After butchering its ‘flagship’ $750 million Youth-Jobs PaTH program – to prepare, trial and ultimately hire young Australians – another ‘flagship’ Turnbull Government employment program has failed. From The Australian:
The Coalition’s flagship $7.3 billion employment services program has been branded a “hopeless mess” with fewer than 40 per cent of unemployed clients finding long-term work, more than a third of job agencies performing so badly they should be disqualified and warnings that fraud may go undetected.
The Australian has uncovered evidence of job agencies inducing or harassing former clients for pay slips from their new employers to claim taxpayer bonuses worth thousands of dollars each.
Agencies are handed incentive payments four weeks after a client starts a job and again at three months and cumulatively can get up to $13,750 at six months if the client stays in the job.
Fewer than 40 per cent of clients remain employed after six months and almost half of the $1.7bn the department spends on the program each year goes on administration.
An analysis by The Australian of the five-year program reveals 569 employment services sites out of 1648 around the nation have failed a measure set by the Department of Employment that requires their business be reduced or taken away entirely, but only 12 companies have had their share reduced…
Only two sites were operating above the national average but the department has “deferred” any shake-up of the private companies “to give providers an opportunity to improve their performance”.
The bonuses under the redesigned “jobactive” program launched by the Coalition are big business and, in many cases, securing them is the only revenue keeping the organisations afloat…
“We spend roughly $9bn on government jobs programs, the second largest area of procurement outside of defence,” [Labor employment services spokesman Ed Husic] said.
Chalk this one up as yet another expensive Turnbull Government fail. Any time you hand out money to the business community you invite fraud.
Can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field.
