Behavioural economics expert paid $88k to help NDIA staff ‘do stuff’

An ‘expert’ was paid $88,000 for just four months’ work to help National Disability Insurance Agency workers to communicate.

An “expert” in the controversial field of behavioural economics was paid $88,000 for four months’ work by the agency ­running the National Disability Insurance Scheme because its regular employees needed help with communication.

Bri Williams and her company People Patterns was awarded a $132,000 contract with the ­National Disability Insurance Agency, two-thirds of which was paid out between March and June last year, with the promise she could “get people to do stuff”.

Ms Williams bills herself as “Australia’s first and only specialist” in the application of behavioural economics to business.

“It was really just helping with staff skills and how they (NDIA employees) communicate with the constituents,” Ms Williams told The Australian.

But she said she could not go into anymore detail.

“With me you become behavioural designers, confidently introducing tweaks to how you engage your market to get maximum conversion,” Ms Williams says on her LinkedIn profile. “Learn how to get people to take action each time, every time.”

The NDIA has more than 2000 full-time equivalent staff, including a large internal communications team, and another 1037 contractors working inside the agency.

The agency spent more than $180 million on consultancies and contractors in the 2016-17 financial year and plans to spend ­another $150m in the coming year, according to leaked documents previously obtained by The Australian.

It also emerged that the agency paid one person more than $800,000 in a single year to act as a “special adviser” to the chief ­operating officer of the scheme, and legal advice obtained by The Australian shows managers were warned they could be in breach of the Fair Work Act.

The key problem is where the agency hires contractors who perform work that might “properly characterise” them as a public servant.

“People Patterns Pty Ltd were commissioned to provide specific behavioural economics expertise to the NDIA in developing ­enhanced communications for NDIS participants, their families and carers,” an agency spokeswoman said.

“The NDIA is growing at a large scale and a fast pace during the transition period. During this period of growth, the agency has engaged a mix of ongoing and contracted agency staff, community partners as local area co-ordinators, as well as a small number of contracted specialist advisers and consultants.

“This has provided the agency with both the flexibility and skills required to deliver the NDIS, which is a significant national ­reform, the first of its kind.”

Critics of behavioural economics have labelled it “pseudoscience” and “homoeopathy” but the field has crept into mainstream policymaking and awareness after psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics.

“Getting people to do stuff is hard. It doesn’t have to be,” Ms Williams says on her website.

“Whether you want to master your own habits or better influence customers, staff and decision-makers, I’ll show you how science makes it easy.”

The consultant, who has a ­degree in applied psychology and accounting, charges about $150 a session for “coaching” — minimum three sessions — and sells books, recordings and other notes through her website.

She spells out the categories of embedding “behavioural ­techniques in your business” from “unconscious incompetence” to “conscious incompetence” and eventually “un­conscious competence”.