Robodebt inquiry hears officials were under pressure to come up with budget savings
by Luke Henriques-Gomes Social affairs and inequality from World news | The Guardian on (#65JZB)
Former Department of Human Services official Scott Britton tells royal commission his team looked at whether they could use data to streamline compliance
A former Australian government official involved in the creation of what became the robodebt scheme has told a royal commission his Department of Human Services team was under significant pressure to come up with budget savings.
The royal commission is investigating the botched Centrelink debt recovery scheme, which ran from July 2015 until November 2019 and which the inquiry heard continued despite internal legal warnings, culminating in a $1.8bn settlement with hundreds of thousands of people.
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