The Mandarin Report (19 Oct 2021) claim that DVA has spent $53m on labour-hire contacts alone since 2019
Verity Pane made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Veterans' Affairs
Dear Department of Veterans' Affairs,
Given the recent press announcement by current DVA Minister Andrew Ghee who referred to DVA's handling of claims 'a national disgrace' (The Guardian, 26 March 2022) and that he threatened to resign if not given $96m, and Scott Morrison's response that 'It’s one thing to make an investment, but you’ve got to have the confidence that the investments that you’re making can then be implemented effectively', has the exponential growth in labour hire and consultant fees paid by DVA over the last ten years caused the problem you are now seeking even more money for?
Is this not a case of poor fiscal management and profligate spending on contractors and consultants at the expense of the core business of the Department - perhaps because senior executives are feathering their future employment options (especially with this change of government forecast).
I seek copy of the amount of expenditure on labour-hire, contractors and external and seconded consultants incurred by DVA for the last ten financial years, including the current partial financial year.
Yours faithfully,
Verity Pane
Dear Ms Pane,
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (the department) has received your
request for access to information under the Freedom of Information Act
1982 (FOI Act). I note you have requested access to the following:
I seek copy of the amount of expenditure on labour-hire,
contractors and external and seconded consultants incurred by DVA for the
last ten financial years, including the current partial financial year
Your request was received by the department on 26 March 2022 and the 30
day statutory period for processing your request commenced from the day
after that date. The period of 30 days may be extended if we need to
consult third parties or for other reasons permitted under the FOI Act. We
will advise you if this happens.
Charges
The department will advise you if a charge is payable to process your
request and the amount of any such charge as soon as practicable. No
charge is payable for providing a person with their own personal
information.
Your address
The FOI Act requires that you provide us with an address that we can send
notices to. You have advised your electronic address is
[1][FOI #8655 email] . Unless you tell us
otherwise, we will send all notices and correspondence to this address.
Disclosure log
Information released under the FOI Act may be published on a disclosure
log on our website, subject to certain exceptions. These exceptions
include where publication of personal, business, professional or
commercial information would be unreasonable.
Exclusion of employee details
To the extent the department has documents in its possession that fall
within the scope of your request, we intend to treat the surnames,
signatures, position titles and direct contact details of Commonwealth
employees and contractors, including clinical staff working for Open Arms
– Veterans & Families Counselling as irrelevant in accordance with section
22 of the FOI Act. If you agree to the department treating these details
as irrelevant, please advise by 5 April 2022.
Further assistance
If you have any questions about your request, please email
[2][DVA request email]
Yours sincerely
Aaron (position number 62214261)
Information Access Officer
Information Access Unit
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
t 1800 838 372 | e [3][email address] |
[4]www.dva.gov.au
p GPO Box 9998, Canberra ACT 2601
[5]cid:image001.png@01D0027A.1DAB84F0
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Dear INFORMATION.ACCESS,
To the extent the department has documents in its possession that fall within the scope of this FOI request, you will treat the names and position titles of Commonwealth employees as in scope of this request made under the FOI Act. No agreement to exclude is given and the FOI guidelines pointedly refer agencies to not presume consent to such s 22 exemptions as the Department consistently does in contravention of those guidelines.
Verity Pane
Dear Ms Verity Pane,
We refer to your FOI request within the scope as follows: “I seek copy of
the amount of expenditure on labour-hire, contractors and external and
seconded consultants incurred by DVA for the last ten financial years,
including the current partial financial year.”
After consultation with the relevant business area, I know understand that
the requested material is all publicly available (found in the annual
reports) or will soon be made available to the public. The information for
this current partial financial year will be made available in June,
detailing the March quarter. Given that the information sought is
publically available or will be in the future, we consider that it is
better processed under the Administrative Access arrangements.
This is because the definition of ‘document’ as per section 4 of the FOI
Act does not extend to publicly available material.
As such we would like to ask you to agree to withdraw the FOI request, and
we will release the requested information to you administratively.
We would like to thank you for your cooperation in the processing of this
request.
Kind regards,
Isaac (Position Number 62329534)
Information Access Officer
Information Access Unit
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
e [email address]
Dear Applicant and FOI Contact Officer,
Please see attached decision regarding the Department of Veterans’ Affairs
application for an extension of time to process FOI request 48757.
Kind regards,
[1][IMG] Eoin McMahon | Review Adviser
Investigations and Compliance
Freedom of Information
Regulatory Group
Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 |
[2]oaic.gov.au
+61 2 9284 9716 |
[3][email address]
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Dear Ms Verity Pane,
Please see attached the decision and document in relation to your FOI
request – LEX 48757.
Kind regards,
Isaac (Position Number 62329534)
Information Access Officer
Information Access Unit
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
e [email address]
Julie left an annotation ()
Great FOI Verity.
Hard to believe Departmental expenditures rose from on average 7.5 million to almost tenfold (71 million on average) for contractors, and from 6.5 million on average to 27.8 million on average for consultants (a more than four fold increase) across a decade.
The real question is why, when Veterans Affairs has spent so much money on expensive contractors and even more expensive consultants, has Veterans Affairs and particularly its clients seen so little benefit.
Veterans Affairs has much the same volume of backlog of claims in 2022 as it did in 2011, and just as much, if not more, negative feedback. Very poor value for money for the taxpayer those hundreds of millions of dollars has delivered.
Verity Pane left an annotation ()
Worth highlighting that DVA received $98.5 million in last year's budget specifically for improving the claims backlog, but the Minister and DVA are now seeking another additional $96m to deal with the same backlog.
Given the feedback from veterans, it definitely hasn't gone into customer service, but reports are you cannot walk one step within DVA without tripping over a highly paid consultant or contractor, with DVA's own staff union slamming a recent new multi-million dollar consultancy contract as excessive waste ('Critics pillory consultant work on veterans’ claim processing', The Mandarin)
Despite wheelbarrows of money being chucked into DVA, no improvement in its core operations is evident, expect for senior executives enjoying a lot more corporate third party hospitality these days.