An audit has found job agencies running the federal government’s controversial ParentsNext welfare scheme have been making invalid claims for taxpayer-funded bonuses.
The $110m-a-year scheme, part of Australia’s sprawling outsourced billion-dollar welfare-to-work system, pays companies and charities to provide guidance and support to single parents on benefits with children under six years old.
About 80,000 parenting payment recipients are compelled to attend appointments and take part in activities – including playgroup or education courses – to assist them with parenting and preparing for work.
Providers running the program get a $626 fee every six months for each participant referred to their service and $312.2o “outcome payments” when a client completes an education course or works sufficient hours.
But an audit of these claims, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, found 59% of education outcomes and 20% of employment outcomes were noncompliant.
The audit was small, covering only 105 education outcomes ($32,000) and 79 employment outcomes (worth $24,000) between September 2021 and March 2022. The department recouped a combined $21,000 in invalid claims.
The documents suggest the education claims were mostly faulty because providers had failed to provide dates for when participants had started and completed their education courses. Similar issues around the recording of hours and pay were found with employment outcomes.
It was the first time education and employment outcome payments had been included in the audit, the documents say.
The job agency is not required to have found the job for the participant for them to be paid an “employment outcome”.
The department refused to release the names of providers who’d made invalid claims, saying it “would, or could be expected to, unreasonably and adversely affect the business or commercial affairs of organisations”.
But noncompliant claims were widespread across the system, with 17 agencies who had below 70% of their assessed claims satisfying or mostly satisfying requirements.
Two providers were 100% compliant with the claims process.
The audit also examined about $172,000 in claims from the “participation fund”, which allows job agencies to claim back the cost of items including work or study-related equipment, public transport or fuel vouchers and training courses.
Only 4% of claims to the participation fund were noncompliant, with the department recouping just over $2,000 of the $172,000 in spending that was audited.
But compliant claims have also raised eyebrows. Guardian Australia has previously reported the same fund allows job agencies to legally claim fees for referring participants to courses run by the same organisation, including online modules in topics such as “body language” that were labelled “insulting” by a participant.
Groups including the Australian Council of Social Service and the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children have labelled the scheme discriminatory, while a parliamentary inquiry last year recommended it be made voluntary.
ParentsNext underwent some minor changes in 2019 amid widespread complaints, including allegations revealed by the Guardian that some providers had denied exemptions to single mothers experiencing health issues or domestic violence in order to keep receiving taxpayer funds.
Labor was critical of the scheme while in opposition and the employment minister, Tony Burke, told Guardian Australia in July he was “looking closely” at the program.
Guardian Australia revealed last year the federal government clawed back more than $1m in wrongful claims in the Jobactive and ParentsNext programs in 2020. The current ParentsNext contracts expire in 2024.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was approached for comment.
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