Services Australia’s budget will get a $228 million boost to meet a sharp spike in welfare and health claims and delays dealing with them.
Services Australia will get 3000 extra staff after a more than doubling of claims in the first quarter of the financial year and a decade-long rundown in headcount prompted the Albanese government to boost the agency’s budget by $228 million.
Faced with what an official described as a “perfect storm”, the cabinet’s expenditure review committee agreed to lift staffing levels as part of the mid-year economic and budget review.“The new staff will be critical to reducing call wait times, speeding up claim payments and giving Australians back some time in their busy lives,” Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said.
The big investment in new front-line staff comes after average staffing levels in the large service agency had fallen over the last decade, down from 31,000 in 2012-13 to 26,600 at latest count. “We also know that 20 per cent of calls are currently seeking information about where a claim is up to. By working on that backlog, we will start to see call wait times coming down.”
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