6.1 Adaptability
How should a balance be achieved between giving providers funding security, managing performance and ensuring services are located in areas of need? Adapting to meet changing community needs is not incongruous with sustainability and funding security for community organisations. Organisations do not generally need to shut down or relocate to meet changing needs; they just need to adapt the range of services they provide. There are many examples within the FRSP of providers seeking permission to change catchment areas to respond to population shift.
One of the difficulties here is that an emerging need in a suburban area does not correlate to a drop in need somewhere in the city centre. Urban sprawl creates new pockets of need and sometimes a change in priority assessment. One way to address this is to engage providers in identifying need and informing government on priorities. Notwithstanding this, increased flexibility in funding arrangements can also assist by allowing organisations to increase service provision in areas where there is increased demand while not 'sitting on' funds if and when demand has reduced.
6.2 Selection
FRSA believes in consultative and transparent selection processes that facilitate the best outcomes for families and children in the most cost effective manner. Nonetheless we believe that the use of competitive selection processes has had a number of unintended consequences that warrant critical review.
For example, in the recent expansion of FRSP services, consultation with the existing service sector may have identified the most suitable provider for the large majority of new services and strategies to bring in new providers could have been developed. Competition could have been limited to those areas where agreement could not be reached. An approach often used in procurement processes is to invite Expressions of Interest to identify those providers most suitable and then commence negotiations with these providers on potential arrangements. This allows for a dialogue about which services are most needed in a specific area and which organisational profile (or combination of organisations) is best placed to meet those needs. During negotiations factors such as organisational capacity and/or limitations would be considered and the potential for partnership or collaboration between providers explored.
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There are also models from other sectors that could be adapted. One example is the huband-spoke model developed in community health that creates a generalist hub linked to specialist service delivery which may have been a useful blueprint for the design of Family Relationship Centres
1. There is plenty of scope for developing new models for allocating funding in the family support sector, drawing on examples from across different sectors including health, education and community services in Australia and overseas.
The recent use of competitive selection processes in FRSP has had a number of significant negative impacts on resource distribution, including:
- Substantial resources were spent on preparing funding applications, each separate application required many hours of preparation it is estimated that costs of up to $20,000 per application were involved in some cases with many larger organisations submitting multiple applications in all three funding rounds.
- Some organisations applied for services in geographic areas and areas of speciality they would not ordinarily pursue because of uncertainty regarding the allocation of funding in their core areas of interest.
- Very few new providers secured funding in their own right (3 in total) – 97% of funding was allocated to existing service providers and 100% to non profit providers.
- While the sector overall has grown substantially in size, the rate of growth in existing providers has been variable – some grew quickly, some grew substantially, some did not grow at all.
- Competition between agencies has been intense in some areas; at odds with the collaboration and cooperation that the sector was previously known for.
The impact on relationships between organisations is perhaps the most significant cost of competitive processes. Competition provides a disincentive to share intellectual property, physical resources and practice wisdom. Collaboration may be increased amongst those who form an alliance or consortia to compete for new funding but it is likely to decrease between those who compete against each other.
The competitive process also has a long-term impact on the relationship between organisations and funding bodies. See more on this in Section 7 under Funding.
Recommendation 10: Develop alternatives to competitive tender processes for allocating new funding in the FSP. [
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6.3 Performance Measurement
How should good performance in the FSP be identified? Identification of good performance is based on a sound knowledge of the agreed outcomes expected. Consultation and agreement between funding bodies and service providers about overall program outcomes for families and children under the FSP and about
what constitutes good performance based on those outcomes is an important baseline to be established.
Assessment of the quality of services that clients receive needs to be identified from a range of different sources to gain a complete measurement of the performance of an FSP provider. Direct service delivery is one very important aspect of performance, however local community engagement and support, collaboration and innovation, trust and recognition are also important indicators of good performance and need to be identified and measured in a consistent manner.
How should outcomes in the FSP be measured? We need to recognise the value of diversity and not assume that direct comparisons between services is always appropriate, it is not that simple. Different organisations appreciate and respond to different community needs. Local accountability is important and is another factor to be measured.
Currently in the FRSP performance is identified and measured via collation of FRSP On-line data and organisations' annual Status Reports. These measures are supplemented from time to time with specific research on certain aspects of reforms etc. There have been many lessons learnt over the years from challenging experiences with incompatible and/or onerous data collection and management systems. The establishment of the integrated FSP provides an excellent opportunity to review existing outcomes and the systems currently in place to measure them.
Consultation with the broader FSP sector on outcome measures and the elements of an effective data collection system is an important step following the establishment of an agreed set of overall outcomes.
A planning, management and reporting approach now widely used in Australia and internationally is the Results-based accountability framework (also known as outcome-based accountability). RBA is defined as a management tool that can facilitate collaboration among human service agencies, as a method of decentralizing services, and as an innovative regulatory process. At a minimum, the term implies that expected results (also known as goals) are clearly articulated, and that data is regularly collected and reported to address questions of whether results have been achieved.
RBA can be developed and used for a broad range of goals at different levels: state, community, agency, or program. The level of the goals dictates responsibility for achievement of results. For example, all persons in a state or community -including lay citizens, public agency managers, and providers - are responsible for meeting state - or community - level goals. By contrast, agency managers are responsible for attainment of agency-level goals. Similarly, program managers and providers are responsible for meeting program-level goals.
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Although many states and localities do not currently have RBA “systems” per se, they have multiple ongoing efforts focusing on achieving measurable results for children and families. RBA efforts can be designed at different levels; efforts focusing on different aspects of child and family services can be developed simultaneously. An important step in beginning a RBA effort is to identify and coordinate potential RBA activities that are already occurring.
A strategic planning process is an essential first step in the development of a RBA system. Successful systems begin by stepping back and examining core values, then articulating a plan for the future based on these values. A strategic plan includes a vision or conceptual image of the core values of the state, community, agency, or program; goals; and targets to measure progress. States most successful in designing RBA efforts have developed processes to include all stakeholders in the articulation of the strategic plans.
The articulated goals and objectives or expected results reflect the values identified in the strategic plan and state of the desired conditions of well-being. Although these goals are generally expressed in terms of the entire population, they can be addressed to individual agencies and programs. Goals can be expressed within a specific time frame and in quantifiable terms, or without reference to time or without attached quantifiable measures.
Objectives, derived from the goals, are generally expressed in terms of the entire population but can target participants of a program.
Indicators that enable decision-makers to assess progress towards achievement of intended outputs, outcomes, goals, or objectives always specify time frames and are expressed in measurable terms. Goals and objectives should be articulated before availability of indicator data is considered. It is important to determine the goals and objectives in their own right, without the constraints of measurement requirements.
A combination of these and other systems and processes are worthy of further investigation and consultation to determine applicability to the FSP.
Recommendation 11: Develop an FSP performance framework that builds on the outcome based FRSP framework in consultation with the broader FSP providers and stakeholders. [
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6.4 Systems and Processes
What systems and processes could we use to support this? There is a need to develop more universal measures of child and family wellbeing and tools for measuring that can be applied across different settings. This would enable more accurate measurement to occur.
The draft FRSP Performance Framework developed by the joint Government / Sector working group on Quality and Performance Management has identified some agreed performance measures that represent a good starting point for the FSP. The revised Family Relationship Services Program Performance Framework aims to complement ongoing research and evaluation activities to provide Government with stronger evidence on the benefit of Family Relationship Services to Australian families.
Important principles underpinning this framework and any other options under consideration should include:
- focus on client outcomes
While government and the sector continue to need data on the quantity and quality of service provision, the most important question is whether Services are making a difference for families.
- minimise red tape
The framework will make use of existing data to minimise red tape for service providers and families. Any additional data requirements will be offset by a significant reduction in FRS Online and contractual reporting requirements as part of the broader departmental red-tape reduction agenda.
- provide a whole-of-Family Relationship Services methodology
The framework is designed to be flexible enough to meet the needs of individual service providers yet comprehensive enough for national program management and development purposes.
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After recent consultation with the Sector about the potential to provide the data needed to support the framework, it was found that while the vast majority of services agree on the value of this data, the diversity of the sector means the data currently collected varies considerably between service providers and service types in both coverage and quality.
The results of a year-long trial of the methodology commencing in July 2009 will make an important contribution to how good performance should be measured in the FSP. The trial is open to all providers on a volunteer basis and provides an opportunity for the framework to be further refined before full implementation under the FSP in 2011.
To build on the FRSP Performance Framework and use the RBA approach for application to the broader FSP would require further consultation. Presuming the overall FRSP program objective of improved family functioning remains under the broader FSP vision and governing principles the redevelopment of a common set of intermediate and immediate outcomes across the increased number of sub program categories is important.
An important consideration in the redevelopment of common outcomes across the broader program is the application of varied levels of significance to different service types. This issue has been highlighted in the development of the FRSP Performance Framework with lengthy discussions at the joint Government / Sector working group resulting in agreement to list outcomes as either 'key' (primary) or 'other' (secondary) to accurately indicate the priority of each outcome for different service types .
It is important that the development of any alternative outcome based performance measurement system is used as an alternative rather than additional mechanism to avoid increasing compliance costs and reducing service delivery outputs.
Recommendation 12: Develop universal measures of child and family wellbeing and tools that can be built into common data collection systems to be applied across different settings.