Quality Assurance for Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) reports 008-06040090

The Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) report is completed after the Assessor conducts the JCA.

The JCA report captures relevant information discussed in the interview and records the customer's individual barriers, support needs and their ability to work. It may be used as a guide to determine income support eligibility, mutual obligation requirements, Participation Requirements and/or eligibility for employment and related services.

Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) reports may be scrutinised, queried or challenged by customers, Employment Service Providers (ESP), the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Department of Social Services (DSS), external auditors or appeal tribunals and courts. The content of reports may require justification in a range of forums therefore reports must be of the highest quality and provide clear justification for all determinations or opinions provided within the report.

Assistant Directors monitor the quality of the reports for all Assessors in their team on a quarterly basis. All Assessors will have 2 reports reviewed each quarter (either 1 Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) report and 1 JCA report or 2 ESAt reports), as well as any reports that may be randomly reviewed as part of the Assessment Services Branch Quality Assurance model.

Fundamental errors and inappropriate wording need to be avoided as they may jeopardise the reputation of the agency or cause unwarranted distress to a customer. Additionally Assessors should:

• Ensure that the length of the report and detail it contains is appropriate for the referral type
• Use Scripts appropriately
• Where appropriate, use their own descriptions to add justification to their report
• Clearly note the source of evidence, for example, differentiate between customer self-report, medical evidence and assessor observation
• Use correct grammar and plain English so that all readers can understand the report
• Use acronyms only if universally recognised. Acronyms considered universally recognised are: GP, Dr, IQ, MRI, CT, ECG, DSP, JCA, ESAt, DES-ESS, DES-DMS, TAFE, States (NSW, QLD, VIC, NT, WA, SA, TAS). These acronyms do not require defining
• Expand any localised, unique or state-based acronyms on the first instance (e.g. CAT - first defining use needs to be expanded to Crisis Assessment Team (CAT)). Then future entries can just state CAT. Ensure phrases that discuss potential assessment outcomes are not used

The nationally consistent Quality Assurance (QA) framework assures:

• reports meet policy requirements and result in appropriate referrals for customers
• individual and organisational areas for continuous improvement are identified, reported and followed up, and
• complaints are handled in a proactive manner and feedback is sought from customers and other stakeholders on a planned basis

The QA framework is designed to provide internal and external assurance of the quality of assessments provided by Assessment Services, and provides a clear and user friendly structure to assist all relevant staff to engage in continuous quality improvement.

The Assessment Services Quality Team is responsible for the development and maintenance of a standardised report checking template, referred to as the Assessment Services Quality Control Tool. This template is used by the Quality Panel and Assistant Directors to undertake quality audits of reports as required.

The Assessment Services Quality Control Tool focuses on content issues such as the correct assessment and reporting of, medical conditions, program of support participation, work capacity, employment support referral recommendations, as well as the application of the impairment tables and general report congruence.

Reports must achieve an overall rating of 80% or more to be considered as meeting a satisfactory quality standard.

Fundamental errors occur where the report contains significant issues that may jeopardise the reputation of the agency or cause unwarranted distress to a customer (for example, errors which result in an inaccurate assessment of the customer's eligibility for income payment). Fundamental errors will result in the report failing to reach the minimum the quality standards for JCA reports.

Other errors identified in a report may be unclear wording or less significant errors which don't constitute a fundamental error. These other errors will impact on the quality of the report but will not lead to an unsatisfactory quality rating, unless there are many such errors.

Fundamental error types include:

• Incorrect recommendation for income support
• Assessor personal opinions or assumptions
• Inappropriate details concerning personal trauma/torture
• Inappropriate details concerning criminal convictions
• Disparaging comments about previous ESAT / JCA report / ART / HPAU reports
• 'Release of Assessment' tick-box not selected for customer with limited insight
• Comments which may attract legal or media attention
• Use of incorrect customer name within report
• Propaganda
• Inclusion of staff surname (past or present staff)
• Naming of specific illicit substances used - these can only be recorded if on the medical report

The Resources page contains examples of specific fundamental errors and details on how to use more appropriate wording.

Staff from the Assessment Services Quality Team are responsible for compiling:

• Quarterly National Quality Assurance Summary Report sent to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and Department of Social Services (DSS), and
• Performance reports sent to Directors highlighting best practice approaches and areas for further improvement. This is forwarded to the Assessment Services Branch National Manager

An essential aspect of a Quality Assurance (QA) framework is ensuring staff performing Job Capacity Assessments (JCA) take responsibility for the quality of their own work. Assessors should fully understand the review process and be familiar with:

• the Assessment Services Quality Control Tool and supporting documents
• the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and DSS policy and procedural guidelines to ensure that reports are meeting requirements

The Quality Assurance (QA) framework must be introduced as part of the induction/training plan process for new Assessors to ensure they are familiar with the formal and informal requirements.

Reports must be free from the use of inappropriate information and it is crucial that they are of a high quality and are written appropriately to withstand any scrutiny. The essential report writing level would achieve a report that is free from major grammatical and typographical errors, substantiates opinions and claims and presents details that are clearly distinguished and attributed to:

• Assessor's observations
• claims made by the customer, and
• other information derived from the medical evidence

The report needs to reflect an assessment of the customer's barriers to participation in work and the interventions and assistance needed to improve their future work capacity. The report should provide the necessary information to inform the nature of employment or pre-employment services required, and to assist service providers to tailor a program to the customer's needs.