The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Professor John McMillan, today released the report of his investigation into complaints handling in the Job Network.

The investigation checked progress made by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in implementing recommendations made by the Ombudsman in 2001, suggesting improvements to Job Network complaints handling arrangements.

“It is very important to members of the community that standards are not diminished when the government decides to contract out the delivery of services, such as employment services”, Professor McMillan said.

“A well designed complaints scheme is integral to maintaining a high quality of service delivery. It provides a means of resolving user dissatisfaction, helps identify deficiencies and provides valuable feedback to the Department and Job Network providers.”

The investigation revealed that, while there had been significant positive progress in complaint handling in the Department itself, improvements were still required to arrangements for complaints made directly to Job Network providers.

Recommendations made in the Ombudsman’s report include:

• Establishment of minimum content requirements and a standard format for provider complaint registers, and
• Review of the Department’s contract monitoring and quality auditing with a view to improving consistency across States.

Professor McMillan said he was pleased the Department had accepted ten of the eleven recommendations arising from the investigation. He noted that some of the recommendations had already been incorporated into requirements under the new employment services contract, which commenced in July 2003.

Complaints handling in the Job Network An overview of the 2002-03 Own Motion investigation of the Ombudsman

The investigation examined the implementation by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) of the recommendations of the Ombudsman’s January 2001 report of an investigation into Complaints Handling in the Job Network.

In May 1998 the Government introduced new arrangements for the provision of labour market assistance programs with the commencement of the Job Network.

Under the Job Network, job placement and other employment services for people registered for unemployment benefit are provided by a group of private, government and community-based organisations selected through a competitive tendering process. The Job Network provider organisations, contracted by DEWR, provide employment services in accordance with a Code of Conduct which covers, inter alia, an effective complaints system.

The investigation which resulted in the 2001 report was one of a series undertaken by the Ombudsman’s office into agency complaints handling systems. They are undertaken to ensure that the Ombudsman can refer complainants to his office back to the agency about which the complaint has been made, in full confidence that an adequate complaints process is operating within the agency.

In the case of Job Network investigation, there was an additional objective: to ensure that, where the delivery of services has been outsourced to third party providers, the quality of those services is being maintained. This is becoming increasingly important as more government services are provided by the private sector under contract to government. Often the service user has no contractual interest in the arrangement since only the government agency and the individual provider are parties to the contract.

This limits significantly the service user’s capacity to influence contractual outcomes. It is, therefore, essential that agencies responsible for monitoring these contracts set appropriate delivery standards for providers; and have strong quality control mechanisms in place to ensure service providers are meeting those standards.

The 2001 report identified a number of deficiencies in the procedures established by DEWR to ensure appropriate service delivery standards in relation to complaints handling under the employment services contract. The thirteen recommendations, whose implementation is the subject of the current report, addressed both the contract management arrangements in the Department for the oversight of complaints handling in Job Network providers; and the guidelines and procedures in place for the handling of complaints made directly to DEWR about Job Network.

In relation to the recommendations from the Ombudsman’s 2001 report, the Department has made significant enhancements to its internal complaints handling processes. In particular, the introduction of new complaints handling guidelines and quality assurance procedures has provided a strengthened framework for dealing with complaints across the Department. Practical complaint handling and recording by DEWR officers staffing the Customer Service Line have, overall, improved markedly, although there was evidence that there may be some variation between States in the consistency with which procedures are followed. The development of the Job Network complaints database has provided much greater capacity for the Department to manage and analyse complaints data and to use complaints information in performance improvement, in complaints handling and across the Job Network as a whole.

There have also been enhancements in DEWR’s contract management and compliance arrangements in relation to complaint handling by Job Network providers.

Monitoring and quality audit visits, which provide a formal framework for checking on provider complaint handling, have improved in both frequency and coverage. There is some evidence that greater attention to quality assurance in some States would help ensure those processes are being used to maximum effect.

Nevertheless, it is disturbing that, as the second Employment Services Contract draws to a close, a number of the monitoring and audit reports reviewed in the course of the current (2002-03) investigation revealed deficiencies in provider complaints handling arrangements. Results of this investigation suggest that definitions of complaints and standards of complaint handling and recording may still vary significantly across providers, and even across different sites run by the same provider.

The Ombudsman made 11 recommendations for further improvements in Job Network complaints handling arising from this review and the Department has accepted all but one.

The recommendations proposed enhancements in the complaints handling processes within providers, including standardising complaint definitions and requirements for recording of complaints. The Department has advised that both these recommendations have already been implemented in the development of the new employment services contract commencing in July 2003.

The recommendations also proposed a greater emphasis on the quality and consistency of complaints handling within the Department itself. This includes recognising the value of complaints in informing performance improvement across the Department and across the Job Network as a whole.

DEWR has advised that the recommendations from this review, together with the recommendations from the Productivity Commission’s recent independent review of the Job Network and the Department’s own internal reviews, were considered in developing the new Active Participation Model (APM). This APM is being implemented in the new employment services contract and includes a Key Performance Indicator measuring quality that recognises how providers deliver services is just as important as the outcomes they achieve. Complaints handling and resolution are integral components of both the Code of Conduct and the Service Guarantee in the contract, and jobseeker feedback will be used as the main means of performance assessment for this KPI.

The Ombudsman intends to review the effectiveness of the new complaints handling and contract monitoring arrangements once the new employment services contract has been introduced and the APM is fully operational.

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Date of release: 11 August 2003