The Department of Social Services (the department) is responsible for providing targeted welfare payments and other assistance to ‘people who cannot fully support themselves’. Services Australia, an executive agency within the social services portfolio, has a purpose to ‘support Australians by efficiently delivering high-quality, accessible services and payments on behalf of the government'.

Effective management of welfare payment processing to ensure recipients receive ‘the right payment at the right time’ is central to the bilateral arrangement between the department and Services Australia. Accuracy and occurrence of personal benefits is a key audit matter for the ANAO’s financial statements audit program and a key area of financial statements risk for the department due to: the high volume and varying complexity of payments processed by Services Australia on complex IT systems; and the reliance on correct disclosure of personal circumstance information by a large number of recipients across diverse socioeconomic groups. This audit was conducted to provide assurance to Parliament on the department’s and Services Australia’s processes for monitoring, reporting and continuously improving welfare payment accuracy and timeliness.

The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Australian Department of Social Services’ and Services Australia’s management of the accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments.

Key findings:

• The department’s and Services Australia’s management of the accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments has been partly effective.
• The department’s oversight arrangements for the accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments have been partly effective. Current bilateral agreements do not adequately support oversight of payment accuracy and timeliness, and attempts to update relevant agreements have been unsuccessful to date.
• The department’s and Services Australia’s processes for monitoring, reporting and continuously improving payment accuracy are partly effective.
• The department’s and Services Australia’s processes for monitoring, reporting and continuously improving payment timeliness are partly effective. The methodology for measuring welfare claim processing timeliness is not robust.