A follow up audit on recommended improvements to the Disability Support Pension (DSP) program managed by the Departments of Social Services and Human Services has found a number of issues still need attention.
In his report, Disability Support Pension — Follow-on Audit, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir said his office last audited the DSP in 2015-16 when it made four recommendations, all of which were agreed by the two Departments.
“The objective of this audit was to examine if Social Services and Human Services drive improvements in the DSP using data and information from multiple sources, including agreed Auditor-General and parliamentary committee recommendations,” Mr Hehir said.
“Human Services has developed and updated training and guidance for staff and contractors involved in DSP assessment and review processes. These updates were made in response to program changes, external scrutiny, and program learnings.”
He found however that Human Services did not comprehensively monitor if officers were communicating the reasons for access decisions to DSP applicants in a timely and accurate manner.
“Social Services and Human Services monitor, evaluate and report on delivery of the DSP program, but improvements should be made to the effectiveness of approaches across all three domains,” Mr Hehir said.
“The assessment of performance against outcomes is not complete as the Departments do not have a comprehensive set of key performance measures for interdepartmental and external reporting.”
He said the interdepartmental timeliness key performance measure was biased, as it excluded DSP claims with processing times over 84 days.
“Evaluations focused primarily on effectiveness and should be broadened to also address efficiency and cost-effectiveness.”
Mr Hehir said the Departments had not implemented the Auditor-General’s previous recommendation to develop a more complete set of internal and external performance measures.
The Auditor-General’s 76-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
and the audit team was Cheryl Wilson, Deanne Allan, Matt Owen, Katherine Lawrence-Haynes and David Brunoro.
