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Analyse The Relationship Between Dhs And Australian Government

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This paper will review the relationship between the Commonwealth Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Australian Government. DHS supports millions of Australians from all demographics, backgrounds and ages. The Minister for Human Services (the Minister) is responsible for the delivery of these services. The Federal Minister for Social Services, the Hon Christian Porter MP is the Cabinet Minister who represents DHS and has the overarching responsibility of the policy and legislation for these services. Due to the many facets that DHS touches, there many critical external relationships amongst the Cabinet Ministers who facilitate in pushing through the exciting changes to enable customers a better interaction experience in accessing DHS …show more content…

The Minister and DHS rely heavily on the relationship being a two-way communication. The Chief of Staff acts as the Minster’s buffer, every idea that is to be presented to the Minister has been given due consideration firstly by an Adviser and then the Chief of Staff prior to it reaching the Minister. The liaison between the Office and DHS assists both parties to understand any key issues that may prevent a proposal moving …show more content…

This dysfunction where significant conflict and a lack of cooperation between the Minister’s Office and DHS will lead to the Minister being unable to perform his job properly. It is imperative for the Minister to have a constructive working relationship with the department and confidence with the DLOs within the Office. This relationship is usually based on a common commitment to serve the Minister with sound policy advice. DHS and the DLOs provide the Minister and his Office with their in-depth knowledge and a long term perspective with proper due process followed. The APS is compliant under transparency and accountability whereas the Minister’s Office is not required to comply under this same ruling. Maley supports the belief that the relationships between the Minister and his Office with the APS are an important element of the cabinet system (PA, Maley, 2011). Another example of external relationship interaction is where Australian National Audit Office’s report on Management of Selected Fraud Prevention and Compliance Budget Measure (ANAO, 2017) released earlier this year recommended that the Department of Social Services and DHS undertake a review on the inputs used to calculate expected savings. A key risk of this is that savings for this compliance measure will not be achieved. Some community

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