Building the evidence base

Understanding the social trends making an impact on Australian society, and finding evidence of the policies that work and why, are critical to FaCS' policy advising and implementation. Social policy research supports the creation of this knowledge.

Research findings have deepened understanding of key social policy issues and enriched our contribution to social policy debates. Some of the key research outcomes in 2002–03 included:

• the achievement of several milestones in the development of our longitudinal initiatives. For example:
  • the creation of the first set of Jobseeker data, a collaborative project of FaCS and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR)
  • the release of the 2000 and 2001 General Customer Survey datasets
  • the release to approved researchers of Wave 1 data from the HILDA survey.
• the harvest of early findings from FaCS' investments in data. For example:
  • research on sole parents' dependence on welfare using the FaCS Longitudinal Data Set (LDS) has clarified earlier evidence that relatively short duration of spells on Parenting Payment Single obscured longer-term dependence on this and other payments over longer periods
  • LDS data informed development of the working-age payment reform consultation paper Building a simpler system to help jobless families and individuals.
• the sharing of research and data. For example:
  • the availability of HILDA data between October 2002 and June 2003 has resulted in more than 160 licensed users, including DEWR, the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, the Department of Education, Science and Training, the Department of Health and Ageing, Treasury and the Reserve Bank, as well as Australian and overseas academics
  • a broad range of early HILDA findings, notably on parent–child contact after separation, on women's work preferences, and partnering and fertility patterns, were shared by researchers at the Australian Institute of Family Study Conference in February 2003 and the HILDA Conference (March 2003).
• collaborations. For example:
  • we collaborated with the Centre for Mental Health Studies (at the Australian National University) in a project looking at the prevalence of mental health disorders among income support recipients
  • we commissioned a report on the impact of social policy initiatives on labour supply incentives. Further work using the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator (MITTS) has developed a number of labour supply models to better understand the impact of policy change on household and individual labour supply behaviour.
  • we continued a successful partnership with state and territory governments through the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme, which is a well established research initiative that specifically focuses on youth issues. In 2002–03, six research studies were in train and three new ones were developed to be commissioned.
• evaluation work. For example:
  • the evaluation of the Welfare Reform Pilots was used to improve the design of some measures in the Australians Working Together package, such as the implementation of Personal Advisers
  • the evaluations of the case based funding trial and of a trial to involve private providers in delivering rehabilitation services were used to develop the package of measures to improve employment services for people with disabilities.
• building on previous work. For example:
  • research produced by the Social Policy Research Centre (at the University of New South Wales) under a services agreement with FaCS used a combination of data from the Customer Participation Survey (1998), the General Customer Survey and the LDS to update and expand research findings on the determinants and impact of participation among our clients.
• contributions to parliamentary committees and inquiries, most notably:
  • our submissions to the Senate Inquiry into Superannuation and Living Standards in Retirement, the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation Inquiry into Planning for Retirement, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Ageing, and the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into Poverty and Financial Hardship.

Our major research challenge is to improve our understanding of the factors influencing pathways and outcomes for individuals and families. To meet this challenge, we are continuing to develop informative data sources and collaborative research arrangements to help us understand what policy settings work, and when and for whom they work.

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