In a development that will be welcome by our members, DSS has advised DES providers that it has suspended until further notice:

This announcement validates NDS's concerns that both the star ratings and the proposed formal performance assessment were compromised by the severe labour market impacts of COVID-19. 

The star ratings are derived by DSS from a range of external sources as well as the performance data of individual DES providers. One of those external sources was the "state final demand" trend series published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which was used in the performance data regression formula. The ABS suspended publication of the "state final demand" trend series due to volatile economic conditions arising from COVID-19.