How to redesign a faulty system

About two months had passed since using the last of the money when I received a call from the Centrelink Debt Recovery Office stating that the $1,200 wasn't mine at all and I was "stupid to use it if [I] had a gut feeling".

The above story from our network shows us that something isn't working, and that the system needs to be changed.

In a piece in The Conversation, Simon Williams, a lecturer in Mathematics from Flinders University wrote on the intrinsic fallibility of automated systems. He essentially argued that using "Big Data" systems will apply broad-brush formulas with a high level of error.

…As we have seen, downplaying these errors and concentrating only on identifying more and more debtors magnifies the number of this second type of error. Also, expanding the data-matching system and removing the human element from the case-selection process has undermined the system's performance even further.

But there's something more at play here. We expect Centrelink to provide a customer focussed service. If people are making mistakes then the Department should want to understand why, and how it can make things work better. The evidence we have for people caught up in this fiasco is that correcting the record can be time consuming, frustrating and at times impossible.

Furthermore there are problems at a much deeper level. As argued by Williams, automated systems do not allow for the complexities of people's lives. If someone has insecure work with erratic hours, as is increasingly the case, or if their fortnightly calculations are different to Centrelink's, it is the person alone who is held to account.

Kate Galloway in her piece in Eureka Street the other day rightly argued that the Government too must obey the rule of law. Like ours, her argument focussed on the citizens who will most be effected, and the callous way in which debts have been pursued.

So, we would ask: Where is the evidence that the Government is working to create an income support system that connects with the lives of the citizens it serves? Let's put the people at the top of the pyramid, and use the inquiries into this catastrophe to redesign the system so it works.