Warning over cuts to Human Services

Unions have warned of further problems with the Department of Human Services as it sheds 1188 staff over the next year.

The department - which oversees Centrelink, Medicare, job seeker and child support services among others - bore the biggest brunt of public service cuts in the federal budget.

CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said the cut was short-sighted.

"Five thousand permanent staff have been cut in that agency and 36 million calls went unanswered last year and yet this budget cuts over 1100 jobs in DHS - it's a massive cut and a disaster for our community," she said.

"To add insult to injury, the only thing offsetting that massive cut is government outsourcing DHS work to the private sector, with a $5.5 million pilot program that creates 250 jobs in an unnamed provider. There's no way that will fix an agency in crisis."

She feared it was the first step in outsourcing other services which involved highly-sensitive personal information.