Part 2: Achievements and challenges–performance insights
- Building the evidence base
- Partnerships
- Volunteering
- Indigenous communities
- Stronger Families and Communities Strategy
- More help for families
- Helping prevent homelessness
- Giving children the best possible start in life
- The new Child Care Support Program
- Helping parents support their children—the Child Support Agency
- Work and family
- Encouraging participation
- Reforms to support people with disabilities
- FaCS–Centrelink Business Alliance
- People are a priority in FaCS
- FaCS triple bottom line reporting
Encouraging participation
Key points
- The second phase of the Australians Working Together package was successfully implemented in September 2003.
- Working Credit is available to more than two million income support recipients, allowing them to keep more of their payment when they start work
One of the department's key priorities for 2003–04 has been to encourage greater participation by individuals and families in the labour force and in community life. It is vital that Australia's social support system helps people fully develop their potential for participation and self-reliance as well as meet their immediate needs for income.
Achievements in 2003–04 include the successful implementation of the second phase of the Australians Working Together (AWT) package, progress with the evaluation of AWT and the reform of disability services.
Australians Working Together
The second phase of AWT came into effect on 20 September 2003, including:
- Working Credit
- the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Supplement
- the second phase of Helping Parents Return to Work
- flexible arrangements for mature-aged people on Newstart Allowance
- closing access to Mature Age Allowance and Partner Allowance
- participation interviews for Widow Allowance recipients
- the second tranche of Personal Advisers.
Working Credit aims to increase employment among customers of working age by allowing them to keep more of their income support payment when they first start work. Since its introduction on 20 September 2003, nearly 540 000 individuals have used their working credits. Customers receiving Newstart Allowance, Parenting Payment (Single), Youth Allowance (other) and Disability Support Pension are the biggest users of the credit. A new telephone voice-recognition self-service option for reporting earnings was implemented along with Working Credit. It has been received positively by customers.
The Language, Literacy and Numeracy Supplement took effect from 20 September 2003 and has already assisted approximately 18 000 customers. It encourages people to take up literacy and numeracy training to overcome barriers that they may have to employment by helping with the costs of participating in such training.
The second phase of the Helping Parents Return to Work measure extends compulsory participation planning interviews to parents whose youngest child is aged six or over and introduces participation requirements of up to 150 hours of approved activities in each six-month period for parents whose youngest child is aged 13 or over. From 20 September 2003 until 2 July 2004, approximately 78 000 Parenting Payment customers had attended an initial interview with a Personal Adviser or Jobs, Education and Training (JET) Adviser. Recipients of Parenting Payment now have access to expanded education, training, employment and support services and are able to volunteer for the Work for the Dole program in order to gain work experience opportunities.
Changes aimed at mature-age people include compulsory participation interviews and a more flexible activity test for Newstart Allowees aged 50 years and over; annual participation interviews for new claimants of Widow Allowance; and the closure of access to Mature Age Allowance and Partner Allowance to new customers.
Personal Advisers are employed in every Centrelink office in Australia. Personal Advisers provide individualised assessment and support for people on income support who need help to engage with the workforce or take up participation in social opportunities. By 16 April 2004, Personal Advisers had conducted initial participation interviews with around 250 000 customers targeted for assistance. Close to 98 per cent of these customers had developed a participation plan. Customers who have a participation interview are almost twice as likely to be referred to a funded program as customers in the same group who do not have an interview.
The number of interviews conducted by Personal Advisers was lower than initially estimated. FaCS is reviewing the appropriateness of the interview targets and has asked Centrelink to give priority to interviewing those parents who need the most assistance and who are not already participating in paid work.
The Personal Support Programme (PSP), which was introduced in July 2002 as part of AWT, provided its second year of support for people receiving income support who are unable to find work or benefit from employment programs because of multiple non-vocational barriers such as mental illness, homelessness and domestic violence. In 2003–04 PSP assisted some 40 000 people. PSP has achieved better-than-expected outcomes, with almost 16 per cent of people exiting the program achieving an economic outcome in 2003–04 (that is, employment or education/training or placement into an employment program that lasts for 26 weeks) and 29 per cent achieving a social outcome.
As part of AWT, additional funding was provided to disability employment services to increase their capacity to assist jobseekers with disabilities. In 2003–04 nearly 6000 new jobseekers received assistance from this additional funding. A key focus has been to identify and address unmet need in high-demand areas.
Additional funding was also provided to CRS Australia enabling them to provide vocational rehabilitation programs to 4800 more new jobseekers. A cost–benefit analysis of vocational rehabilitation was undertaken by Curtin University, indicating a total benefit-to-cost ratio of 30:1–that is, for every dollar spent by the Australian Government, there is over a $30 return in public and social benefits.
In 2003–04 FaCS also focused on improving the sustainability of the disability services sector. This work culminated in the announcement in April 2004 of a $99 million funding package, Security, Quality Services and Choice for People with Disabilities. More details about this package are in the next section.
Evaluation of the impact of AWT commenced in late 2002. The evaluation will broadly assess the impact of AWT on its main target groups–parents, people with disabilities, and mature-age and Indigenous customers. It will also evaluate the effectiveness of specific AWT measures, including Working Credit, Personal Advisers, the Personal Support Programme and Centrelink Remote Area Service Centres.
The first wave of a two-wave survey of people who have had a Personal Adviser interview was recently completed. The survey is designed to provide information on the impact of this intervention on target customer groups. Customers will be interviewed again after six months to gauge any change in their intentions, attitudes and motivation for increased participation. A telephone survey of Centrelink Personal Advisers and JET Advisers has also been completed, with the results still being analysed.
A specific investment has been made in the development of data sets for the evaluation. The joint FaCS and DEWR jobseeker data set and the Workforce Age Longitudinal Extract were delivered during 2003–04, bringing together for the first time longitudinal administrative data on customers as they progress through income support, employment assistance and training-related programs. Analysis for the AWT evaluation using these longitudinal data sets has begun, focusing to date on pre-AWT analysis.