Recommendation 19

The productivity of the Department’s case managers is hampered by the fact that the scheme relies on three IT systems, which require case managers to transfer information manually from one system to another.33 The Department explained that it had more modern systems at the start of the process to allow customers to apply online, and at the end to allow it to assess receipts and make payments. In the middle, however, was a legacy system—a case management tool—that did not talk effectively to the other two systems. The Department told us that it planned to reform the IT platform and by June 2026 the systems would be integrated. It could then introduce a modern case management system that avoided the need for re-keying and allowed better data collection, which would help it to target its work more effectively.34