A barista course spruiked by the national disability insurance scheme and for which a company pocketed nearly $1m from the federal government lacked the most basic equipment, an inquiry has been told.
Over a three-day hearing this week, the disability royal commission is investigating the troubled Disability Employment Services program, a $1.4bn a year federal government scheme that pays companies and non-profits to get hundreds of thousands of people with disability into work.
On Wednesday, counsel assisting the commission, Kate Eastman SC, raised the case of BusyBeans, a barista training course for people with disability run by health services company Rehab Management and a connected employment service provider, AimBig.
Despite a significant flow of taxpayer funds, the inquiry heard allegations at least one of the several BusyBeans training centres had “no established policies, procedures, safety measures or proper facilities to train the participants”.
It also heard claims participants were referred to the training from its other employment services program, likely triggering a payment from the government for getting the person into work or training.
Representatives from AimBig, Rehab Management and their holding company, Arriba Group, are yet to respond and will give evidence later this week.
Mzia* is a former jobseeker in the disability employment services program who lives with ADHD. She had been working in retail since she was 14, and had experience as a barista, but no formal qualifications.
She told the royal commission she found a job advertisement for a barista trainer and asked her AimBig consultant for help applying, only to learn the BusyBeans program was effectively run by the same company.
Despite saying she found the job herself, she said she was asked to sign documents saying her employment consultant had found her the position.
Mzia said she had high hopes for the new job, but these were not matched by the reality.
Mzia claimed on her first day in May, 2019, she arrived to find the only equipment was a home coffee machine and a bottle of long life milk.
She alleged that when she complained about the provisions, she was initially given a Coles petrol voucher to buy “proper milk, a jug and bucket”, before being told to buy the equipment herself, and she would be reimbursed.
She says she felt forced to obtain an advance Centrelink payment to buy some of the equipment necessary for her work and there was no induction or training on the first day. She alleges she had to create the entire training program from scratch.
“I thought it would be a lot more set up, a lot more supplies, like basic requirements,” she said.
Throughout this period, Mzia was still receiving job advice from her AimBig consultant, which she believed was a “conflict of interest”. She says she was asked to assess AimBig’s jobseekers to see if they were suitable for BusyBeans.
The inquiry heard Mzia’s own employment consultant would put participants from the disability employment services forward for BusyBeans.
“Sometimes you decided that the participants [the consultant] put forward for the program were not suitable, or there was not enough space in the program, but you felt that [the consultant] was bullying and intimidating you,” Eastman said, summarising her statement to the inquiry.
The inquiry heard the program began in March 2019 and had 167 paid participants and 38 unpaid work experience participants a year later, when it was suspended due to Covid.
The inquiry heard AimBig received $874,832 in payments from the federal government for BusyBeans participants. Another company, TLH, received $111,000 in wage subsidies from AimBig as part of the program, the hearing was told.
Mzia said she was never given training specific to working with people with disability or an adequate position description. She resigned in March 2020 after a period of sick leave due to the stress of the job between October 2019 and January 2020.
She had been initially classified as having a “benchmark” of working 15 hours per week due to her disability, but had been working 30 hours a week with BusyBeans, initially at $25 an hour, though this was later increased to $30 per hour.
Mzia said she started trying to find her students employment in hospitality, telling the commission: “I felt I had to do something because no one else was helping the participants.”
Participants were supposed to be making coffee for Rehab Management staff, but the inquiry heard there were not enough employees so the jobseekers would be “stuck in the office five hours a day, three days a week, just standing in the front of the Breville machine”.
Eastman said the inquiry would examine whether “AimBig provided adequate and appropriate post placement support to Mzia” and whether there was a conflict between its role as her employment consultant and her employer, among other issues.
Last year, Guardian Australia revealed a damning consultants’ report that discovered myriad problems with the disability employment services program, including that providers were funnelling participants into courses rather than work in order to claim bonus payments.
The inquiry continues.
Mzia* is a pseudonym provided by the royal commission
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