The Public Trustee continues to play a vital role in supporting the financial administration of South Australians that have impaired decision making abilities, in addition to providing estate and trust administration, and Will writing for eligible customers.

The Public Trustee’s purpose is to “protect the wishes and interests of those we serve”.  This involves providing financial and administrative services to eligible South Australians, to help those that cannot manage their own affairs and those who have trusted the organisation to assist them.

Demand for financial administration services continues to grow with 601 new financial administration appointments made by the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and the Courts in 2024-25. This growth is a result of customers affected by mental illness, dementia, substance abuse and acquired brain injuries.

The Public Trustee Strategic Plan for 2023-26 outlines the objectives for the organisation. The organisation’s priorities include the provision of a positive customer experience, using technology to improve the way our services are delivered, ensuring appropriate governance and financial sustainability, and supporting the people delivering that service.

Consistent with our technology enabled business improvement objective, a major milestone was achieved in 2024-25 with the implementation of a Microsoft Dynamics customer financial system known as “Transact”. This system provides the infrastructure for our customer financial transactions and accounting. It replaces an aged and unsupported system. The new system went live on 4 March 2025.

Implementation of the new financial system was not without its challenges and was only possible with the dedication, hard work and skill of the Public Trustee’s staff. Transact is now successfully processing customer payments and receipts. There are a number of improvements that need to be implemented to improve the efficiency of the business processes and to improve service standards. These will be priority areas for 2025-26.

Improvements to the management of our workforce and organisational development remained a major focus during the year. A number of university student placements were undertaken with benefits to both the students and the Public Trustee. A training and mentoring support role for Customer Services continued, providing support to these students and the upskilling of new recruits and less experienced staff.

The Public Trustee continued to operate a workplace consultative committee to ensure strong engagement with staff.  A collaborative approach was adopted with the Public Service Association to resolve a workload dispute and pleasingly a resolution was agreed that resulted in additional resources to manage our financial administration customers.

Customer service delivery was improved with a significant reduction in telephone call response times and in June 2025 a new cloud-based telephone system was introduced. The new system enables improved call management and call recording, enhanced flexible working capability for staff and modern call queuing and call back options.

It is envisaged that 2025-26 will have a focus on maturing the technology that has been implemented over the past 4 years and explore opportunities to enhance and grow the culture and capability of the Public Trustee workforce.

The operations of the Public Trustee have been also improved in 2024-25 by a number of initiatives including:

• Workforce and organisational culture improvement activities including actions arising from the People Matter Employee Survey, a review of Psychological safety risks, and leadership development. These activities and actions reflect the ongoing commitment to building a high-performing, value driven and psychologically safe workplace.
• We have strengthened our approach to Human Resource Management and Work Health and Safety governance, improving alignment with the Attorney-General’s Department’s overarching framework and policies.
• A national meeting of interstate Public Trustees and the Australian Guardianship and Administration Council was hosted in Adelaide. This enabled sharing of practices that are being adopted across Australia.
• At the same time as implementing the new customer financial system the organisation completed the final phase of transitioning banking arrangements from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to the ANZ bank. The phase included the payment of all customer transactions from the ANZ bank.
• The 2024-25 Corporate financial statements were prepared by Shared Services SA for the first time. This arrangement is consistent with other SA Government agencies and enables the Public Trustee to take advantage of the specialist skills and well refined processes of Shared Services SA.
• Customer insurance services were consolidated and are now provided through a national service provider. Importantly, this improves our ability to  insure vacant customer properties, which in the past has been a challenge.
• During the financial year, the Public Trustee’s investment consultant completed a review of the investment strategies. This involved reviewing the strategic asset allocations, and stress testing the portfolios for liquidity and adverse market outcomes. Pleasingly, the results were within expectations and illustrate that the funds are managed prudently and have a reasonable probability of achieving their investment objectives.  Whilst 2024-25 was dominated by tariff related concerns and geopolitical conflicts, investment returns were again strong for Public Trustee customers.
• Our ICT cyber security function was consolidated with AGD’s specialist group. This creates critical mass and improves access to these highly specialised skills.
• During the year several internal audits were delivered including a review of Litigation Guardian arrangements, Cyber Framework Implementation review and Transact Solution Security Review - Pre-Go-Live Assessment.

The Public Trustee has recently concluded its annual Customer Satisfaction Survey. Mean satisfaction levels decreased slightly across 4 of the 5 customer groups, however the survey outcomes reflect the continuation of good customer service despite significant internal system changes during the year. Wills services remained static, and this customer group continue to be the most satisfied with services provided by the Public Trustee. The most common improvement theme for all customer groups in 2025 relates to the timeliness of responses to information requests, and accessibility to officers and information. A number of initiatives, including the new telephony system will provide further improvements in this area.

The Public Trustee’s net operating result for 2024-25 was $7.719 million.

Tony Brumfield

Public Trustee