Employment Service Assessments Disability Employment Australia National Leaders

Employment Service Assessments Disability Employment Australia National Leader’s Forum Canberra, October 31 st 2013 Presented by Melinda Hatton Branch Manager, Job Seeker Assessments and Mature Age Programs Department of Employment

Overview • Brief overview of ESAts • Mythbusting • Round table discussion

Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) • Identifies barriers to employment, work capacity and support needs • Recommends interventions to address barriers • Conducted by a DHS Assessor • 540, 000 conducted since 1 July 2011 • Currently around 18, 000 - 20, 000 per month

Myth or fact? Assessors are referring more job seekers to Stream 4 and less to Disability Employment Services

Sep/2013 Aug/2013 Jul/2013 Jun/2013 May/2013 Apr/2013 Mar/2013 8000 Feb/2013 10000 Jan/2013 12000 Dec/2012 Nov/2012 Oct/2012 Sep/2012 Aug/2012 Jul/2012 Jun/2012 May/2012 Apr/2012 Mar/2012 Feb/2012 Jan/2012 Dec/2011 Nov/2011 Oct/2011 Sep/2011 Aug/2011 Jul/2011 ESAts Recommended Referrals 1 July 2011 - 30 September 2013 DES - Disability Management Service DES - Employment Support Service Stream 4 Stream Services 6000 4000 2000 0

Myth or fact? Assessors don’t look at what servicing the provider has done for the job seeker

• ESAt workshop held early in 2013 identified that DHS Assessment staff were recommending interventions that had already been undertaken • Assessors did not have access to the Employment Pathway Plan and the Barrier Management Tool • Assessors are now able to view EPP and BMT to see what servicing has been undertaken

Myth or fact? Providers don’t use the Barrier Management Tool.

• In 2012/13 Just under 2. 6 million barriers imported from ESAts and JCAs • 24. 5% of imported barriers have a status of ‘being addressed’ or ‘finalised’ 3. 00% 21. 88% Being Addressed 2. 05% Finalised New 73. 07% No Action Required

Myth or fact? A lot of job seekers have to go for multiple ESAts before DHS Assessors get it right

• 105, 778 ESAts were conducted from 1 January to 30 June 2013 • Just 2, 231 (2. 1%) of these were a second assessment • Just 23 of these were a third assessment • No job seekers had four or more assessments

Myth or fact? Provider representatives cannot accompany job seekers to ESAt appointments

• A job seeker can be accompanied by a support person and that person can be from their provider • However, DHS reserve the right to ask the support person to leave

Myth or fact? There are very limited appointments available when we try to refer a job seeker to an ESAt.

• Regular reporting developed to allow both Employment and DHS to monitor appointment availability down to a local level • Escalation procedures introduced when a provider refers a job seeker for an ESAt and they cannot see any appointments • Introduced provider only diary appointments to remove competition between providers and DHS for available appointments

Myth or fact? The majority of ESAts are conducted by telephone

• The Governments strong policy position is that all assessments should be conducted face to face • Currently around 17% of Assessments in non-remote locations are conducted by phone • Work to increase face to face resources available: • • usability lab testing of IT systems • reviewing the ESAt report with providers • video assessment trials, increased use of video assessments • Several trials to reduce the number of ESAt appointments not attended Continuing to work with DHS to improve

Round table discussion • Would you increase the proportion of ESAts done face to face if it impacted on the time it takes to have an ESAt done?

Round table discussion • In your view what are the characteristics that make an ESAt high quality?

Round table discussion • Do you have local level relationships with DHS Assessors and how have you developed these? what else might you do to further develop these relationships?

Contacts • Melinda Hatton - Melinda. Hatton@deewr. gov. au • ESAt Team mailbox - ESAt. Policy@deewr. gov. au Positional Mailboxes for providers to contact Human Services • QLD and NT - at. services. qld. nt@humanservices. gov. au • WA - at. services. wa@humanservices. gov. au • NSW - at. services. nsw. act@humanservices. gov. au • Vic and Tas - at. services. vic. tas@humanservices. gov. au • SA - at. services. sa@humanservices. gov. au