure should be exerted on the politicians to do something about it.
As accountants and financial planners we are nominees for a number of clients and act for them in respect to matters associated with Centrelink. We have found the following, among the many, problems:
- Clients attending a Centrelink office are often sent away to transact by telephone or online. Nothing seems to work online. There could be a wait of 90 minutes, 2 hours and even 3 hours to get though by telephone. Does anyone consider these telephone wait times as a satisfactory standard?
- We’ve found a refusal to update client assets & liabilities even after a number of written requests. Letters were ignored and updates had not occurred. In this instance the clients were being underpaid significantly;
- Commonwealth Ombudsman won’t investigate until a complaint has been lodged with, and dealt by, Centrelink. But Centrelink make it difficult to complain. We’ve waited up to 40 minutes to get through on the complaints telephone line. To handle the matter we were transferred to another department and waited for 45 minutes before hanging up. To whom does one complain about their complaints department?
- We’ve received requests for the same information numerous times and we’ve provided it numerous times. Surely once should be enough;
- Their letters allow 14 days to provide the required information but are usually received a week to 10 days after the date on the letter. This leaves only a few days to obtain the information and get it into their office, an almost impossible task;
- Clients’ pensions have been suspended unnecessarily.
These are just some of the issues we’ve encountered but I’m sure there are many more. If you have been subjected to other problems please let me know by responding to this post.
There is obviously some problem within the organisation and I believe that it has become significantly worse over the last 12 months. It is not satisfactory and the politicians should be warned that we expect immediate improvement.