debt recovery

Given the widely documented policy failure of robodebt, how could such an act of bureaucratic bastardry occur in a sophisticated government system? 

The commonwealth ombud’s new report looks at the steps Services Australia has taken to address the issues that arose after the government announced that Services Australia would no longer raise debts solely based on the process of income averaging.

The Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission is assessing corruption allegations regarding the state government’s debt recovery agency following an internal probe.

Services Australia staff will continue to pursue debt-related activities that are ‘beneficial to customers’, while other activities have been frozen for six months.

Centrelink has agreed to keep working on the robodebt system to make it fairer and more transparent in line with new recommendations from the Commonwealth

Centrelink’s ‘robodebt’ system should be suspended until all procedural fairness flaws are addressed, argues a Senate inquiry report. Human checks should be reinstated.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman reports Centrelink’s automated debt recovery drive is an example of digital transformation that failed to maintain good public administration, procedural fairness under administrative law, and risk management.

Centrelink maintains it is legal to release a client’s personal details to “correct the record” but the privacy commissioner is asking questions about its decision to do so in the controversial case of blogger Andie Fox anyway.