Fraud and corruption control

Services Australia plays a vital role in the lives of all Australians. The community and government expect the highest standards of integrity from us.

We protect the integrity of the information we hold and the payments we make.

In 2020-21, we delivered $230.1 billion in social support payments. This included around $21.5 billion in emergency and disaster payments to people affected by COVID-19, floods, fires and cyclones. Most people who claim payments need assistance, however, a small number of people try to get money they’re not eligible for. To get these payments they commit fraud, often by stealing the identities of vulnerable Australians.

We don’t tolerate fraud, corruption and related crimes and we manage this through a range of prevention measures. We take action against proven incidents of fraud or corruption by customers, services providers, employees or contractors.

How we manage fraud

We have a robust Fraud and Corruption Control Plan to meet both:

• the expectations of the community
• our requirements under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act Rule 2014 (Fraud Rule) and the Commonwealth Fraud Control Framework.

The plan is available to all employees and contractors and outlines how we identify and manage fraud and corruption risk.

We apply intelligence and detection measures to identify criminal offending. We investigate reports of suspected fraud and corruption and continually improve our fraud and corruption controls.

Read more about our fraud control and investigations activities in our Annual Report.

We promote an ethical agency culture and we are committed to integrity. We communicate this commitment and require our employees and contractors to do all of the following:

• complete mandatory fraud and corruption awareness training
• report all suspected fraud and corruption by customers, services providers, employees and contractors
• complete appropriate fraud and corruption training if they’re involved in fraud and corruption control, detection and investigation activities.

How you report fraud

If you suspect someone may be committing fraud against Medicare, Centrelink or Child Support, you can report it anonymously.

How we work together

We work with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to prevent, detect and investigate those who try to exploit the welfare system. Read more about the Taskforce.