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Commonwealth Ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan, today released his investigation report into the implementation of job capacity assessments under the Welfare to Work initiatives.

Prof. McMillan said his office has received 140 complaints relating to cases involving aspects of the job capacity assessment (JCA) process. ‘Although the issues raised in these complaints varied, we identified some common themes’, said Prof. McMillan. ‘This report highlights problems identified through case studies of complaints investigated by my office, and discusses current JCA practice and procedures and their impact on customers.’

The report focuses on issues identified since the implementation of JCAs and how they have contributed to the volume of complaints received by the Ombudsman’s office. Under the Welfare to Work initiatives introduced on 1 July 2006, people with illness, disability and/or barriers to work are required to undergo a comprehensive work capacity assessment. These assessments inform Centrelink for income support decisions and identify the most appropriate employment-related assistance for a person.

The report makes ten recommendations to address the following issues:

• the qualifications of job capacity assessors are often not compatible with the medical conditions they assess
• there is a lack of consistency of decision making by assessors—for example, two different assessments of the same person by different assessors can result in differing outcomes
• the level of discretion afforded to assessors can result in an assessor inappropriately disregarding medical evidence supplied by a person’s treating doctor in favour of their own opinion
• there is a lack of consultation between JCA assessors and treating doctors that results in less informed assessments
• the Disability Support Pension medical report forms do not provide for treating doctors to provide the level of information required to assess customers accurately
• there is a low usage of specialist assessments by job capacity assessors
• there is insufficient guidance for the use of different types of assessments—face-to-face, phone and file
  appropriate record-keeping policies and accountability mechanisms need to be in place
• there are some administrative system problems
• there is a lack of management information to enable proper monitoring of the program.

The four agencies involved—the Department of Human Services, Centrelink, the Department of Education, Employment and Work Place Relations, and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs—have undertaken to continue liaising with one another to address some of the issues highlighted in the report, which will require additional work.

Prof. McMillan has encouraged the agencies to work collaboratively to ensure all of the recommendations are addressed effectively to improve the JCA process and the overall quality of JCA reports.

See: Implementation of job capacity assessments for the purposes of Welfare to Work initiatives

For further information or to arrange an interview with Prof. McMillan contact:

Elizabeth Courtney-Frost
Director, Public Affairs
02 6276 0133
elizabeth.courtney-frost@ombudsman.gov.au

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