Fed: Audit urges better staff training monitoring at Centrelink

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2001
Fed: Audit urges better staff training monitoring at Centrelink

CANBERRA, Aug 16 AAP - Centrelink needs to make sure its training schemes to teach
staff how to deal with the public are working, an audit report recommends.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) scrutiny has found the welfare services
provider currently relies on overall business performance indicators to tell if national
training plans are working.

But a lack of feedback on the specifics of courses meant it was unable to judge if
the skills learnt in training were working in practice.

The risk in relying on overall business performance indicators was there was no direct
link between them and the impact of the training strategies, the audit report warned.

The report also said the detailed planning of training was spread too widely within the network.

The report said, however, recommendations in a recent Centrelink initiative called
Learning - Answering Business Needs would, in practice, improve on previous learning plans,
especially if linked to existing performance indicators.

"In this way, Centrelink would be better able to assess the effectiveness of its learning
strategies," it said.

The ANAO also recommended its frontline officers gained more access to:

* Initial training before assuming duties.

* Appropriate courses and/or training materials in regard to initiatives and maintaining
existing technical knowledge.

* Sufficient training in relation to the reference tools needed to carry out their
duties competently.

AAP dep/kjp/arb/br

KEYWORD: TRAINING

2001 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.