Services Australia 'headed in the right direction' after new hires

The Government Services Minister said the onboarding of 3000 additional staff had helped the agency reduce its claims backlog from a peak of 1.35 million earlier this year, to about 850,000.

The backlog is expected to be back at what is considered a normal level of 500,000 by the middle of 2024.

Services Australia processes payment claims for Centrelink and Medicare services, including JobSeeker, the Disability Support Pension and parental payments.

"We absolutely acknowledge the frustration of people waiting for payments, but for the first time in a long time we are headed in the right direction," Mr Shorten said.

"This is what good government looks like.

"These new recruits helped reduce claims by almost 40 per cent and Australians will continue to see improvements as the new staff increase their skills and experience.

Mr Shorten said he was "extremely proud" of the new staff, and thanked the existing employees who had trained them.

The minister is facing pressure from the main public sector union to deliver ongoing funding for the additional staff in the next federal budget, to be handed down on May 14.

The Community and Public Sector Union is campaigning for the Albanese government to end a trend of so-called "stop-gap" funding for the service delivery agency.

It wants to ensure the $228 million invested in the new jobs in 2023 is ongoing, so that the agency does not have to make adjustments elsewhere in its budget.

In March, Mr Shorten said that while the government was committed to resourcing Services Australia, he could not comment on budget matters.

The additional staff were announced after a top official told Senate estimates the agency wasn't meeting its "own KPIs" on a number of customer service measures.

Services Australia has also faced complaints about its call wait times, with customers waiting an average of 33 minutes on the phone to reach Centrelink as of December 31, 2023.

More than 7.4 million congestion messages had been issued to Centrelink callers who were unable to get through to the agency, between July and December 2023.

"Reducing the outstanding claims will help to bring down call wait times, as fewer people will be on the phone to check what's happening with their claims," Mr Shorten said.

Services Australia's average staffing level (ASL) has fallen from about 30,089 in the 2013-14 financial year to 26,692 for the 2023-24 year.

The ASL figure represents the average number of full-time equivalent staff in the agency, and is published annually in the budget papers.

The Coalition was in power for most of this period, though staffing levels in the agency also fell in the Albanese government's 2023 budget, as COVID surge measures ended.

"Services Australia had seen thousands of staff ripped out of core business areas assisting customers while successive Coalition governments were in power," Mr Shorten said.

The opposition's spokesperson for government services, Paul Fletcher, has previously criticised Mr Shorten for the uncertainty around the 3000 additional staff, and the government's move to end a contract with 600 call centre workers in June 2023.