A former Australian government official involved in the creation of what became the robodebt scheme has told a royal commission his Department of Human Services team was under significant pressure to come up with budget savings.
The royal commission is investigating the botched Centrelink debt recovery scheme, which ran from July 2015 until November 2019 and which the inquiry heard continued despite internal legal warnings, culminating in a $1.8bn settlement with hundreds of thousands of people.
Crucial questions being investigated include what prompted the development of the debt recovery program and what departments involved did following internal legal warnings about the scheme.
The inquiry has previously heard the idea for the scheme was quickly progressed once it found favour with the then-new social services minister, Scott Morrison, who wanted it considered for the upcoming 2015 budget. Morrison was appointed to the role in late 2014.
Scott Britton, a mid-level official who was former national manager of DHS’s compliance team, accepted on Tuesday that legal questions about the methods used in the program were a consideration within his team in June 2014.
But he said he never received any legal advice, that it was another official who had been tasked with engaging with lawyers, and he did not recall writing documents briefing the minister about the plan.
Britton, who led a team responsible for checking customer files for welfare debts, said throughout 2014 there was internal pressure to find budget savings.
“We were being continually asked for the provision of new ideas, new proposals, new concepts, additional savings,” he said.
“I certainly felt the pressure internally … I don’t know whether that was … all internal or from ministers,” he said.
The inquiry heard on Monday claims that within DHS there was internal pressure caused by “aggressive and demanding” leadership.
Britton said those pressures were communicated to him by his direct boss, Mark Withnell, who was relaying pressure from Malissa Golightly, then a deputy secretary at DHS.
Britton said initially he and his team had looked at whether they could use data to streamline their compliance work due to a massive backlog of investigations.
“Savings, I think personally, became the primary driver but initially it was about modernisation,” he said.
An email of a minute prepared by Britton in 2014, about nine months before what became the robodebt proposal was finalised, showed among considerations were the need to seek advice on “income averaging” – the data-matching method that was central to the program.
The document claimed the practice was legal but noted further advice should be sought.
Catherine Holmes SC asked: “And that’s as early as June 2014?”
“Yes,” Britton replied.
Legal advice provided internally by lawyers at the Department of Social Services six months later said the method was probably unlawful.
Britton insisted he had not been provided with any legal advice. He said it was another DHS manager, Jason Ryman, who had been “engaging” with legal officers.
Asked if he had relied on Ryman to “decide on what legal advice should be sought for the project”, Britton said he “certainly relied on Mr Ryman to engage with legals”.
“Again, I can’t recall specific discussions about the scope and definition of the legal advice,” he said.
Britton also said he could not recall personally preparing any of the policy proposal documents that went to Morrison, though he or his team may have provided information used for those documents.
“I don’t have a specific recollection,” he said. “I remember conversations around the time in regards to minister, I think, Morrison, was the minister … I just don’t recall any detail.”
Britton said it sounded “about right” that Ryman was tasked with developing the robodebt measure as a formal policy proposal.
Asked by counsel assisting Angus Scott what level of personal oversight he exercised over the robodebt project, Britton said he was “certainly part of the early development … most likely regularly in conversation with Jason [Ryman] and his team”.
The conversations were about the development of pilots and testing for what became the robodebt scheme, he said.
Ryman will give evidence later on Tuesday.
Later, Britton was asked whether the department had IT capacity to deliver the robodebt project.
“It wasn’t really an option at the time not to deliver,” he said. “So [we] really just all pushed on with what we had to do.”
He said there was a “decision made not by me” to ramp up the full robodebt scheme in 2016, after a 12-month pilot period, despite the fact there were existing IT problems.
The royal commission continues.