Proof Committee Hansard

Page 12 House of Representatives Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Ms Toze: We actually do not capture the state based accommodation in our system at the moment, which is
why you will find that some of those people—
Mr HILL: That is surprising to me, because in Victoria in 2013 the then Liberal government, the minister, put
through some legislative changes, effectively to screw rent assistance out of the Commonwealth, and my
understanding is that now for people in state residential care in Victoria you pay rent assistance to the Victorian
government for their care. So, can't you identify that from your system?
Dr Charker: As we said, no, we cannot, I am sorry.
Mr HILL: So you do not know who you pay rent assistance to? You could not do a search on everyone who
has paid to the Victorian government and triage it that way?
Dr Charker: I am sure that in a separate component of the system or a separate system which manages that
we may have that capability. But in the context of identifying the recipients of DSP and their characteristics, we
are unable to do that.
Mr HILL: So, if you persist with reviews of people living in state residential care as part of this risk managed
process, would it be more efficient and reduce anxiety for recipients and wasted reviews—because there seems to
be a lot of waste in these instances—if other approaches were trialled, such as doing some data sharing with the
state governments that you pay rent assistance to, visiting residences, conducting preliminary assessments and
having a human being walk around these places? You can tell with a glance or by having a GP with you that these
are obvious.
Dr Charker: It may well be. I would seek some advice from my policy colleagues in DSS, who clearly own
the policy around this, as to their views on an appropriate way to implement. We would normally work with them
very closely. But, to the extent that there were the policy authorisation for such an approach, then clearly DHS
would look at doing that and implementing that.
Mr HILL: One of the issues coming up in the audit, in your answers and in some of the submissions is this
line between 'manifest' and everything else. Understandably the legislation at the moment defines 'manifest' quite
tightly and specifically, but there were suggestions in the audit—I am paraphrasing—that people could be better
tracked based on their information and prioritised review and so on. How do DHS's systems and procedures allow
for serious and non-treatable but non-manifest conditions to be identified and recorded and—the second part
would be—the prioritisation or scheduling of periodic reviews graded according to the seriousness of the
condition or likelihood of recovery? The point of those questions is: if you read all the submissions and have a
look at what is going on, there will be a cohort of people who may not, under the current definition, fit 'manifest',
but blind Freddy knows they are not going to get better. Yet they seem to be undergoing regular reviews, running
up Medicare costs and wasting their own time to produce prove the bleeding obvious.
Dr Charker: I will give you an initial couple of thoughts on that and then I might ask a colleague for some
detail. It is certainly true that many people who are in receipt of DSP are not manifestly eligible according to
those criteria, as you pointed out. It is also true that many people in receipt of DSP, however, do have some sort
of severe disability or impairment that is preventing them from functioning and working more than 15 hours
every week. The current process for that to be assessed and then recorded on their file essentially involves the
person—let us say that they are being reviewed—submitting raw medical information to the department at the
initiation of the review process. We will write to them and explain to them that we are doing the review. We will
provide them with a medical evidence fact sheet, a treating health professional consent form et cetera. When they
provide us with that raw medical evidence, that is actually reviewed by a DHS-employed health professional or
allied health professional. Part of that initial assessment is to say, 'Based on that initial set of info, is this person
likely to be manifestly eligible?' Clearly, if they are, the case is finalised and the DSP payment would continue.
If, however, that is not the case, which goes to your question about things that are not manifestly eligible, the
department will then undertake the job capacity assessment that you have touched on. That is where severe
conditions which are not going to meet the manifestly eligible criteria but are severe, and also other conditions,
will be assessed under the current 2012 impairment tables. If the result of that job capacity assessment is that a
person obtains at least 20 points under the impairment tables, particularly under a single impairment table, they
are likely to be classified then as having a severe disability. That, combined with standard income and assets
testing, which of course the DSP also involves, is likely to lead to them being in receipt of it. Importantly, as I
understand it, those conditions which have been articulated which have led to that severe impairment assessment
will be recorded on their file going forwards. Essentially that is the process by which we will assess severe
conditions which are not necessarily meeting the criteria for being manifestly eligible.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT COMMITTEE