Minister says 1,500 workers to be added under new contracts with private-sector providers

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The federal government has hired 1,500 extra contractors to help Centrelink’s call centre reduce waiting times and cope with the 1m calls it received each day.

The new contracts have been awarded to four private-sector providers: Serco, which will employ additional staff at its Victorian call centres, and Stellar Asia Pacific, Concentrix Services and DataCom Connect, which will create jobs based in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Michael Keenan, the human services minister, said the 1,500 staff would be added to the 1,000 contracting staff announced in April to handle surges in demand at Centrelink, and 250 additional call centre operators who were employed last year through a pilot program with Serco.

It means 2,750 contractors have been hired since late last year to complement the Department of Human Services’ workforce.

The move comes after the government cut 1,280 staff directly employed by the department over the last 12 months, from 28,587 in 2017-18 to 27,307 in 2018-19, as part of planned changes to “workforce composition”.

"We've been looking at the way we manage calls to make sure it is as efficient as possible and make sure you get to talk to someone in the first instance who can answer your query," Keenan told Channel Seven.

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Wednesday's announcement is on top of the 1,000 call centre staff added in April who were based in Australia, but hired by private companies after a six-month, $51.7m trial of 250 call centre operators employed by Serco.

Keenan said the Serco pilot demonstrated that working with a service delivery partner was an efficient and effective way to flexibly meet the client needs.

“Those staff have already answered more than 2 million calls and have helped reduce busy signals on Centrelink phone lines by almost 20%,” he said on Wednesday.

He said the previous Labor government had cut more than 4,800 staff from the Department of Human Services during its last three years in office.

“Labor’s poor management also resulted in call wait times exploding from about 90 seconds under the Howard government to more than 12.5 minutes.”

He said the department was going through enormous technological change, and the government was committed to the “best possible services” to Australians.

"Over time, I would like people to interact on the digital channels so you can sit on your couch and do everything you need to do with the government," he said.

"Whilst we undergo that transformation, I would like to ensure people still get the service experience that they need."

The Community and Public Sector Union warned this year that the government’s changes to the department’s “workforce composition” was code for increased use of labour hire and contracting.

