That ICPA (Aust) advocate to the Minister for Social Services to remedy the Youth Allowance application process as the current one-time pass code is not user friendly, especially in poor internet areas.
Whilst we understand that security is paramount when filling in forms online that contain personal information, we still believe that there must be a more efficient way to complete a Youth Allowance application. Reliability of internet connection continues to be an ongoing issue for Rural and remote families and dropouts are common. The One Time Passcode (OTP), means exactly as it says and if there is a failure of the website or the internet connection during the application process, it requires a full restart of the application process, which is lengthy and can take up to 50 minutes to complete. The manual application process still requires uploading to the website and is fraught with perils as well. As per the below case study the application process ultimately took several weeks to complete and an extraordinary amount of frustration in the meantime.
Case Study
Step 1 – My child fills in the YA application form online which takes about 50 minutes. Sends me the OTP to complete my bit
Step 2 – Halfway through me providing the information required to advise of Parental income the website crashes and I can no longer use the OTP
Step 3 – Ring Centrelink to find out what to do next – 50 minutes
Step 4 – Complete the MOD JY form manually and upload the document along with the Assessments of Income
Step 5 – This information has not linked with Student’s Application
Step 6 – Ring Centrelink – on hold for 1 hour. Centrelink advises me to get stuent to upload the correct parental documents in her profile – this is not acceptable
WE GIVE UP AND START AGAIN
Step 7 – Student deletes that application, and we start again – 50 minutes again – provides me with a new OTP
Step 8 – Student accidentally requests for parent/guardian to access/upload documents on her behalf – this requires more documents to be filled
Step 9 – Student decides that she wanted to change this answer, however, this required her to redo the entire youth allowance again
Step 10 – I attempt to go through the process and it says the OTP just provided is INVALID!!
Step 11 – We redo the form – AGAIN – and Isobel attempts to upload the documents on my behalf and finally we are successful
