Every DEX reporting period at least one or two clients receive feedback from the department regarding their DEX data, in particular re having more than 5% of clients as 'unidentified'.
There are a number of issues -
It appears that DSS staff themselves do not understand the DEX data, nor the guidelines that have been provided by the central team in Canberra.
The way clients are counted
There is no specific way to categorise client records in the DEX as being Advocacy vs Inquiry. The only distinction comes from the 'Service Type' field in the Session record, where there is an option for "Information/Advice/Referral".
However, when the department provides feedback to you regarding the "number of clients", as far as we can tell they are counting both advocacy and inquiry clients. And of course, a client may be both, further muddying the water.
So, looking at an Ivo sample -
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From an Ivo perspective
In late 2017 the department provided the following advice re recording inquiries -
What of enquiries where we refer people on or give information?
If the organisation identifies that the enquiry will lead to a measurable outcome this should be recorded in DEX. If an organisation has a very short interaction with an individual and this won’t lead to a measurable outcome this shouldn’t be recorded through DEX.
Where an organisation identifies that the enquiry will lead to a measurable outcome they should seek to obtain the client records where it is possible and appropriate to do so. Where this isn’t possible and appropriate:
- Create a case – (it may be helpful to use the “Total number of unidentified clients associated with case” field to reflect the number of Information/Advice/Referral instances, rather than enter each one individually) and include the number of unidentified clients associated with the case.
- Create a session – select the “Information/Advice/Referral” service type and the relevant topic and include the number of unidentified clients associated with the session.
No definition for 'measurable outcome' was provided (to our knowledge). Therefore we have designed Ivo to use a minimum duration for the inquiry as the basis for determining if the inquiry likely led to a 'measurable outcome'. The default is 15 minutes.
As set out by the department, the inquiries are reported using the "Information/Advice/Referral" service type. Presumably this would be evident to the department if they were to look at the service types recorded for the session records associated with the "group clients".
Regarding the "valid" Statistical Linkage Keys (SLK) -
Firstly, the SLKs are valid from the point of view that they meet the requirements of the DEX
system for the client record to be uploaded to the DEX (otherwise the record would be rejected). What the department is actually saying is that they are applying a limit to how many clients records they would like to have actual date of birth values versus estimated date of birth values.
However, at least some of the "estimated" date of birth values will be for "identified inquiries". Referring back to the above advice from the department, inquiries where the caller can be identified (where both names, gender, date of birth (including estimated), and location are recorded), should be reported as 'identified' - that is, a full client record is created and uploaded to the DEX, along with associated case and session records. This is what Ivo does. But it should be recognised/understood by the department that for inquiries, there will of course be a higher (or even very high) percentage where the actual date of birth is not able to be collected, and so an estimated date of birth is used.
In conclusion
Because the DEX is a case based system, and designed for types of services other than advocacy (ie. tangible services like home modification, meal deliveries, personal care etc), the only way to differentiate clients who have made an inquiry versus full advocacy clients, is via the 'service type' value in the session record (but this isn't ideal either because the "information/advice/referral" service type can be used for advocacy clients as well).
So it appears to me that at least part of the problem here is -
- FAMs appear to be unaware of the previous advice provided by the department
- either the inability, or lack of attempt, by the department to differentiate between inquiries and advocacy leading to a misinterpretation of the data uploaded to the DEX
- the limitations of the DEX system for capturing advocacy versus inquiry data
- I will note here that of 1024's 27 DSS funded clients, only a few receive this kind of feedback, even though to our knowledge most submit inquiries with their data. So there appears to be a difference in the feedback received based on ... ‘something’ ?♂️.
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