6. Conclusions
- 6.1 Overall conclusions
- 6.2 Why recommend an alternative approach?
- 6.3 Policy design: a development approach for overcoming crisis
- 6.4 Policy implementation: implementing the development approach
- 6.5 Supporting processes
6.1 Overall conclusions
This report was commissioned to:
…conduct a formative evaluation of a selection of communities involved in the Communities in Crisis initiative. The participatory evaluation will look at what is working and what could be done better… The evaluation will also provide the Australian Government with options it might consider for continued positive change for the future, best practice interventions and ongoing performance measurement.
The specific objectives of the CIC policy initiative was to:
- Stabilising communities (e.g. family violence, substance abuse, corruption)
- Re-establishing basic services
- Developing local plans of action
- Building governance, capacity and leadership
- Helping communities engage with government
- Improving service delivery
The approach requires the Commonwealth and State Governments to work together to address a number of objectives, while recognising the responsibilities of each level of government. The objectives, dependant on the need within individual communities, are:
In Section 5 of this report, the analysis and findings of the evaluation have been set out in some detail.
Tables 8 and 9 provide the overall conclusions of the evaluation against the 6 stated objectives of the CIC policy.
| Case Study Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Policy Objective | Balgo | Beagle Bay | Kalumburu | Yalata |
| Stabilising communities | The social and physical wellbeing of residents at Balgo remains unstable. | The social and physicalwellbeing of residents at Beagle Bay is fragile but improved. |
The social and physical wellbeing of residents at Kalumburu remains unstable. | The social and physicalwellbeing of residents at Yalata is fragile but improved. |
| Re-establishing basic services | Essential services have been re-established, but some municipal and human services remain poor. | Essential and municipal services have been re-established. Human services are under review. | Essential services have been re-established, but some municipal and human services remain poor. | Essential and municipal services have been re-established and continue to improve, but human services remain poor. |
| Developing local plans of action | No comprehensive action plan is in place. | A comprehensive action has been developed but is still under-going implementation. | No comprehensive action plan is in place. | A comprehensive action is in place but lacks inter-agency support on some initiatives. |
| Building governance, capacity and leadership | Governance at Wirrimanu AC
continues to lack meaningful participation from an organised residents group. |
Governance capacity exists within individual leaders but is unconsolidated across the community. | Governance at Kalumburu AC is relatively stable but training and support continues to be needed. | Governance at Yalata CI is relatively stable but training and support continues to be needed. |
| Helping communities engage with government | Meaningful engagement with residents has been limited and there is no representative body to ‘do business’ with. | Consultation has tended to occur on a family by family basis and in the absence of an active representative body, collective decision-making is constrained. | Meaningful engagement with residents has been limited and the capacity of the Council is under-developed. | Residents participate regularly at open meetings with government but the Council requires further support to continue its engagement with government. |
| Improving service delivery | The organisation of service delivery continues to be fragmented and reactive. | Improved arrangements for the re-organisation of service delivery have yet to be fully implemented. | The organisation of service delivery continues to be fragmented and reactive. | Aspects of locally organised service delivery are improved, but further improvements are required for higher order (complex and big budget) physical and human services. |
| Overall Outcomes | |
|---|---|
| Policy Objective | |
| Stabilising communities | Although there are examples of a return to relative stability in some cases, at this stage none of the case study communities would remain stable without substantial on-going support. Where the development of local capacity has been consistently supported, communities have become increasingly stable. |
| Re-establishing basic services | Improvements to essential and municipal services have been achieved in some cases, where responsibilities for these have been transferred to appropriate agencies, where suitable staff have been recruited or retained and where transparent operational systems have been implemented. |
| Developing local plans of action | Genuine and appropriate action plans are either not in place or else lack broad scale inter-agency commitment. Where the scope of the CIC policy has been interpreted as requiring a whole of issue response and community members have been widely consulted, comprehensive local action plans have been developed. |
| Building governance, capacity and leadership | Efforts to build governance capacity have lacked traction, and further support for representative leadership development and governance training is needed. Where inter-community tensions have been settled and emergent leadership has been supported representative leadership groups have begun to emerge. |
| Helping communities engage with government | The narrow emphasis on strengthening governance through and within Aboriginal Corporations has had limited effect. Where individuals and groups have been empowered and their capacity to engage has been consistently supported, they have been able to engage with interventions. |
| Improving service delivery | The delivery, monitoring and evaluation of services remains fragmented in most cases. Where service provision has been comprehensively planned for, has been made accountable both the beneficiaries and to higher levels of government, services have improved. However, very few services are prioritised and resourced on the basis of objectively understood needs. |
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6.2 Why recommend an alternative approach?
The analysis, findings and overall conclusions of this evaluation suggest that the CIC policy has been a necessary but insufficient initiative for addressing crisis in Indigenous communities. While a number of weaknesses have been identified across all three areas of policy design, policy implementation and supporting processes, the major weakness has been in policy design. Weaknesses in policy design will inevitably flow through to implementation and compromise the effectiveness of supporting processes.
By targeting the issue of crisis on Indigenous communities through direct intervention, the CIC policy was required to fully comprehend the true nature and complexity of crisis and its causes. The greatest risk of not doing this was to set up incomplete interventions that could ultimately add a further layer of complexity and confusion to an already severely strained context. While the idea of direct intervention to overcome long term, continuing crisis is sound, in the case of the CIC policy, the practical means of pursuing that idea have been inadequate. This inadequacy can be traced back to a misunderstanding about the true nature of crisis in Indigenous communities.
This section recommends an alternative approach to crisis intervention in Indigenous communities that is based upon the understanding that crisis and its causes are the result of a continuing development challenge that faces most discrete Indigenous communities in Australia. This alternative approach rejects any assumption that Australia’s governments can address crisis through primarily administrative means that adjust a few policy levers here and there.
The perilous circumstances and disadvantages suffered by Indigenous people require Australian policy-makers to go back to the basics of how to comprehensively plan for development that sustains a much better future for Indigenous people in the places they choose to live. Whether they were originally artificial or poorly conceived, Indigenous communities have now become human settlements to which people are committed for a range of reasons to which they are entitled. Many of these settlements are experiencing high rates of population growth. They are here to stay.
Thus, as for any other human settlement, strategic planning for and resourcing of long term development using a framework that is founded upon fundamental development principles is required. Policy development and administrative mechanisms should then be reformed or reorganised to address that logic, however politically challenging that may be. The approach set out in the remainder of this section demonstrates how to achieve this.
By proposing an alternative approach, all of the positive aspects arising from the CIC policy are captured. Despite its weaknesses, the policy has demonstrated some innovative and important techniques that are appropriate to the task of addressing crisis, such as flexibility.
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6.3 Policy design: a development approach for overcoming crisis
The first step of the alternative approach is to adopt a development approach for overcoming crisis during policy design. The following discussion sets out and explains the development approach.
6.3.1 Pursuing stability: the development continuum
The need for a development approach to Indigenous communities and regions
Development is a broad concept, and one that can mean different things depending upon the
context in which it is applied. In the context of disadvantaged Indigenous communities and
regions experiencing crisis, development should at least mean long term progress away from
current levels of heavily entrenched disadvantage, towards circumstances that support the wellbeing
of Indigenous people in the places where they choose to be. This is what is meant by
development in this context. Australia should adopt a development approach to communities and
regions that have significant and increasing populations of Indigenous people, because the
disadvantage experienced by most Indigenous people living in these communities and regions is
expressed so strongly that anything other than a long term commitment to objectively sound
development of these places is unlikely to adequately address the underlying causes of
disadvantage.
To explain the development approach further, the following discussion outlines:
- The transitional nature of development; and
- The foundations of stable development.
6.3.2 The transitional nature of development
Development is a continuing process so when the achievement of stable development is discussed, this means achieving a stable set of conditions that supports the continuing process of development. This requires an understanding of the transitional nature of development.
Because it is a continuing process, development is transitional - it is not possible to leap from unstable development conditions to stable development conditions in a single bound. Instead, development conditions progress from instability to stability over time. Figure 2 demonstrates this by summarising the development continuum:
Figure 2. The development continuum
The development continuum demonstrates that there are two important aspects of the development process:
- The relative stability of the development process, and how this effects the nature of investment; and
- The relative level of local versus external influence upon the development process.
The relative stability of development & how this effects the nature of investment
The green ‘circles’ along the development continuum represent 3 conditions of stability. The presence of each of these conditions in any community or region can be identified, and any change in these conditions can be measured. The type of investment required also changes depending upon which conditions are present.
Unstable development
The strongest indication that the development process is unstable is when the achievement of sustained positive outcomes from the investment of resources tends to be ‘hit and miss’. This condition arises because some or all of the foundations that are required for stable development are missing or weak.
Unstable development can be identified by characteristics such as:
- Unstable and ineffective governance, best evidenced by fragile decision-making structures and poor decision-making;
- A lack of physical infrastructure, or the presence of poor quality or inappropriate infrastructure;
- Negative and declining health outcomes for a population;
- Negative and declining education outcomes for a population; and
- Declining or no economic security and / or private investment.
Basic stability
The condition of basic stability is present when there is a base upon which broader development investments can start to rely. This condition arises when the foundations for development have been established.
Movement from unstable development to basic stability is necessary before stable development can be achieved. Initial investment of resources should directly provide or support the provision of foundations for stable development.
Basic stability can be identified by characteristics such as:
- Improving governance, best evidenced by the sustained presence of a robust and legitimate decision-making structure;
- The building and / or repair of essential physical infrastructure and related essential services;
- Stabilised and improving health outcomes for a population;
- Stabilised and improving education outcomes for a population;
- Increasing economic security and / or private investment.
Stable development
When the development process is stable, sustained positive outcomes from the investment of resources tend to be much more predictable and achievable. Diverse investments in development can be made with confidence. This condition arises when the foundations of stable development are effectively guaranteed and positive change is steady and continuing.
To move from the condition of basic stability to stable development, resources should be invested in strategies that support the continuing provision of the foundations of stable development. Resources can also be invested in strategies that increase the diversity of development opportunities.
Stable development can be identified by characteristics such as:
- Stable and effective governance, best evidenced by continuing, sound and accurate decisionmaking;
- The ongoing development, maintenance and further improvement of physical infrastructure;
- Sustained positive health outcomes a population;
- Sustained positive education outcomes a population;
- Sustained economic security and / or and diversifying private investment.
The relative degree of local versus external influence upon development
The second important part of the development continuum is the relative degree of local versus external influence upon the development process. In this context, local means influence coming from within a community or region, and external means influence coming from outside the community or region. There will always be a mix of local and external influences impacting upon the development of places, but as places establish a stable development process, local influence tends to increase and external influence tends to decrease.
When development is stable, there is a higher degree of local influence upon development. Local influence (or independency) can come in various forms. A relevant example is the decision-making of a local government body. An effective local government body makes decisions that take accurately take into account a community’s own needs and aspirations. These decisions then influence local development accordingly. An effective local government body can also make decisions that foresee, respond to and manage the potential impacts on the region of external influences. Greater local influence means that positive external influences can be embraced, and negative external influences can be minimised. In this way, the impacts of external influence is therefore moderated and reduced. It is important to also note that a high degree of local influence can sometimes lead a community’s development astray, if that influence is not properly informed and administered.
It follows that when the development process is unstable there is a higher degree of external influence upon development. External influence (or dependency) can also come in various forms. A relevant example is the policy of an external government. When an external government changes its policies, the impact of this change upon communities experiencing unstable development is more likely to be high. It is much harder for a community to manage the impacts of change. If the change is positive, this may have a beneficial influence but if the change is negative, this may exacerbate instability. Whatever the case, the community is not well placed to make the best of positive change, or avoid the worst of negative change.
Therefore, as a community transitions from unstable to stable development, local influence upon development should gradually increase and improve. Whilst some form of positive external influence such as an intervention that brings a major investment of resources is often necessary to kick-start this transition, the independence that comes with gradually increasing local influence should be a fundamental goal of any investment in the development process.
6.3.3 The five foundations of stable development
As demonstrated above, the presence of conditions of unstable development, basic stability and stable development depends upon the degree to which foundations of stable development are in place.
There are five foundations that are fundamental to the development of human settlements. These five foundations are not new. They are fundamental elements readily identifiable in stable human settlements of all kinds. These foundations are also more or less implicit in much of the current Indigenous policy in Australia, such as Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage framework. These foundations are also strongly interrelated with each other, such that a lack of attention to any one of them diminishes the effectiveness and success of all of them. If just one of these foundations is missing or weak, the achievement of stable development conditions is at risk. Table 10 describes these foundations.
Table 10. The five foundations of stable development
Accurately identifying and prioritising needs and aspirations in the pursuit of the foundations of stable development, then making good decisions about meeting and achieving needs and aspirations.
Building, maintaining, and improving the physical infrastructure that is required to meet needs and achieve aspirations. Understood in its broadest sense, physical infrastructure includes needs such as housing, public utilities, transport (roads), as well as public utilities and facilities
Managing and improving the physical health of populations so that they are able to, as far as possible, participate in meeting their own needs and aspirations as well as those of their community
Acquiring, managing and developing knowledge to enable the meeting of needs and the achievement of aspirations
Acquiring, securing, managing and developing resources to enable the meeting of needs and the achievement of aspirations
Figure 3 demonstrates the interrelationship between the five foundations.
Figure 3. The foundations of stable development
The qualities of successful development actions
It is not only important to identify and work with the full range of necessary foundations for achieving stable development conditions. The qualities within actions taken towards these foundations are also important. Coordinated investments in actions that simultaneously pursue the foundations of stable development should demonstrate the following qualities:
Planning – All actions should be planned and coordinated in relation to each of the foundations. Every action should be in some way connected to every foundation. For example, actions to improve physical infrastructure should also find opportunities to provide benefits for:
- Governance(e.g. provide education and training that enables the local community to be involved in the making of sound decisions about physical infrastructure priorities and provision)
- Health services (e.g. ensure that physical infrastructure investment will meet health and safety standards; place a priority on physical infrastructure investments that will provide facilities that are crucial for local health care and management)
- Education services (e.g. provide for training in the construction and maintenance of physical infrastructure; provide for education about how to make good decisions about physical infrastructure planning, delivery and maintenance)
- Economic security and development (e.g. provide for local employment opportunities in the construction and maintenance of physical infrastructure).
Equity – All actions should be demonstrably and transparently needs-based, and local involvement in the achievement of actions should be accessible to all. Local communities should have representation structures that are inclusive of all needs groups. The different interests of different groups on communities should also be acknowledged during planning, so that these can be considered.
Empowerment – All actions should include elements that empower the community, such as direct involvement in achieving them, oversight, partnerships, etc. Empowerment should also allow for local accountability, but how this occurs should respect the present capacity of the local community. For example, making a local community solely and fully accountable for a major investment may not be viable, but making them accountable for a manageable part of it may be.
Sustainability – All actions should demonstrate and be resourced for sustainability. For example, a one off grant for the construction of a youth facility such as a basketball court may not be sustainable if the ongoing maintenance of the facility is not planned for, or if there is no ongoing, structured youth program in place that will regularly use the court for activities.
6.3.4 In summary
Thus, to achieve the stable development of Indigenous communities, intervention policies should be designed upon the following basis:
- Recognising the need for a long term development approach, and therefore the primary goal of achieving conditions for stable development;
- Understanding the transitional nature of development – it takes time to move from unstable development conditions through to basic stability and on to stable development conditions;
- Understanding the role of external versus local influence in transitioning towards stable development;
- Recognising the five foundations of stable development, and making simultaneous, coordinated investments in each of these towards the meeting of local needs and achievement of local aspirations; and
- Pursuing the qualities of planning, equity, empowerment and sustainability.
Some aspects of this approach have been an implicit part of past and current policies that target the well-being Indigenous communities, including the CIC policy. However, the development approach outlined above supplies an explicit framework that can be used to guide the design of future interventions and Indigenous policy generally.
It is a strong recommendation of this evaluation that the Australian Government design future intervention policy in line with the above framework.
The remaining discussion recommends how to apply the development approach during policy implementation and supporting processes.
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6.4 Policy implementation: implementing the development approach
There are 3 important considerations for the implementation of the development approach:
- Planning for stable development;
- Applying flexibility in the right place; and
- Coordinating the right knowledge and expertise.
6.4.1 Planning for stable development
The development framework outlined above provides guidance about how to achieve stable development. This is a condition that must be explicitly planned for because it is virtually impossible to achieve stability through fragmented experimentation. The quality of planning has also been discussed above, and the most essential point made within that discussion is the need to develop actions in relation to each the five foundations for stable development.
The process for planning for stable development in Indigenous communities would involve the following steps:
Step 1 – Analysing and understanding the local or regional context so as to objectively determine needs and aspirations in the foundational areas of governance, physical infrastructure, health services, education services and economic security / development. This step also involves the identification of context-specific drivers or causes of disadvantage, other strengths and weaknesses, and emerging opportunities. This step also highlights priorities that are specific to context. Detailed documentation of the present context is required before any intervention commences, and this assists with the setting of practical change measures.
Step 2 – Developing appropriate strategies and actions for meeting needs and achieving aspirations in the foundational areas. The development of strategies and actions should transparently demonstrate the qualities for successful development actions – planning, equity, empowerment and sustainability. Accordingly, community members and other stakeholders should be directly involved in the development of strategies and actions. Appropriate strategies and actions are adapted to the specifics of the context, that is, they directly address the identified drivers / causes of disadvantage, local strengths, local weaknesses and emerging opportunities that are specific to a place.
Step 3 – Allocating timeframes, resources, roles, responsibilities and change measures so that all strategies and actions can be tracked and monitored. Timeframes should be realistic, reflecting the scale of the activity and / or the change that is required. Resources for actions should be fully quantified even if all resources required cannot be fully committed upfront. Roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined. Change measures based on outcomes (e.g. percentage reduction in overcrowding) rather than outputs (e.g. number of houses built) must be developed. These measures must not be abstract (and therefore hard to apply) but practical.
Step 4 – Committing to and undertaking comprehensive implementation of strategies and actions in line with what has been planned, regularly monitoring change and setting fixed periods of 3 – 5 years for detailed review of strategies and actions. The performance of development actions undertaken by all actors and agencies operating in the community must be accountable to a single, comprehensive development plan. Administrative arrangements between different levels of government and between different government agencies should be structure to reflect the development plan. It is a fundamental error to change the plan to reflect administrative structures.
Planning is cyclical. During detailed review periods, the process outlined above is repeated, always coming back to the quest for definable progress in the areas of governance, physical infrastructure, health services, education services and economic security & development.
6.4.2 Applying flexibility in the right place
One of the strengths of the CIC policy has been allowance for flexibility at the regional and local level so that responses could be tailored to the local context. This is an important principle for implementation and it is not excluded by a rigorous planning-based approach to development. However, unguided flexibility is a risk.
Therefore, flexibility (adaptability, agility) is best applied only during the selection and delivery of contextually-appropriate local actions that target the fixed overarching goal of demonstrable improvements in the 5 foundations of stable development. In this way, flexibility is guided by a fixed framework, and is not left to guess work and experimentation. There may be myriad ways to achieve the overarching goal depending on the context, but the goal itself is clear and not flexible.
Change measures should not be flexible; otherwise there is no meaningful way of comparing contexts before and after plans and actions have been implemented.
Flexibility, adaptability and agility are also appropriate during review periods. As a context changes, there is the need to change strategies and actions to reflect the emerging context. The principles of the planning-based approach to development should not change, and reviews should not be so regular that plans themselves change too frequently to be effective.
6.4.3 Coordinating the right knowledge and expertise
The right knowledge and expertise is required at a number of levels if the development approach is to be correctly implemented. This is because the task of development planning and delivery is technical. A broad range of knowledge and expertise needs to be acquired, simultaneously coordinated, and sourced from the following areas:
- Planning and management or facilitation of the development process;
- Governance analysis and development;
- Physical infrastructure assessment, design, construction and maintenance;
- Health services design and delivery;
- Education services design and delivery; and
- Economic development planning.
Interventions should be led by teams compromised of this expertise that are required to inform and coordinate development planning efforts in partnership with community representatives. Government officials in charge of interventions should be qualified or trained in development planning, and not merely administrators or administrative experts. Community members should be given opportunities to be trained in these areas of expertise and to work alongside experienced practitioners.
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6.5 Supporting processes
The supporting processes of consultation, coordination and monitoring / evaluation can also be designed to support the development approach.
6.5.1 Consultation: reference groups
To support the development approach, consultation should be highly structured. It should also be informed by a common understanding at all levels of what the development approach is.
The first step in setting up appropriate consultation is the establishment of an appropriate reference group. This group should combine community representation with the necessary knowledge and expertise, and, where appropriate, representation from key government agencies. The reference group would be regularly consulted with and reported to during planning, implementation and review phases. It would act as a working group throughout the development process and it would be facilitated by a development planning expert.
At the outset of development planning, the reference group would be introduced to the principles of the development approach, and consultation tasks would be structured accordingly. For example, the group would be consulted about strategies for addressing each of the five foundations for stable development.
Reference groups may be established at the local and regional level for the purposes of policy implementation. However, a national reference group may also be assembled for the purposes of overseeing policy design.
6.5.2 Coordination: committing to the plan
The best device for coordination of the development approach is a single, comprehensive plan against which all development actions and actors are accountable. The plan should be given the highest possible status, with statutory force the preference, and all actors and agencies should be required to work with the plan in the same way that they are required to work with, for example, land use plans for local government areas across the country.
Communities and regions that are subject to major interventions should be mapped and prescribed as development zones so that all public and private interests can be clear about where development plans apply and where coordination is mandatory. The key public and private interests of a region are also likely to be represented on the reference group, a further tool for coordination.
6.5.3 Monitoring & evaluation: using a development index
The monitoring and evaluation of interventions that adopt the development approach should be based upon a development index that measures change over time at the community and / or regional level. An index contains specified indicators that are measured before an intervention commences, and which are then monitored throughout the intervention or development process. This allows for an objective comparison as development advances.
Appropriate indicators should be developed to measure change in each of the five foundations for stable development. In this way, the index can be used to measure aggregated progress (i.e. the sum of all progress in all areas) and progress with respect to individual foundations. This enables weak foundations to be easily recognised and readily prioritised.
While the setting up of the precise mechanics for the development index is a technical task that is beyond the scope of this evaluation, a basic outline of how it might work is provided. Indicators would be developed at the same time as change measures are being developed for the purposes of development planning. Each foundation may have a number of actions and each action should have its own change measure. The sum of these change measures provides an indicator of progress towards each foundation, and the sum of each foundation’s indicator provides an index for development overall. These would first be measured prior to the commencement of any intervention and the sum of the starting measures would represent a base index, against which change over time can be compared.
The development index should be practical, appropriate to the particular context, and measurement should be comparatively straight forward so that the index can be regularly updated. In principle, a development index for a particular community or region could be linked to a longer term measurement framework such as the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage indicators. However, the difficulty with many of these indicators is that they do not lend themselves to short term measurement of change.