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Post by Banjo on Dec 10, 2010 11:30:21 GMT 7
Rather than create a new board I've decided to change the title of the Social Security Act board and modify it to carry news of Centrelink actions and decisions. Some of these may not be necessarily relevant to the DSP and recipients living or travelling overseas but could still be of interest to those people.
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Post by ram on Mar 16, 2011 4:30:00 GMT 7
Centrelink told to fix review process By Alexandra Kirk Posted 27 minutes ago The Commonwealth Ombudsman has given the welfare payment agency Centrelink a bad report card. Ombudsman Allan Asher says he has received a barrage of complaints from pensioners, the unemployed and family payment recipients. After launching his own investigation he identified "systemic weaknesses", including Centrelink not telling people they are entitled to an independent review of decisions. "We've heard from many thousands of Centrelink clients who've complained or had arbitrary withdrawal of benefits or imposition of conditions or changes or reporting requirements, all of which have proved to be invalid," he said. He says the system is complex, lacks transparency and treats people unfairly, who often give up pursuing their appeal. Almost half of all reviews resulted in a changed decision to the customer's advantage. The Ombudsman says it does not necessarily mean the original decision was wrong, but still sheets home the blame to Centrelink. "In the end it is Centrelink's responsibility to get it right, for their own sake, to save vast costs, and most importantly for the sake of all their clients who often put up with denial of benefits or changed benefit conditions over a long period," he said. "It is quite an unreasonable thing and an urgent thing and it needs to be fixed." He believes Centrelink is deliberately not telling people they have rights of redress. "The consequence is that when people just get an internal review from the person who made the original decision, they'll often record that as somebody waiving their right to an internal review," he said. "They are quite different things and they are not made clear and we think that has to be done." Centrelink spokesman Hank Jongen says the agency was satisfied it was "generally processing a significant number of reviews quickly and effectively", but accepts customers must now be made aware of their full appeal rights. "In fact, we are currently working together with the Ombudsman in looking at new review processes which incorporate all of the recommendations of this report," he said. Rather than deliberately cutting corners and not telling customers of their rights, Mr Jongen says it was about timeliness. "I don't think it was a question of reducing payments to people," he said. "I think it was a step taken certainly in administrative expedience because it was our view that by having the original decision-maker conduct that first review, any obvious errors could be very quickly resolved." The Ombudsman will review Centrelink's new internal review process in six months. Tags: community-and-society, welfare, government-and-politics, australia Comments (1) Add your comment Ram, I've found the link to the news item and included it with your post in case our members want to place a comment on the ABC site. www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/16/3165036.htm
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2011 6:55:56 GMT 7
Will be interesting to see if they take note.
Too many things just do not get advised about what you are entitled to.
Maybe, that is so that they do not have to fix all their problems.
Will be interesting to see if things will ever change.
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Post by Banjo on Mar 16, 2011 8:34:01 GMT 7
I can foresee them undergoing the sort of changes the police went through a few years back, with people being interviewed being read their rights and told they were entitled to legal representation before they could be questioned.
They have brought this on themselves, anyone with a lengthy track record of dealing with Centrelink will know of officers who are openly hostile to the people they have to deal with.
I'm fully aware that their job involves dealing with people with authority issues who become frustrated and angry easily but if they can't handle it they should find work where they don't have to deal with the public.
I'm sure the cost of having their decisions constantly appealed far outweighs that of a few pensioners living outside of Australia.
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Post by Banker on Mar 16, 2011 15:46:41 GMT 7
Centrelink told to fix review process By Alexandra Kirk Posted 27 minutes ago The Commonwealth Ombudsman has given the welfare payment agency Centrelink a bad report card. Ombudsman Allan Asher says he has received a barrage of complaints from pensioners, the unemployed and family payment recipients. After launching his own investigation he identified "systemic weaknesses", including Centrelink not telling people they are entitled to an independent review of decisions. "We've heard from many thousands of Centrelink clients who've complained or had arbitrary withdrawal of benefits or imposition of conditions or changes or reporting requirements, all of which have proved to be invalid," he said. He says the system is complex, lacks transparency and treats people unfairly, who often give up pursuing their appeal. Almost half of all reviews resulted in a changed decision to the customer's advantage. The Ombudsman says it does not necessarily mean the original decision was wrong, but still sheets home the blame to Centrelink. "In the end it is Centrelink's responsibility to get it right, for their own sake, to save vast costs, and most importantly for the sake of all their clients who often put up with denial of benefits or changed benefit conditions over a long period," he said. "It is quite an unreasonable thing and an urgent thing and it needs to be fixed." He believes Centrelink is deliberately not telling people they have rights of redress. "The consequence is that when people just get an internal review from the person who made the original decision, they'll often record that as somebody waiving their right to an internal review," he said. "They are quite different things and they are not made clear and we think that has to be done." Centrelink spokesman Hank Jongen says the agency was satisfied it was "generally processing a significant number of reviews quickly and effectively", but accepts customers must now be made aware of their full appeal rights. "In fact, we are currently working together with the Ombudsman in looking at new review processes which incorporate all of the recommendations of this report," he said. Rather than deliberately cutting corners and not telling customers of their rights, Mr Jongen says it was about timeliness. "I don't think it was a question of reducing payments to people," he said. "I think it was a step taken certainly in administrative expedience because it was our view that by having the original decision-maker conduct that first review, any obvious errors could be very quickly resolved." The Ombudsman will review Centrelink's new internal review process in six months. Tags: community-and-society, welfare, government-and-politics, australia Comments (1) Add your comment Ram, I've found the link to the news item and included it with your post in case our members want to place a comment on the ABC site. www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/16/3165036.htmThis is all smoke & mirrors! How in hell are pensioners suppose to save money when they are being paid below the poverty line. If anyone could save this $500. C/L would say well you see we are paying you too much money. All Smoke & Mirrors in my book.
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Post by Banker on Mar 16, 2011 15:56:51 GMT 7
He believes Centrelink is deliberately not telling people they have rights of redress.
This has been going on for a long time & its about time it was stopped!
Centrelink spokesman Hank Jongen says the agency was satisfied it was "generally processing a significant number of reviews quickly and effectively", but accepts customers must now be made aware of their full appeal rights.
"In fact, we are currently working together with the Ombudsman in looking at new review processes which incorporate all of the recommendations of this report," he said.
Rather than deliberately cutting corners and not telling customers of their rights, Mr Jongen says it was about timeliness.
"I don't think it was a question of reducing payments to people," he said.
"I think it was a step taken certainly in administrative expedience because it was our view that by having the original decision-maker conduct that first review, any obvious errors could be very quickly resolved."
More bloody lies from C/L
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Post by rowdy on Mar 16, 2011 16:02:06 GMT 7
"I think it was a step taken certainly in administrative expedience because it was our view that by having the original decision-maker conduct that first review, any obvious errors could be very quickly resolved."
What a load of horse sh*t, that turkey should be out a job. So is the original decision maker suppose to review their own decision, and say "yes, I made an error", of course bloody not.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2011 17:19:01 GMT 7
So is Centrelink spokesman Hank Jongen going to redress all the decision that have been made recently.
Which in our eyes they do not have the legislation yet to do anything.
Or are they making up decisions to suit themselves.
Hoping that people will accept them, NOT!
To cripple a minority of welfare payments.
When will any decisions be made in the Senate?
Has anyone heard when this could be happening in the not too distant future!
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Post by spaceyone on Mar 16, 2011 19:56:01 GMT 7
Centrelink told to fix review process By Alexandra Kirk Posted 27 minutes ago The Commonwealth Ombudsman has given the welfare payment agency Centrelink a bad report card. Ombudsman Allan Asher says he has received a barrage of complaints from pensioners, the unemployed and family payment recipients. After launching his own investigation he identified "systemic weaknesses", including Centrelink not telling people they are entitled to an independent review of decisions. Yay! The Ombudsman finally did some work. I am surprised he is even aware of the problems within Centrelink, when all his office seems to do is to decline to investigate any complaints.
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Post by Banjo on Mar 16, 2011 20:10:28 GMT 7
There were 200,000 appeals last year, even if only 10% of them complained to the Ombudsman it's still hardly likely he'll consider individual cases. I suppose collating them and releasing some sort of group report like this is second best.
Edit: I'd like to see a breakdown of the figures showing where the appeals came from. I suppose Newstart would be first followed by DSP applications.
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Post by spaceyone on Mar 19, 2011 8:11:13 GMT 7
Below is a link to the Ombudsman Report into the Appeals process. Also, one case example, which is probably why they had to introduce the time limit rules which apply to Centrelink processing times. Case study Mr S: Mysterious delay Centrelink rejected Mr S's application for disability support pension in June 2008, and he asked for a review of the decision. For two months no action was taken on his request despite repeated contacts from Mr and Mrs S. In September Mr S attended a job capacity assessment (JCA) in relation to his appeal, and submitted a further medical certificate. It was not until November that the ODM wrote to Mr S affirming the original decision and advising him that, as previously requested, a review by an ARO was underway. In November 2008 the ARO upheld the ODM's decision, and notified Mr S in writing nearly three weeks later. By that time Mr S had already lodged an appeal with the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, presumably on the basis of verbal advice of the review outcome. On investigation Centrelink acknowledged that the delays were unacceptable, and that, rather than waiting for the JCA and medical information, the ODM should have completed the review on the information available, and referred it to an ARO without delay if the outcome were not favourable to the customer. There was no information about how many complaints they receive, and what is most commonly appealed. I did see that mentioned in an audit report about Centrelink recently. www.ombudsman.gov.au/files/centrelink_the_right_of_review_having_choices_making_choices.pdf
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Post by Banker on Mar 19, 2011 16:43:14 GMT 7
Below is a link to the Ombudsman Report into the Appeals process. Also, one case example, which is probably why they had to introduce the time limit rules which apply to Centrelink processing times. Case study Mr S: Mysterious delay Centrelink rejected Mr S's application for disability support pension in June 2008, and he asked for a review of the decision. For two months no action was taken on his request despite repeated contacts from Mr and Mrs S. In September Mr S attended a job capacity assessment (JCA) in relation to his appeal, and submitted a further medical certificate. It was not until November that the ODM wrote to Mr S affirming the original decision and advising him that, as previously requested, a review by an ARO was underway. In November 2008 the ARO upheld the ODM's decision, and notified Mr S in writing nearly three weeks later. By that time Mr S had already lodged an appeal with the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, presumably on the basis of verbal advice of the review outcome. On investigation Centrelink acknowledged that the delays were unacceptable, and that, rather than waiting for the JCA and medical information, the ODM should have completed the review on the information available, and referred it to an ARO without delay if the outcome were not favourable to the customer. There was no information about how many complaints they receive, and what is most commonly appealed. I did see that mentioned in an audit report about Centrelink recently. www.ombudsman.gov.au/files/centrelink_the_right_of_review_having_choices_making_choices.pdfMR. BANJO, please take note. Letters lost NO recording of phone calls etc. Taken from the review: Mr B’s nominee telephoned to question the ODM about the debt, and Centrelink records show that the system went down during the call. The Customer Service Adviser (CSA) undertook to call the nominee back but was unsuccessful in doing so despite several attempts. No request for review was recorded. He wrote to request a review by someone other than the ODM, and his letter was forwarded to a Customer Service Centre (CSC) to an officer who had not worked there for three months. A central processing area record showed that the letter was received, but it was not acted upon and could not be found. Mr B says he repeatedly enquired by phone about the review, but was not able to get any information. Centrelink has no record of these calls. He said he spoke to a Debt Recovery officer who undertook to find out who was looking after his case and call back the next day. Centrelink’s advice is that, due to heavy workloads, this did not happen.
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Post by spaceyone on Apr 3, 2011 6:41:35 GMT 7
I emailed the Commonwealth Ombudsman's office last week. I made application under the FOI Laws for a copy of their investigation into my complaint about my JCA being corrupted by the disability employment service.
The reason I stated: since all of the records show that my allegations were correct, I would like to compare those records to the answers she gave to their investigation which seemed to find her innocent.
They have responded that they will let me know within the month if I am allowed to look at it. I doubt there is even much 'investigation material' there to look at, and which is why I bought it up to them.
DEEWR have again failed to comply with an agreement to fulfill another of my FOI requests. They rang to say that they would, and instead sent me one piece of paper, which I had already been using against them for months.
Did I post here that I also received last week more of my Centrelink records, as opposed to finally being granted those from the disability employment service?
I have been moving house the past few days, but cannot get over how every act of corruption was recorded there, as it happened. I was complaining to head office, and if they had looked, the situation could have been resolved many months before it finally was.
I also got a copy of the last JCA I had. That lady only wrote an honest report because before I walked out of the interview, I left a copy of an email I had sent to the Federal Court wanting to have various centrelink, jca and employment service officers charged, for her consideration.
That JCA gave me 25 points, instead of the 15 given to me by the corrupt assessment. They rang all three of my doctors, and acknowledged all of my medical evidence/reports, and so had no choice.
I note in the Centrelink records that not only did they cancel that JCA once, but when I insisted it be rebooked, they marked in their records not to send the assessor any of my medical information.
Good thing I took copies of it with me, since I am no longer trusting of them. Beware of Jeckle and Hyde.
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Post by howdo on Feb 15, 2012 6:43:57 GMT 7
Guys, what is current working credit balance? Saw it on an online letter sent to me.
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Post by chris on Feb 15, 2012 7:00:58 GMT 7
howdo,i got the same thing i have been on dsp for 10 years now i have 1000 working credits,nothing to tell me what it means ,just that i have them,and look lets face it no wonder c/l make mistakes they are just low educated jo blows working there ,i no i have seen some of them working in jobe before c/l ,one was a parking inspector for god sake,another worked in a factory,they are not smart,most have no brains ,its just that they got the job,
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