Audits of aged care homes conducted by contracted staff did not initially meet the regulator’s standards and had to be rewritten, Sentate Estimates has heard.

Janet Anderson PSM, Commissioner, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, told Senate Estimates that a backlog of audits in the wake of the pandemic meant they were unable to recruit enough assessment staff, so they “approached the market”, eventually contracting four workforce suppliers – RSM, HDAA, SAI Global and KPMG – to provide the manpower.

The Commission trained and registered the quality assessors, but the workforce supplier firms, which were paid more than $40 million to provide the assessment staff The Guardian has reported, managed the teams.

Three of the workforce suppliers will continue to provide staff to the Commission, however SAI Global will not.

“It is true” that the workforce suppliers underestimated the complexities, volume and standards of the work required, Ms Anderson said in response to questioning from Greens Senator Janet Rice.

"We have had occasion to work closely with these workforce suppliers to ensure that they understood exactly what we required of them.

“There have been instances where we have declined to accept one of their reports and have required that they undertake further work on it in order to meet our quality benchmarks,” Ms Anderson said.

The ACQSC created a dedicated quality assurance team to support the contracted assessors.

Assessors contracted through workforce suppliers conducted just over 1,000 audits in 2022-23 out of a total of over 1,500, although this year the target is significantly lower at around 600.

The regulator is now reviewing whether to continue using third-party assessors and is expected to make a decision on the matter in the first quarter of 2024.