‘It felt insulting’: welfare recipients sent to body language courses as job agencies profit

The course had to be seen to be believed. A thumbs up, the image told her, "indicates approval". Thumbs down? "Disapproval." Frequent blinking? "Excitement." A person sitting with a leg over their knee? "Stubbornness," apparently.

*Sarah, a single mother dealing with a chronic health condition, was directed to complete a series of courses by her job agency after she deferred a university degree.

She needed to complete five online modules every 13 weeks to meet her "mutual obligations" - the tasks required of welfare recipients to maintain their benefit payments that are meant to show they are looking for work or acquiring skills that will make them more employable. One module was called Making Decisions.

Sarah relies on the payments to feed her three children, two of whom have a disability.

"Initially they were fine with my studying," Sarah said. "Then when I had to take a break from that, they put me on the Elmo Talent Course. My chronic illness really flared up and I was having a difficult pregnancy with my third baby, which was quite difficult for both of us. And my middle child had just been diagnosed with autism."

Mutual obligations and the $3bn-a-year job services systems are in the public spotlight after the new Workforce Australia service was plagued by complaints from jobseekers who were made to fulfil confusing and unreasonable requirements.

After the new $1.5bn-a-year system was rolled out this month, Guardian Australia revealed this week how job agencies successfully lobbied last year to stop a proposed rule banning them from referring clients to their own training courses.

The potential windfall relates to Workforce Australia's expanded Employability Skills Training program, which will see about $5o0m flow to private providers for "soft skills" and industry-specific courses over the next five years.

It brings into focus a long-standing and often-criticised practice employed by most major players in the billion-dollar unemployment industry after the system was privatised by the Howard government.

The federal government spends tens of millions of dollars annually reimbursing job agencies after they sign up jobseekers for accredited and non-accredited courses, paying out tens of millions more in "outcome payments" - essentially bonuses when certain eligible jobseekers complete certain courses.

Although experts agree training can greatly improve a person's employment prospects, insiders say agencies often compel jobseekers into poor quality or irrelevant short and vocational or employability courses, which are often online and sometimes run by the agency's own training company.

Consultants say they do so to obtain direct funding, to keep the flow of taxpayers funds "in house", or to game the key performance indicators that determine a job agency's market share under the contracts.

Sarah's case offers a rare insight into how welfare recipients are forced to ride a merry-go-round of irrelevant or absurd activities, all while the industry rakes in revenue.

When Sarah, now 27, was referred by Centrelink to the controversial $115m-a-year ParentsNext program aimed at single parents on benefits, her provider, Communicare, received a $600 "service fee", paid every six months while an individual is on the program.

She had been studying, but in 2019 began to struggle with a chronic health issue.

After she deferred her studies for a semester, Communicare gave her a list of its "Elmo Talent" short courses. She ended up doing 10 of them.

These included: Understanding Body Language, Making Decisions, How to Communicate Effectively and Managing the Discipline Process.

Guardian Australia has reviewed Making Decisions and Understanding Body Language, in which participants are taught the meaning of body language cues such as a thumbs up.

"A person's body language often demonstrates their true thoughts and feelings about a matter," says the introduction to Understanding Body Language. "Therefore, it is very useful for you to be able to read and understand the different elements of body language."

During the 20-minute course, a section on hand gestures informs the student that "rubbing hands together" "indicates excitement or anticipation" while a person with their legs crossed indicates "caution".

Other sections include tips on reading a person's eyes and their head position.

"I already struggle to find time to do critical things in my life. It was a massive waste of time."

Communicare said it had referred more than 2,000 of its clients - or about a third of its caseload - to its own short courses since 2018.

When it did so, it claimed a reimbursement, racking up $113,118 in extra payments from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations' "participation fund" since 2018.

The organisation's ParentNext contract is already worth $14m over three years.

A Communicare spokesperson said the agency "provides participants with information about, and access to, a range of training courses, both internally through our [registered training organisation] and those delivered by external training providers".

They said the short courses were designed "specifically to meet the needs of ParentsNext participants" to provide them with a "range of skills to prepare them for future employment".

Clients were able to choose which ones to do, "rather than us telling them which ones they need to do", the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson noted there was a "rigorous" claims process and Communicare had never been forced to return any funds to the department.

The ParentsNext program of which Sarah is a compulsory participant is small compared with the larger disability employment services program, and Workforce Australia, which each cost more than $1bn a year.

A report obtained through a freedom of information request last year modelled that the government could save up to $30m a year by reforming the rules around training courses, but the recommendation was not picked up.

Indeed, cases like Sarah's are likely to be the tip of the iceberg, according to interviews conducted with two dozen jobseekers and employment consultants across the system.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations is responsible for the ParentsNext and Workforce Australia programs.

A spokesperson declined to answer specific questions about the Communicare course or job agencies' use of the participation or employment funds, including in cases where it had referred jobseekers to courses run by the same organisation.

"A new framework is also being established as part of Workforce Australia to ensure providers deliver quality services to participants," the spokesperson said. "This includes ensuring participants have access to high-quality education and training that improves their chances of getting a job.

"There will continue to be assurance activities as part of ParentsNext to ensure that reimbursements meet the participation fund's principles, and that providers have documented evidence of education outcomes."

*Names have been changed