Secretary's introduction
- Letter of transmittal
- FaCS – a snapshot
- Secretary's introduction
Mark Sullivan
In my third year as Secretary of the Australian Government Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS), I am delighted to introduce the department's annual report for 2003–04.
The two-volume report covers FaCS' performance against our three ongoing outcomes—'families are strong', 'communities are strong', and 'individuals reach their potential'.
Volume one gives a broad picture of achievements and challenges, and highlights some important activities, policies and programs. Volume two includes extensive performance, management and accountability details.
Reporting on the Child Support Agency again features prominently, including a review by the General Manager, Catherine Argall.
For the second time, FaCS is also producing a separate triple bottom line (TBL) report on the economic, social and environmental impact of our internal operations during the year.
Verified by the Australian National Audit Office, last year's report was commended by the Auditor-General as a 'real team effort'.
This year our TBL report tracks our performance against targets and benchmarks that were established in 2002–03 and details several improvements and efficiencies as well as areas where more effort is required.
Welcoming new people
On 7 October 2003 Senator the Hon. Dr Kay Patterson was appointed Minister for Family and Community Services. As well, the Hon. Christopher Pyne, MP, was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister. The Hon. Larry Anthony, MP, continued as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.
On 15 April 2004 the Prime Minister announced new arrangements for the delivery of government programs and services to Indigenous people. This involves mainstreaming the functions and services from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the executive agency Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS) into other government agencies. To take effect on 1 July 2004, the functions transferring to the FaCS portfolio are community housing and infrastructure, family violence (administered jointly with the Attorney-General's Department), and the Indigenous service delivery organisation, Aboriginal Hostels Limited, administered jointly with the Department of Finance and Administration.
Most importantly, these changes mean welcoming 200-plus wonderful people from ATSIC and ATSIS to the department right across Australia.
Supporting families and acknowledging carers
The past year saw FaCS as a hard-working and pivotal player at the centre of the Government's social policy agenda.
Our efforts were reflected in a range of new Budget measures that provide extensive funding for the FaCS portfolio.
Under the More Help for Families initiative, Australian families will receive increased family assistance worth $19.2 billion over five years, with the first payments made in June 2004 to nearly 2 million families. The package assists families with the costs of raising children, improves rewards from work, and helps families balance work and family life.
As well, the Budget included a $461 million package for carers of people with disabilities and the frail aged that acknowledges the huge contribution carers make to the community. Initiatives include payment of one-off carer bonuses, more flexibility in eligibility for carer payments, and better support for people in care.
Business services in the disability employment sector are also set to benefit with an extra $99 million over four years to ensure a viable and sustainable disability employment sector.
In the months leading up to the 2004–05 Budget it was unfortunate that FaCS' work was compromised by the unauthorised disclosure of documents relating to the portfolio.
While police continue to investigate, the leaks were a good reminder to check our document security practices and to reinforce to our people the importance of securing confidential documents and carrying out our privacy and confidentiality responsibilities.
Focusing on children
The Prime Minister's commitment in April 2004 of $365.8 million to extend the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy was another significant announcement for FaCS.
Building on the success of the strategy since 2000, the new funding is for local initiatives that intervene early to help families, children and communities at risk.
Designed around the twin concepts of the social coalition and early intervention, the 'new-look' strategy reaffirms the Government's commitment to providing better opportunities for children and their families and to building community capacity.
Drawing on the latest research and feedback from consultations on the National Agenda for Early Childhood, the strategy now focuses more strongly on early childhood development.
With funding of $1 million to $4 million to go to each of 35 disadvantaged communities, the strategy's 'Communities for Children' program signals a new way of working with the community sector.
Selected non-government organisations such as Mission Australia, Anglicare and the YWCA will act as facilitating partners to develop community action plans and manage local projects and services.
Working with others
During the year the department continued to work across the portfolio and with others on collaborative approaches to policy and program development and service delivery—for example:
- through the FaCS state and territory offices(STOs) (the 'public face'of the department)—to help us manage the 80 different funding programs that we deliver through 15 000 service providers
- with Centrelink—to finalise and sign Alliance 2004, a new agreement that includes a framework that makes our respective roles and accountabilities much clearer
- through the Child Support Agency—to make substantial, evidence-based submissions to, and appear before, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs' inquiry into child custody arrangements
- with the Australian Government departments of Employment and Workplace Relations, and Education, Science and Training—to implement the final Australians Working Together measures and to start taking the participation agenda forward by collaborating at national level and on individual projects
- with state and territory governments—to work on consistent, joint approaches to child care workforce issues and a national plan for foster care; and to follow through on Commonwealth–state housing and disability agreements and the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program
- with business and community leaders—through the Prime Minister's Community Business Partnership, to promote a culture of corporate and individual social responsibility through initiatives like the National Brokerage Service and National Partnerships Week
- with Indigenous communities—for example, at Wadeye in the Northern Territory, to jointly achieve positive youth, employment, and housing and construction results; and to develop a scoping study for remote service delivery policy
- with the child care sector—to restructure the Child Care Support Broadband and create the Child Care Support Program, based on four streams of 'quality', 'inclusion', 'community' and 'program' support
- with the disability employment sector—to continue implementing case-based funding and quality assurance and to help business services plan for changes, such as paying award-based wages
- with young people—through the National Youth Roundtable, the National Indigenous Youth Leadership Group, and through events like the 'Creating Common Wealth' Youth Enterprise Development Forum
- internationally—to finalise and sign social security agreements with Croatia and Chile; and to exchange knowledge and undertake joint projects with other governments, particularly in China and Vietnam.
Positioning FaCS to achieve our outcomes
Internally, the year saw a departmental restructure (effective 1 July 2004), designed to reflect emerging policy agendas and to place FaCS in a better position to achieve our outcomes.
Initially driven by the growing interest of government and community in family and children's issues, the restructure also recognises the need to consolidate our work on economic participation and to align our corporate functions with our business priorities.
Essentially the restructure expands the capacity of the Family and Children's area, with a second executive director to help meet emerging policy priorities and workload pressures.
In the Participation area, the restructure puts a greater emphasis on outcomes for working-age people, including more attention to policy integration and service quality. It also reflects the departmental priority to develop the evidence base for policy and implementation by aligning key functional activities around evaluation, data and program management.
In the Community Development and Support area, the restructure also aims to consolidate our understanding of the roles communities can play, of the ways disadvantage is often highly localised, and of how to break barriers to participation. It places additional focus on integrating and coordinating services and programs to build self-reliant, stronger communities.
As well, the restructure combines people's talents and skills in the areas of marketing, events management and communication, and puts a sharper focus on support for our ministers.
Staff and managers were consulted every step of the way on developing and implementing the restructure. Because of this, I believe we achieved organisation-wide ownership and understanding of the new arrangements and a strong commitment to making it work.
Promoting ability and diversity
During the year I launched the department's Mature Workers Strategy—the first of its kind for an Australian Government agency.
The strategy acknowledges a shift in the Australian Public Service away from the 'you are 55 and it's time to leave' thinking and, instead, offers mature workers opportunities to continue working if they want to.
The strategy recognises the ability and value of mature-age workers and brings together a range of activities to help them to plan their working futures and pass on knowledge and skills to their younger colleagues.
Initiatives include offering opportunities for mature workers to experience different work and to revitalise their career paths; and providing information about the benefits of age diversity in the workplace to recruitment and selection panels.
The year also marked the formation of the FaCS Diversity Council. With members drawn from the department's national and STO staff at all levels, the council is an advisory body to the FaCS Executive Board on workplace diversity matters.
As the council leader, I am determined to work with council members to champion a strong and diversified FaCS workforce, build on our diversity capability, and promote workplace harmony.
The council will also monitor achievements against targets in the FaCS Diversity Plan and TBL reporting.
Looking back and looking ahead
In 2003 FaCS celebrated its fifth year with birthday events and activities held in the department's offices around the country.
Set up in 1998, the Family and Community Services portfolio brought together elements of four former portfolios into a single program structure. The aim was to take a more holistic approach to new directions in social policy.
Looking back, the challenges were to work on closer integration of programs; go beyond the safety net and focus on prevention and capacity building; promote independence and self-reliance; and develop strong and effective partnerships.
Five years on, FaCS has achieved great things in all these areas, particularly in welfare reform, participation policies, early intervention and prevention, strengthening families and communities, and working in partnerships across government and with Australian communities.
In 2003–04 the majority of FaCS' work involved developing policies. Indeed, the 2004–05 Budget was probably the most demanding policy development task ever undertaken by this department.
Looking ahead, the primary tasks for 2004–05 are an extensive policy implementation effort, the inclusion of the programs and services delivered to Indigenous people, and meeting the priorities that government will present to us.
I strongly believe that everyone in FaCS has the knowledge, capacity, endurance and enthusiasm to work together to make a difference to Australian society, tackling these challenges head-on.
Mark Sullivan
Secretary
FaCS Executive
About Mark Sullivan, Secretary
Mark Sullivan was appointed Secretary of the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) on 18 January 2002. Mark was well known to many as the CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, a position he held for nearly three years from May 1999. Before heading up the commission, Mark was a deputy secretary at the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. He has extensive senior managerial experience in the private and public sectors, including with WANG Australia, SBS, the Department of Social Security and the Australian Taxation Office. Mark is a Fellow of the Society of Certified Practising Accountants and obtained a Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University in 1971.
'This year's policy development and implementation agenda has probably challenged and tested our staff's stamina more than I have ever seen it happen before. Their response has just been wonderful. People have really gone that extra yard. You grow to expect it, butyou also never cease to be amazed. And it's even better when you see a positive reward ingovernment announcements.'
About Wayne Jackson, Deputy Secretary
As Deputy Secretary of FaCS since July 1998, Wayne Jackson has represented the department on a number of broadly based policy review bodies, including the Welfare Reform Reference Group (Deputy Chair), the Youth Pathways Action Plan Taskforce and the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group. He is also a member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council. Before joining FaCS, Wayne worked extensively on social policy in both central and line departments. He was Deputy Secretary (Social Policy) in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where he also held branch head positions, and previously worked in the Department of Health and Community Services and the Department of Finance. Wayne has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) degree from Monash University.
Wayne assists the Secretary in managing the department and has responsibility for family and children, economic and social participation, seniors, strategic policy, service delivery, budget and legal issues.
'A hallmark of FaCS is the lead our people continually provide in developing a shared policy and implementation agenda with others—other departments, other levels of government, local communities, service providers, and consumer and business representatives. We have also developed excellent working relations with a number of other countries in our region as part of our international capacity-building activities.'
About Stephen Hunter, Deputy Secretary
Stephen Hunter joined FaCS as a deputy secretary on 1 July 2003. He has diverse public sector experience. For the five years before he came to FaCS he was a deputy secretary of the Department of the Environment and Heritage with responsibility for natural resource management. Prior to this he held senior positions in the Department of Transport and Regional Development and in various ACT Government departments. Stephen joined the Australian Public Service in 1983 following work in the mining industry, photo journalism and music. Stephen holds a BA (Hons) in political science and sociology from the Australian National University.
Stephen assists the Secretary in managing the department and has particular responsibility for community, housing, Indigenous, youth, people, ministerial support, communication, international and information technology issues.
'The sheer scope of what FaCS does is mirrored in the wide range of relationships it has with people and communities. Every day our people continue to prove they have the skills to meet this challenge, by managing very complex relationships ranging from those with state governments and organisations like Centrelink through to relationships with non-government organisations and small community groups.