Outsourcing contributing to poorer ATO phone service delivery, union says

She said that contract workers were not subject to the same level of training as ATO employees, leading to a greater volume of mistakes and a necessity to double-handle taxpayer issues. This had been a source of frustration amongst ATO employees, Vincent-Pietsch said.

“We know that [contractors are] getting paid less than their counterparts doing the same work in the ATO. And we know that they're not provided with the same level of training and support that ATO employees are given,” she said.

“Service delivery workers within the ATO [are] really frustrated by the number of times that this leads to the need for double handling … because people have been given incorrect advice or not been able to get the advice or the work that they need.”

An ATO spokesperson told Accountants Daily that the tax office engaged external suppliers to manage routine tasks, including the ATO phone line. They said that this provided important additional capability to respond to enquiries and manage workloads during peak demand times.

"The ATO currently engages external suppliers to deliver on a range of contact centre services and straightforward taxpayer interactions, including telephony (inbound and outbound), processing work, and debt collection – they do not handle complex enquiries or disputes, and these are referred to ATO staff as required," the spokesperson said.

They added that outsourced staff were trained to provide the support and assistance necessary to help taxpayers meet their obligations, and had established lines of referral to more experienced ATO staff if the circumstances warranted specific expertise.

However, in a recent review of the ATO’s tax agent phone line, Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen found that tax agents were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the ATO’s agent phone line.

“I have been overwhelmed by the strong feedback from tax agents in this review. Agents are reporting an increasingly poor experience with the ATO’s agent phone line over the last two years, citing inconsistent advice and a lack of suitably skilled staff. This is contributing to a general feeling of not being valued by the ATO,” she said.

The review found that external contractors answered over 85 per cent of agents’ calls to the ATO, and only 44 per cent of contractors had a tenure exceeding 12 months. The Ombudsman estimated that approximately 50 per cent of agents’ calls were handled by less experienced officers.

“We recognise that contractors provide the ATO with much needed flexibility, but it may come at a cost to quality,” the Ombudsman’s review read.

“The vast majority of agent calls are taken by external contractors, around half of whom have less than 12 months of experience and who may not have had the depth of experience and knowledge to handle agents’ calls.”

Previously, tax agent Kevin San told Accountants Daily that he had noticed a decline in the expertise of the ATO’s agent phone line operators in recent years.

“Very often nowadays, you end up with queries where the [ATO phone agent] goes, ‘I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do here. I agree with you, it's wrong, but I'm not sure how to resolve the problem,'” he said.

“I get a feeling that a lot of the staff that you deal with are actually different now from the ones that you dealt with a few years ago. Their attitudes are completely different, their experience is definitely completely different.”

Vincent-Pietsch said that the Tax Office’s use of contract workers had steadily grown from about six years ago, but had plateaued recently. She added that the ATO’s use of external contractors to handle taxpayer queries raised data security concerns.

“We think it is a real cyber security risk to the ATO, because those workers have access to ATO systems, but they're not APS workers under code of conduct and under the same sort of supervision and restrictions that APS workers are,” she said.

“That’s something that worries me.”

Tax agents also raised this issue with the Tax Ombudsman, reporting concerns about disclosing client details to third-party contractors who were not ATO employees.

“Agents have frequently raised concerns about disclosing client details to third party contractors who are not ATO employees,” the Ombudsman’s report read. 

“There are concerns about data security and questions around whether those officers are offshore. Given the TPB [tax practitioner’s board] sets high standards of data security for registered agents, agents are expecting at least the same standards to be applied to the ATO’s externally contracted workforce.”

During her review, the Ombudsman confirmed that all ATO call centres were located in Australia, and that external contractors were obligated to pass pre-engagement integrity checks, including a police check, citizenship verification and conflict of interest checks.

The ATO spokesperson noted that outsourced contact centre staff were subject to the same "security, privacy and secrecy requirements" as ATO employees, and were expected to ensure vulnerable taxpayers were supported.

"If in the process of undertaking tax debt recovery actions, we identify that a taxpayer is experiencing vulnerable circumstances, all staff, including outsource contact centres, are expected to ensure appropriate support and assistance is provided. In some cases, this includes referring taxpayers to our dedicated tailored support hub," the spokesperson said.

Regardless, quality of service remained a sticking point for tax agents, the Ombudsman's review found.

“The registered agent phone line is failing to meet the needs of the professional agent community, giving rise to misunderstandings, incorrect advice, and unnecessary delays with time on hold, call transfers and escalations,” the review read.

Article updated to include commentary from the ATO.