More than a dozen public servants are being investigated for their role in the disgraced illegal robodebt scheme.

It was revealed on Monday that 16 public servants have been referred to the public services commissioner for investigation following the royal commission into the welfare recovery program.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus refused on Monday to detail any investigations being conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

In its formal response to the report of commissioner Catherine Holmes, the government said that all of her 56 recommendations had been agreed, or agreed in principle.

In fact, Holmes’ 990-page report – handed to Governor-General David Hurley in July – had 57 recommendations.

The missing one was a closing observation that Freedom of Information laws should be amended to reduce the secrecy surrounding cabinet documents. The government has not adopted it, with Dreyfus saying on Monday it was merely a “closing comment”.

“We will not be amending the Freedom of Information Act,” he said.

Holmes’ other recommendations included more face-to-face service support options, more social workers, clear review processes when decisions have been automated, an oversight body that can audit automated decisions and six-year limits on debts.

The government will also provide $22.1 million in new funding over four years to support implementing the recommendations.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said the federal government was already working on some reforms, including hiring additional service workers and ending the use of external debt collectors.

Shorten said the architects of robodebt assumed people were guilty of cheating the system.

“What we’re doing is putting the ‘human’ back into human services – literally 1000s of ongoing public servant positions have been created,” he said.

Holmes’ landmark report included a sealed section naming individuals to be referred for criminal or civil prosecution.

Also among her key findings, she directly criticised former prime minister Scott Morrison, who was among a string of former Coalition ministers to give evidence to the inquiry. He has rejected her criticism.

The former Coalition government launched the scheme to “detect, investigate and deter suspected welfare fraud and non-compliance” in mid-2015 in an effort to save billions of dollars.

The scheme – which became known as robodebt – issued debt notices to people identified through a process called income averaging, which compared reported incomes with tax office data.

More than $750 million was wrongfully recovered from 381,000 people. Victims told the royal commission of their trauma and fear as they received notices and debt collectors made contact.

Dreyfus repeated his criticism that the disgraced program was a shameful chapter in Australian history that “destroyed the lives” of innocent people.

“This was not an innocent mistake, this was a deliberate, calculated scheme,” he said on Monday.

“In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money.”

The inquiry also heard evidence of bureaucrats ignoring serious questions and advice about the legality of the scheme.

The scheme was ruled unlawful by the Federal Court in 2019. Robodebt victims and the then-government reached a settlement of $1.2 billion in 2020.

But Shorten said the victims would have no justice until Opposition Leader Peter Dutton apologised for the “sins” of his predecessors.

“The real shame of it all is that the scheme was invented under Mr Abbott, it was expanded under Mr Turnbull, and it was doubled down on by Mr Morrison … but what has been deafening has been the lack of remorse shown by the current frontbench of the Liberal Party, including their current leader,” he said.

“You can’t have justice for the victims unless there is a guarantee it won’t happen again.”

– with AAP