Organisation: Department of Human Services
Job Title: Senior Project/Programme Officer
Word Limit: 250 words per point
Location: Canberra
Demonstrated skills and experience to support the delivery of assurance, compliance or
investigation programmes or projects
During my role as Project Officer within the Department of Human services, I have demonstrated
my ability to support staff to deliver a range of programs and services in a compliant manner.
Within the compliance part of my current role, I am required to make sure we provide the right
payment to the right person at the right time. Our main priority is to work with people and help
them comply with their payment requirements and other obligations. This means educating
people about what they need to tell us and how to avoid debts. To achieve this we provide
information through various communication channels including letters, our website, mobile device
apps, and the media.
Another key element of our compliance model is to quickly identify and contact people who need
to update their circumstances or may have received overpayments. We check information to
ensure there are no discrepancies in the details people give us. If there is a discrepancy, we
contact people to help them comply. As a result, we may stop payments, change the amount of
payment and/or recover a debt.
There are a number of assurance and compliance principles I work within, including payment
correctness ensuring the integrity of program outlays that Centrelink delivers on behalf of
Government. My role includes the assurance aspects of payments to the right person, the right
program, the right rate and the right date. I am also aware of the Getting It Right (GIR) strategy
enforcing minimum standards across the board.
Demonstrated experience in cultivating productive working relationships to achieve results in a
changing environment with evolving priorities.
The DHS environment is one that undergoes almost constant change. Generally, staff who have
been in their positions for some time tend to resist change. During my previous acting role as
Team Leader within BISC, I demonstrated my ability to impart knowledge to staff, and manage
some challenging staff members through times of change for them. I am able to liaise and form
productive relationships with staff members about requirements and tasks, and often follow up
with an email to ensure my direction was fully understood. This approach has worked well and
also provides the staff members something to reference when trying to remember the
instructions, subsequently becoming more independent within their roles.
Having successfully completed the Trainer Certificates I, II and III, I have demonstrated my ability
to lead, motivate and manage staff to achieve quality outcomes even in changing environments. I
have successfully supported and trained staff with the rollout of the Customer First system and
have provided training and assistance to new Workload Management team members and have
supported them through being open for issues and questions.
On some occasions currently, the outbound dialler within our networks has stopped working.
During this time, my role is to ensure the networks have enough work to go on with, given the
telecommunications are cut off. I need to ensure the teams have plenty of paper processing work
to go on with, giving them as much notice as I can to the changed working requirements for that
day.
Well-developed communication and interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate
with influence
Within DHS, I have demonstrated my ability to communicate and negotiate, and I have a good
track record of providing new sites that become a part of the customer compliance branch with all
the tools they need to do their job efficiently. This includes communication about where reviews
can be found, coaching on the age and type of reviews, as well as building task cards to assist them
with processes. This assists new teams, cements our working relationship from the beginning and
allows me to use my communication skills to positively influence new staff members. Within my
current role, I communicate weekly updates on the risks I am accountable for, communicate with
Team Leaders, SMEs and Quality Development Officers (QDOs) regarding policies and processes.
My confident negotiation skills assist me to explain guidelines, rules or legislation to help people
understand the Department’s position and I handle any situations requiring negotiation by
planning my conversations beforehand, clearly explaining the situation and listening to and
considering different ideas attentively. I always approach customers, stakeholders or staff with a
clear understanding of the key issues and reflect on the desired outcome. With that in mind, I can
make a convincing argument to persuade individuals to see the advantage rather than
disadvantage in what we are doing. When I have negotiated certain terms with a customer or staff
member, I listen to their differing views and approach the matter by explaining the situation and
then present options that are beneficial to them.
Demonstrated ability to exercise judgement in relation to decision making on sensitive matters
in accordance with legislation, policy and procedures
Within my current role, I gather information and evidence and use it to make decisions on a daily
basis. One example includes the receipt of information that suggests that a review might be
initiated on a customer’s file. This information comes from a range of sources and my role is view
the file in question, liaise with the data match team to gain advice and make a decision about
whether a manual review should be undertaken. Within this process, there are numerous
complications that may arise including the number of times (if any) that person’s file has already
been reviewed to avoid constant review of the same files.
During the Sydney floods earlier this year, and the Queensland floods last year, I was careful to
ensure that people within the flood zone were not subjected to a review as per our policy, adding
to the stress they were already under, and any reviews that were already underway in these areas
before the natural disaster occurred were quarantined.
Not only can I analyse information and decide what is important, but I have also coached and
trained other staff to further their skills in this area as well. Examples of this include my assistance
with the rollout of the Customer First program. I was firstly trained in using the system so that I
could then provide training for current team members in the Customer Compliance Branch and
Workload Management team, and provided them with relevant step-by-step task cards to assist
them.
