Newsletter
April 2014 Newsletter
ATO complaints-handling report highlights issues
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has recently reviewed the ATO’s complaints-handling processes. Although the ANAO found that the ATO’s complaints-handling framework is well designed, it found that there are opportunities for the ATO to improve its practices, including by obtaining a better understanding of the issues that are the subject of complaints and the needs of the complainants themselves.
It said there is scope for the ATO to:
- improve reporting against complaints-handling timeliness measures;
- implement a more coherent agency-wide quality assurance framework for complaints and other feedback;
- restrict sensitive information about named ATO officer complaints from being included in records on the ATO’s client relationship management computer system; and
- implement measures to periodically check that ATO officers have not accessed client relationship records inappropriately.
The ANAO made three recommendations, all agreed to by the ATO, which are aimed at improving the ATO’s handling of complaints and its monitoring and reporting of performance in managing complaints.