Call for Home Affairs to bring visa enquiries call centre back in house

The Department has sought industry feedback on three options, a fully insourced, fully outsourced and a hybrid model, however the union representing public sector workers is calling for the critical functions to be performed by government employees.

The request for information, which closes on Friday, outlines that the enquiry centre is critical to manage the migration and visa programs, facilitate cross-border trade and travel and support social cohesion, and deliver the citizenship program.

"A client enquiry centre is a vital cog in the Home Affairs Portfolio service delivery machine."

An attachment to the document sets out how many calls and web sessions the enquiry centre handles.

After a drop off during the 2020-2021 financial year as borders shut, the number of phone call inquiries had returned to nearly 1.5 million, the level it stood at prior to the pandemic.

Brooke Muscat, Community and Public Sector Union national president said vital work such as what was done by the enquiry centre should be brought in house.

"The expectation of government is that agencies move away from outsourcing for any work that is considered to be core APS work. That's exactly what this is," she said.

"Jobs like these ones - work in a call centre for an Australian government department - should go to trained and trusted public sector workers, not to a multinational corporation."

In 2018, under the former Coalition government, the Department of Home Affairs call centre was outsourced to international IT firm Datacom.

The call centre was located in Adelaide, replacing the previous service which employed 250 staff.

Since coming to power, the Labor government has sought to bring more services delivered by the private sector back into the public service, including reducing the spending on consultants and contractors.

The Albanese government has already indicated its support for insourcing services such as income management and employment services.

"The Department of Home Affairs should be looking to bring back in house any and all core work that was outsourced under the former government, including this call centre that was outsourced to Datacom," Ms Muscat said.

"By insourcing this work, the Department of Home Affairs would be better able to provide help to the thousands of people who seek assistance to navigating complex immigration rules and processes every day."

In addition to the standard requirements of a modern call centre, the Department also indicates an interest in platforms that use artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) "to provide self service capabilities and increase call centre efficiencies".

Currently, a virtual assistant, introduced in 2019-2020, handled an increasing number of enquiries, from 423,000 in its first full year of operation, to over a million in the 2022-2023 financial year.

In the request for information, the Department makes clear that the information gathered will only be used for planning purposes and is being collected for the sole purpose of market research.

"The Department intends to assess the capabilities in the market but will not enter into a contract with any Respondent as a result of this RFI process."