Output 1—Core department: Highlights
At 30 June 2005, the department was eight months old. Our achievements over those eight months included:
- increasing the number of voluntary referrals from Centrelink to the Job Network from 4,000 a month to 10,000 a month
- establishing a national network of local liaison officers (LLOs) to provide members of parliament and their constituents with a rapid response to service issues (at year’s end, LLOs had dealt with 1,920 cases and completed 99.6 per cent of them within two working days)
- establishing the Comprehensive Work Capacity Assessment Division to increase the speed with which injured employees are referred for assessment, intervention and employment services support
- improving accountability by developing legislation, which was introduced on 23 June 2005, to remove the boards of Centrelink and the Health Insurance Commission
- elevating the importance of service delivery, by making a significant contribution to policy development through our participation on the Welfare to Work Taskforce and by actively participating in interdepartmental working groups
- developing a proposal for the ‘Government Services Smartcard’ and convening an interdepartmental committee to progress the smartcard proposal
- improving cross-agency work on procurement, information technology, project management and property and achieving savings and efficiencies through joint initiatives (for example, CRS Australia has engaged Centrelink to manage its information technology facilities, with estimated savings of $3.9 million over five years)
- establishing the department—on 26 October 2004, the department consisted of three people and borrowed facilities; at 30 June 2005, we have a well-functioning department, having recruited staff and put in place governance and management processes.