A review of Centrelink’s bill-paying facility has lead to the suggestion the department should hire executives that are better-versed in financial services.

Centrepay – the service offered to customers receiving payments from Centrelink – allows businesses and services providers to take bills directly out of future welfare payments.

Now the National Welfare Rights Network (NWRN) says Centrepay has grown too cumbersome, and is at risk of further disadvantaging welfare recipients. The report also found widespread reticence to tackle the problem from departmental higher-ups. 

NWRN spokesperson Maree O’Halloran explains: “What can happen is that a business provider, for example, in a particular community, selling IT, selling different types of services, can sign someone up to make direct payments from their social security payment to the business for a service that the person may not necessarily need or want in the long run.... in some communities there's been unscrupulous business providers.”

Various independent bodies have been involved in a review of the Centrepay service this year, Dr John Falzon from the St Vincent de Paul Society says: “There was over the years a lack of focus on the people that really matter and that is the people who are low income and who can really benefit from a program that allows them to make automatic fee-free deductions to pay particularly for essential items.”

Recommendations have been made to hire executives motivated to reform the payment system, the Department of Human Services has declined to comment, citing caretaker conditions. There is also speculation over how much credence the report would have with a new government.