Staffing drop at Services Australia 'disappointing' reveal in the 2023 federal budget, CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly says

CPSU National Secretary Melissa Donnelly said the staffing drop at the agency responsible for delivering government services through Centrelink was "the one disappointing aspect of the budget" for the union.

"[Services Australia] is an agency under significant pressure in terms of wait times and service delivery, and instead of seeing an urgent jobs boost, which is what is required, we did see those numbers heading in the wrong direction," she said.

It follows comments by ACT senator Katy Gallagher the government is investing in the delivery of government services.

"We're making sure that key service delivery agencies, many of them located here, actually have the money to do the work that the people of Australia need them to do," she said, speaking on the impact of the federal budget on ACT residents on Wednesday.

"Whether it's processing passports, visas, looking after veterans, or supporting pensioners with their engagement with Services Australia and Centrelink."

Labor promised 200 additional staff for Services Australia at the 2022 election, which a spokesperson for Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said was being delivered in this budget.

Services Australia will receive $231.8 million next year for a cohort of 850 staff, who can be mobilised in emergencies.

"We have created a dedicated, expert workforce to more efficiently deal with climate change-induced natural disasters," the spokesperson said. "In the times when this special workforce are not working on this, they can be deployed into other disaster-related functions, such as payment integrity."

In an email to staff on Wednesday, Services Australia chief executive officer Rebecca Skinner said the reduction in the average staffing level by 1868 roles, from 28,560 to 26,692, was due to a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

"This is due to the agency returning to more regular staffing levels now that pandemic-era work, and the temporary increase we were given to deliver crises support in recent years, has concluded," Ms Skinner wrote.

The spokesperson for Mr Shorten confirmed this: "The Services Australia staffing level surged during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The staffing level is normalising to pre-pandemic levels.

"Budget papers show the 2022-23 staffing levels were temporarily boosted by 2,121 to support the delivery of COVID-19 and emergency payments."

The agency's funding dropped by $0.4 billion, to $4.9 billion in the next financial year.

"In Services Australia, we already are seeing call wait times, as was evidenced in the Senate estimates earlier this year, heading in the wrong direction," Ms Donnelly said.

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"So there are already workload pressures ... our members in that agency are already seeing that impact, so it is something that needs to be actioned."

The average wait for Centrelink calls was just over 18 minutes between July 2022 and January 2023, up from 14 minutes in 2021-22, Senate estimates revealed in February.

"It's been an agency that's been under pressure for many years with significant call wait times, millions of unanswered calls and so on," Ms Donnelly said.

"What I want to see from the government is further investment in Services Australia to support the really important work they do.

"It is the interface with government, so it is the one area of the budget ... which was disappointing last night and we want to see more action."

The CPSU welcomed the federal budget's broader investments in APS capability, with a boost of 10,800 workers promised across the sector.

It comes as Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down a federal budget which sought to deliver cost-of-living relief through increases to income support payments, rental relief and expanded support programs.

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