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An STP data-matching initiative aims to improve the administration of welfare program Workforce Australia, with compliance action off the table for now.
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ATO shares payroll data to monitor mutual obligations, provider claims
19 December 2024
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The ATO will hand over single-touch payroll (STP)data to the government’s employment services program to improve its administration, increasing oversight of jobseekers' mutual obligations and verifying job provider claims before releasing public funds.
The data would also be used to assess the eligibility of businesses who hired jobseekers on Workforce Australia for wage subsidies, according to a gazette notice this week issued by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) and the ATO.
But “no consequences will flow on as a result” at this stage, it said. “The activities and operations of providers, employers and participants will continue as normal during the initial data share.”
“The department will not be permitted to use STP data for any overpayment, fraud or non-compliance activities (e.g. to take compliance action against participants, employers or providers).”
Workforce Australia replaced the government's Jobactive service on 4 July 2022 and had over 624,000 users as of September 2023.
The new data-matching initiative between DEWR and the ATO implements one of 75 recommendations made by a parliamentary inquiry into the employment services program, launched after sustained criticism from welfare advocates.
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The committee’s final report, handed down in November 2023, found the system was frequently ineffective despite costing $9.5 billion.
It recommended expediting work between the DEWR and ATO to fully integrate STP data into the management and administration of employment services and the introduction of legislative changes to make it available for broader research and evaluation purposes.
It also recommended an overhaul of the mutual obligations regime – on which JobSeeker payments depend – and a watchdog to monitor the system.
“Despite generally good intentions, the employment services system has largely failed to improve employment outcomes for jobseekers, or more broadly to boost their capacity for social and economic participation,” Labor MP and committee chair Julian Hill wrote in the report’s foreword.
The first phase of data-sharing between the DEWR and ATO would be a one-off arrangement and involve around 46,000 participants who interacted with both agencies.
“The data-matching program will identify those individuals that have a relationship with both the department and the ATO (referred to as 'mutual clients’),” the notice said.
“This is done by the department providing information about participants and some employers to the ATO, and the ATO matching that information against ATO records to locate a mutual client match.”
The STP data would be used for three “use cases”.
“For those participants with a high confidence match, the department will provide the ATO with the duration of data required for the use case. The ATO then provides the department with STP data it holds for those mutual clients.”
The use cases involved determining employer eligibility for wage subsidies up to $10,000 and eligibility for job service providers – private companies that help get users employed – to claim “outcome payments” from the government.
It comes after Guardian Australia found the providers made millions in faulty claims or were paid by the government after jobseekers found work themselves.
STP data would also be used to determine whether jobseekers complied with their mutual obligations.
“STP data will be used to determine if a participant has worked during their ‘mutual obligation’ period to ‘nudge’ participants to claim points based activation system (PBAS) points to satisfy their requirements under the social security law,” the notice said.
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