Documents obtained via freedom of information laws show that the federal government has recovered some $5.3 million worth of ‘outcome payments’ to privatised employment services providers since 2015.
The payments are made to employment services providers for placing clients into jobs or education courses and more than 5,000 wrongful claims have been recovered since the outsourcing program began in 2015.
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) CEO Cassandra Goldie claims the sector should be subject to scrutiny by an independent regulator:
“The scale of these clawbacks shows there is still a serious problem with the way that government holds employment services to account for delivering high quality and effective services for people who need their help,” she said.
“An independent regulator would provide greater transparency, and empower people who are unemployed to make complaints and have their complaints dealt with promptly…
Kristin O’Connell, of the Antipoverty Centre, said she believed the figures understated the number of false claims in the system.
“The number of reports we hear about people being pressured to sign false records suggest that this is a drop in the ocean,” O’Connell said…
“The government publishes information about how many people on payments are being penalised and what for, they need to do the same thing with job agencies.”
In the late 1990s, Australia privatised the system that helps the unemployed find work.
The idea was that by paying employment service providers for each person they placed into a job, the process would become more efficient.
Instead, a parasitic industry developed with around 40 privately run employment agencies earning millions in fees from the unemployed.
These agencies participate in the federal government’s Jobactive program and receive fees for each jobseeker placed on their books, as well as incentive payments once people find work.
When a job seeker attends their “initial appointment”, the Jobactive provider receives between $266 and $377. For placing an unemployed worker in an approved activity for fifty hours per fortnight (such as Work for the Dole), the provider receives $350. Placing someone into as little as four weeks of paid work nets providers $400. It’s money for jam.
This privatised system has made several multi-millionaires, including Therese Rein – wife of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Job agency consultants have also admitted that they turn to “unethical” tactics to meet targets set by job providers, or risk being fired.
The system is so bad that even the CEO of the Council of Small Business Australia, Peter Strong, has called for the creation of a new Commonwealth Employment Service (CES), claiming the privatised system is failing and has created a few millionaires off the back of the unemployed, while delivering a scheme that is failing job seekers.
The Morrison Government extended the existing Jobactive contracts until 2022 while also expanding mutual obligations for the unemployed.
It obviously cares more about propping up the profits of privatised job agencies than actually delivering jobs and financial security to the unemployed.
The least it can do is properly regulate the sector.
