Dr WOODRUFF - There is a specific case that has been put to us, probably to the Chair or the CEO, that the Public Trustee supported a client to have their order revoked, which is fantastic. However, after that revocation, it seems the account manager did not provide a handover of information to the client and I understand that the client required advocacy support for several months to follow up with that. Understandably, that caused a great deal of stress for the client. Could you please I don't know if you are aware of the situation explain to me how the process could be so drawn out and would you, the CEO, be prepared to talk to Advocacy Tasmania about that specific case to make sure that it doesn't happen again?
Mr KENNEDY - Absolutely. I'm not familiar with that case but I'm more than happy to follow that up, I think it was raised earlier today so I'd be more than happy meet with Advocacy Tasmania about that. I would be only speculating on why that might have happened, so I'd rather have a look at it and find out first .
Dr WOODRUFF - Thank you, I would be grateful if you followed that up.
Mr KENNEDY - Yes, I'll reach out to Leanne and see what the case is.
Dr WOODRUFF - I understand Advocacy Tasmania has offered to attend client feedback sessions to provide independent support to clients and that offer hasn't been responded to, is that the case and if so why is that?
Mr KENNEDY - No, that's not the case. All I can say is that from the day that I started we've opened ourselves up to everyone, including Advocacy Tasmania. On a regular basis I see that we are working together to support clients, I see that in practice as well. We've extended invitations to Advocacy Tasmania to be part of our reference group and respectfully they didn't feel that was the right fit and they said they would be happy to support clients if they want to be part of that, so we're certainly not holding anything back or not taking up offers or supporting people to reach out. We are also promoting the importance of getting support which improves advocates.
Dr WOODRUFF - This is not the reference group but client feedback sessions, is that a different thing or are we talking about the same thing.
Mr KENNEDY - I think we are, because as I said before regarding client feedback sessions, we've had a number of sessions with our clients around certain pieces of work and they've attended and they've had support with them, we've had introductions from Speak Out Advocacy and North West Support Services.
Dr WOODRUFF - So the offer's there if Advocacy Tasmania wants to take that up.
Mr KENNEDY - Yes, very much so.
Dr WOODRUFF - We're getting some feedback that there's been substantial improvement and all of the information you've provided it is clear how much you've changed your communications with clients, but there have been some concerns raised with us about some long term clients and there's some clients that are acknowledged as having problematic relationships and maybe for the nature of how they are in themselves, and all the circumstances, I can't comment on that.
I wonder if you can describe to me what specifically the Public Trustee has taken to change its relationship with dealing with people who are difficult to deal with. Let's face it, some people are difficult to deal with, and what you do to tease out people who are dissatisfied and what's your process for trying to repair a relationship which is broken down?
Mr KENNEDY - What is at the heart of that is our lower caseloads because we moved away from having a reactive service that is perhaps remote, to having more of a really close relationship at a client and client account manager level. What I've seen is with our new team that has started, they have reached out, met the client and they are going through the file as well, that's a really good opportunity to build a positive relationship and I think if there's been long-standing problems, that's a chance for a fresh start.
I also think what's important is to make sure that the person has the opportunity to have the relevant supports with them, be it an advocate, family member or support worker so that's central to improving any long term difficult relationships that have been there in the past.
The other thing that we have done is, I've been very proactive reaching out and when I first started for the first 12 months we went around the state and had roadshow and said if there were any concerns, please let us know. I met with a lot of families and clients who'd had had problems over a long period of time and equally was active with many important members of parliament like yourselves, independents, so that if there are any constituent matters and pleasingly in my second round those matters haven't been there to the level historically. We will continue to make ourselves available and open.
Mr BARNETT - I would like to pass to the Chair but it is very consistent with all the feedback I have been having as well, like the CEO is referring to. Feedback is very positive. It is dealing with the concerns. That is why the numbers have gone down and that gives more opportunity to be more proactive rather than just reactive.
Ms TAYLOR - I think it is a live issue that people have been long-term clients of the Public Trustee and haven't had a good experience and we come along and say it is all different now.
Dr WOODRUFF - It's all different now, it's a big hill to climb.
Ms TAYLOR - That is right and so I feel very mindful of that. In some of my former roles I have been dealing with the same sorts of traumatised people and dealing with organisations like the Public Trustee. So, as the CEO said, we have done a lot of good work but also I think we are very mindful of this in the new recruits we are bringing in around those skill sets and so people who have experience of human services qualifications around that area and we can teach them financial administration.
Sometimes you can't I suppose train a person in empathy or whatever in the short term but also-
Dr WOODRUFF - Do you sort of recruit for that?
Ms TAYLOR - Well, we do and we also have appointed for the first time in the Public Trustee a full-time training and development manager. We are developing programs around not only onboarding our new staff but we are delivering programs around trauma related - dealing with complex and difficult clients and issues, mental health first aid. The staff will be going through that so we are thinking about this in a holistic way about
Dr WOODRUFF - Better for worker conditions, satisfaction, safety, mental health as well for your staff?
Ms TAYLOR - That is right and to interact with someone and understand where that client is coming from, that in the past might have been branded they are difficult to deal with.
Dr WOODRUFF - You have reduced it by a third the number of clients that people have. Does a client have the same staff member, albeit people leave, but do they have the same manager?
Ms TAYLOR - Yes.
Dr WOODRUFF - So that doesn't change between?
Ms TAYLOR - No.
Dr WOODRUFF - CEO, the annual report provides some information on client experience and stakeholder satisfaction. Some areas like estate administration and estate planning are performing really well and overall stakeholder satisfaction of 97 per cent, which is fantastic.
I see that the Represented Person Client Survey only returned 75 per cent satisfaction and the Represented Person Support Network Survey only reported a 79 per cent satisfaction rate. I am wondering what the drivers are of those lowest scores and did the surveys provide you with enough data to identify problem areas to work with? What were the problem areas?
Mr BARNETT - So -
Dr WOODRUFF - That was a question to the Chair, minister.
Mr BARNETT - You said 'the Chair or the CEO', and the Chair was about to respond and I was going to say that the Chair would be a very good person to respond but you can either go to the chair or the attorney and you know the rules.
Dr WOODRUFF - I did go to the chair.
Mr BARNETT - You went to both.
Dr WOODRUFF - I said to her, she may decide that the CEO-
Mr BARNETT - I am happy for the CEO to respond.
Dr WOODRUFF - You don’t need to involve yourself in this conversation. It is up to the chair to decide.
Mr BARNETT - You don’t need to breach the rules either. So you just stick with the rules and we will be fine.
Ms TAYLOR - I will let the CEO get down to some of the detail but I just want to answer this on one level, I agree, I think the surveys are a good tool and we will keep using them. I wasn’t too disappointed with 75 and 79 to be honest.
Dr WOODRUFF - No but the other one was so high.
Ms TAYLOR - I know they are so high.
Dr WOODRUFF - Yes, So I am just trying to understand what you thought of that difference.
Ms TAYLOR - So, I agree. I will be interested to hear the CEO's view about if there are areas we can work on, if that was able to be identified in the survey, and we will be working on them, that’s why we are doing them. More generally I wanted to talk about that side of the business as well because the Public Trustee, as the attorney made the comment before, that 50 per cent of Tasmanians are dying without a will and we know that we have a lot of work to do about getting back out to the community, about the other services of the Public Trustee and we have made a good start this year in engaging in a whole range of different organisations to do that.
Our marketing is something that is also under the spotlight, everything is under the spotlight, but our marketing is also under the spotlight about how we actually package our services and then inform people about what we actually do. So even though that’s a great result in administering trust and will administration, I agree, except I don’t know how big the sample was, I would like it to be a lot bigger.
Dr WOODRUFF - That was one of my question embedded in that question, it was about whether the data were enough to provide you with a valid response.
Mr BARNETT - I'm more than happy for the CEO to respond.
Mr KENNEDY - Thank you, I was really happy with the survey results. It was the first time we'd actually surveyed represented persons for three years, and we didn’t have a benchmark for when the review was conducted, and also I was really conscious that a lot of the initiatives that we have developed have only really started to come into play towards the end of the financial year. The clients wouldn't have felt the full benefit of that, they would've felt the impact of high caseloads and turnover of staff so I really didn’t know where it was going to end, I thought it could be as low as 40s so I was very happy that it was 75 per cent because I thought we have got a really good base to build from. In relation to the survey -
Dr WOODRUFF - I wasn't actually by the way, wanting to suggest that that wasn't a really good results, like I think it genuinely is.
Mr BARNETT - You were a bit negative.
Mr KENNEDY - There was 90 per cent confidence in the results of the survey which is great, we had an independent provide a conductor so it's really important from our point of view. The themes that came through were turnover of client account managers which is an historical thing in the earlier part of the year, a different person every month because of the changes that were happening, and a lack of responsiveness. So for me with our new supported decision making framework, caseloads down, I think we have a really good foundation to build on and we are also going to be doing more frequent 'pulse check' surveys which was a recommendation from the reference group. We're really keen in March to touch base with our clients to see whether they have noticed a significant difference with the new changes.
