The ANAO has uncovered significant issues concerning the accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments in Australia. 

A new report, which scrutinised the operations of Services Australia and the Department of Social Services (DSS), found that the methodology used to assess on-time payments was lacking in robustness.

The report highlighted that the method employed for reporting on the timeliness of welfare payments was biassed and only partially reliable and verifiable. 

It pointed out that a methodology change in 2020 resulted in a substantial increase in reported timeliness results for Services Australia, which did not reflect actual performance improvements and compromised the reporting's reliability.

The Auditor-General's analysis, using the business rules of Services Australia and DSS, was able to replicate only 72.6 per cent of the reported bilateral timeliness results from 2018-19 to 2021-22.

Regarding payment accuracy, the report indicated that while the Payment Accuracy Review Program was generally robust, it lacked a thorough analysis of the root causes of inaccuracies, particularly concerning administrative errors, recipient non-compliance, and fraud.

For the year 2021-22, the Auditor-General estimated that 81.4 per cent of welfare recipients received correct payments, and only 76.9 per cent of welfare claims were processed within the established timeliness standards.

Furthermore, the report revealed that the Department of Social Services had inadequate oversight of Services Australia's payment accuracy and timeliness. 

In response, the Auditor-General presented 14 recommendations, with two of them rejected.

The rejected recommendations included the imposition of medical reviews as part of the Payment Accuracy Review Program, which the department argued would unfairly burden some Disability Support Pension recipients. 

Services Australia also disagreed with the development of a reliable and unbiased external performance measure for welfare payment correctness, emphasising that the existing measure of administrative correctness was relevant to the agency's performance in administering payments.

DSS and Services Australia, however, pledged to collaborate to improve the accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments, with a focus on governance, risk management, performance monitoring, reporting, and quality assurance processes.

The report is accessible here.