Executive Summary

This implementation review of Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs) was undertaken over 3 months between May and July 2007 by Morgan Disney & Associates for the Department of Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA). The purpose of the review was to address the core question: Are SRAs being implemented as intended?

The review was framed by a set of questions around five key areas of investigation:

SRA Conceptual Framework: What’s the theory?
The Practical Application: What’s the Practice?
Lessons Learnt: What have we learnt thus far?
Funding and Resources – how have these been developed/used?
Future Options – how to do better?

The review utilised a qualitative methodology and included secondary analysis of individual reviews of 80 SRAs conducted by individual consultants during 2006; site visits to 10 communities across the Northern Territory (NT), Queensland (Qld) and New South Wales (NSW); and engagement with three ICCs - Darwin, Coffs Harbour and Cairns. In total more than 90 SRAs were examined in some detail and approximately 30 of the remaining 190 SRAs were examined briefly to assist in verifying findings.

The full report provides a detailed analysis of the implementation challenges and lessons. This summary provides the key findings and learnings with a brief summary of the proposed way forward.

The most important message is that the majority of people in communities have embraced SRAs and see them as a significant new way of working with government to address issues in their communities. This is supported by ICCs and most government agencies including from other levels of government. However there are also issues which need to be addressed if the progress of the past four years is not to be lost or compromised.

We have titled this report ‘Don’t let’s lose another good idea’ as a reflection of the concern that just as the evidence is emerging that something is working well, there will be a repeat of the old pattern of dispensing with a good initiative and trying something new. The review team urges that the lessons from this initiative are understood as being extremely relevant today and that the growing confidence of Indigenous communities in the SRA process is recognised and built upon.

Brief Background

SRAs have been an important Australian Government policy initiative within a broader reform strategy for Indigenous affairs. They are aimed at building strong partnerships with Indigenous communities and between levels of government. The Shared Responsibility Shared Future framework was first developed for the eight Council Of Australian Government (COAG) Trials and extended in 2003/2004 to a broader program of SRAs across Australia. This broader program included both SRAs and the development of Regional Partnership Agreements (RPAs). Indigenous Coordination Centres (ICCs) in 30 locations across Australia have played a key role in implementing SRAs and have driven and managed the process of development at the local level. SRAs are located in metropolitan, regional and remote communities.

The Secretaries’ Group was charged with implementing the principles of the COAG National Framework of Principles For Delivering Services to Indigenous Australians. The principles are:

Harnessing the mainstream
Streamlining service delivery
Establishing transparency and accountability
Developing a learning framework, and
Focusing on priority areas including those identified in Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage.

These principles were core to the Shared Responsibility Framework and remain crucial in the implementation of the new approach to Indigenous affairs.

The conceptual framework of SRAs

The concept of SRAs is underpinned by a commitment by the Australian Government, and supported by the COAG Framework of Principles to allow SRAs to evolve and change in an effort to create a new, flexible and responsive way of doing business with Indigenous communities. This review has identified some core principles which have emerged over time, and these are now explicitly stated in several key policy documents. However the intention of the SRA process was to allow ICCs to work in partnership with Indigenous communities with minimal red tape and bureaucracy to address:

priorities which communities saw as important to improving their circumstances
fragmentation and lack of coordination in government programs and initiatives.

The key concepts identified and now articulated in this review are:

Partnerships within and between levels of government and with Indigenous communities are more likely to produce sustainable local solutions which work because no partner can address these complex issues in Indigenous communities alone – this is supported by whole-of-government approaches.
Engaging the mainstream and improving coordination is essential to building sustainable changes in government services and ensuring communities get maximum access to services. As mainstream services are not necessarily available in remote communities this concept of mainstreaming is more of a focus in urban, including regional, communities. The improved coordination of government services and activities however is relevant wherever there is a community.
Communities are best placed to achieve changes in behaviour which improve their life chances if they are engaged in mutually accountable arrangements based on shared responsibilities and mutual obligations and supported to work alongside government.
Investing government resources in local initiatives should be a shared responsibility between levels of government and across agencies.
Negotiating agreed outcomes together will require time and a good process of shared leadership from all partners.
A more flexible, coordinated funding regime is required to ensure responsive and timely outcomes with Indigenous communities.

The review has revealed that all of these features are in evidence to some degree in the implementation of SRAs and that over time the practice of implementing SRAs has evolved in a positive way, which is valued and recognised by most partners. The evolution and improvements in process have progressed partly because of the permission to develop local responses for local circumstances.

The practice of SRA development

Support for the development process

The early SRAs were assisted by a template for the development of agreements with broad directions, and by support from the Secretaries of Australian Government agencies involved in the eight COAG Trials. There were minimal detailed guidelines and, whilst this was reportedly somewhat unnerving for some ICCs, overall, communities and ICCs welcomed this new flexibility and ICCs built on their good relationships with local communities. ICC Managers, Deputy Managers, and other ICC staff over time had support via training which included the sharing at national meetings of lessons learnt. The creation of agency Solution Broker positions located within ICCs has assisted this development process.

Whilst there has been minimal formal information provided for Indigenous leaders on what SRAs mean, and this was identified as an important lesson for engaging future communities in new SRAs, none the less community partners embraced the concept and have engaged proactively with the development process. A communication strategy regarding SRAs for communities is proposed. This report proposes an action learning approach with regular debriefing/yarning about what the process has been, how it has worked for both sides, and what the benefits are. This would support improvements in understanding and skills for all partners involved. Providing information in language and using interpreters were proposed as good approaches in traditional communities and such strategies should form part of the wider communication strategy on SRAs.

Training for government agencies in whole-of-government practice would also have assisted ICC and other agency staff as there is no shared agreement about what whole-of-government practice means on the ground. This remains an issue and is particularly important for staff new to departments or to SRA processes. Joint processes across agencies to work on whole of government skills are valuable and international evidence suggests that shared understandings emerge from joint training on integrated and whole of government initiatives.

Coordinating government activity and funding - the role of ICCs and other government agencies

ICCs have played a lead role in initiating and supporting SRAs, have fostered partnerships within government and across levels of government, and have played a major role in building strong partnerships with Indigenous communities. There is overwhelmingly good feedback from communities and many government agencies regarding the role played by ICCs since the inception of SRAs. Many Australian Government and state and territory government agencies have also embraced SRAs and there are examples of shared funding responsibility for many SRAs. However ICC staff, and some agency managers, report some significant barriers in achieving coordination of government funding in many cases and report particular challenges in achieving more flexible, simplified funding agreements across the funds committed for SRAs.

SRAs were meant to address red tape and foster more rapid and responsive funding solutions. Many participants and especially communities hoped that SRAs would achieve single funding agreements with common reporting arrangements. This has not been the case and most SRAs appear to have increased the number of agreements: i.e. there is an SRA with outcomes and indicators, and then as many as six to seven funding agreements attached, with separate indicators, reporting arrangements and monitoring systems.

In the case of SRAs that were judged to be only ‘somewhat successful’ at the time of the review, a major theme was delays in implementation. The reasons for these slippages included delays in delivering funding commitments agreed to in the SRA.

There is some promising practice emerging in some ICCs with Solution Brokers and ICC Managers negotiating new SRA arrangements with a single funding agreement, common indicators and single reporting which meet the needs of all funding partners. This must be progressed as a matter of urgency or the credibility of the SRA process is in danger of being compromised and ICCs and agencies overwhelmed with unnecessary bureaucracy and administration.

Building partnerships with communities

Most communities appear in the main to be very supportive of SRAs and the SRA process. There is consistent positive feedback that this new way of working is very consistent with Indigenous customs, community traditions and values regarding working together, community and family obligations, and reciprocity. Whilst some individual SRA reviews reported that some Indigenous partners were not clear about the SRA process, most communities understood the concept and the intention and supported both the concept and the process. The communities interviewed during site visits have been particularly positive about the role of ICCs in building these partnerships and many want to see this practice extended to other agencies at all levels of government.

Meeting commitments

Many communities reported that they were able to negotiate and deliver on their responsibilities and commitments. However they believe that some government agencies are not as good at delivering on their responsibilities as they expect Indigenous partners to be. Hence they challenge notions of mutual obligations if these are one way. On the whole many government agencies appear to be meeting most of their commitments.

However across the 80 reviews and the site visits examined during this review there were significant examples of governments being slow to implement their funding commitments and, in some cases, this had significant consequences for communities.

Delays in funding allocations sometimes impacted on the capacity of the community to deliver on their commitments: for example achieving sustainable employment opportunities beyond CDEP; or addressing drug and alcohol issues through rehabilitation programs. Changes in policy also impacted on implementation in some SRAs¹.

The role of the Australian Government in negotiating SRAs has been predominantly through the ICCs and the funding contributed by and partnerships with other governments need to be increased. This will require leadership and a commitment from all governments for a sustained effort at building on new ways of working. ICC managers need improved authority and delegation to negotiate on behalf of the Australian Government; other Australian Government agency managers need greater delegations to commit funding and to negotiate single funding agreements for SRAs.

Behaviour change

Identifying initiatives that lead to behaviour change was one of the most challenging implementation issues and over time this has improved in some ways and become more complicated in others. A major factor related to behaviour change in communities is the complexity of the issues facing communities. Whilst many within government saw SRAs originally as being directed at small, single issue matters, most communities see the intractable issues which they want to address as complex and requiring a holistic response. Thus there is a tension between those within government (and some non-Indigenous CEOs) who argue for simple, single issue SRAs, and communities who see some of the issues they want to address as complex and requiring multi-agency and comprehensive responses.

Behaviour change on some issues is not easy and this includes school attendance if issues related to drug and alcohol use, overcrowding in houses, and access to basic utilities are not addressed. This is a very difficult issue and one of the biggest challenges facing ICCs. It is also epitomised in the current crisis regarding child abuse; that is, the issues are interconnected, longstanding, and require strong partnerships with Indigenous people (communities, families and individuals). In more recent negotiations there is evidence of a change of approach that links individual benefit with individual behaviour change, as opposed to the stronger tendency towards community benefit for individual behaviour change in earlier SRAs. For example there are developments linking such benefits and behaviour as home ownership, tenancy, and home improvement, school attendance, family income management and economic development. These examples of attempts to address the complexity of issues facing communities need to be evaluated over time for sustained change and impact.

What is abundantly clear from this review is that communities want to remain engaged in SRA processes and see them as a positive and constructive way for all governments to do business with them.

Sustainability – of the approach and of SRA outcomes

Addressing issues of sustainability has been a feature in that SRAs were never intended to replace or substitute for funding or service delivery which is essential for any community in Australia such as utilities, education, basic health, or housing services. They were also not intended to fund initiatives which might require ongoing funding commitments. They were intended to try and address issues in ways which achieved some sustained behaviour change or enhanced community capacity.

Important sustainable benefits have been identified to date during this review including:

capacity building at organisational and individual levels
governance and administration skills for Community Councils and other Indigenous organisations
skills, qualifications and work experience to enhance employment for individuals, and/or develop young people as future leaders
gains from improved interagency co-operation and understanding, i.e. new connections, minimising duplication, improvement in partner services through contact with SRA workers.

The evidence from this review suggests that many ICCs are addressing ways in which the changes achieved during an SRA process can be sustained:

the need for sustained leadership at the government level after signing SRAs - the report explores the concept of and criteria for a ‘lead agency’ role
within the community sustaining the community effort and managing the funding has been shown to need some support through ‘project management’ expertise in the early stages of implementation
SRA initiatives are very likely to lead to the identification of ongoing needs and issues and therefore further SRAs.

Ongoing or new funding from a variety of sources, including the private sector, may be signs of progress and create new opportunities for communities. Any non-negotiable opposition to future funding commitments seems out of keeping with the spirit of SRAs. The issues facing these communities are deeply entrenched and will not be solved in two to three short term SRAs. The SRAs may however act as a catalytic process for sustained change.

Successful SRAs - lessons learnt

From the evidence gathered in this review, SRAs were successful or on track where:

the process is driven by the community and they feel they have a say rather than having obligations imposed - i.e. passive participation is avoided
communities have built strong relationships of trust primarily through ICC engagement but sometimes through line agency staff working alongside ICC staff
the Community Council or other community representatives have a strong representative grasp on the community's aspirations
ICCs have played a strong and sustained role leading the process and fostering understandings across agencies and across levels of government
the central participants are consulted, including women and young people
community consultations are well promoted
effort is directed to community capacity building
achievements led to further cooperation between partners and generated interest from other communities to run similar programs
training was provided in meeting practices and procedures where required
contingency plans were developed with communities for when targets are delayed or not met.

Future options

SRAs, as tools contributing to a major change in both policy and implementation in Indigenous affairs, have played a role in changing the way governments work with the communities involved and seem to be achieving some objectives that are aimed at changing circumstances over time. As community engagement has been improved, and trust and commitment have increased in both government and community the result has been positive responses to SRAs and the way of working on which they are based, and there is strong interest in communities in moving on to the next challenge.

Some key themes regarding the implementation of SRAS include:

the pivotal role of the ICCs and ICC managers, and flexibility and responsiveness at the local level, needs to be maintained
support for the leadership and staff development role of ICC Managers also needs to be maintained
development of strategic thinking linked to simple effective indicators and outcomes, and whole of government and project management skills would be a valuable focus for the next stage
action learning involving regular debriefing/yarning together about what has been learnt from practice would be an appropriate training style - this should include opportunities for community leaders to participate and share their perceptions
a communication strategy on SRAs is required to build understandings across communities and to minimise perceptions that communities are being ‘dragged’ into this process with limited understanding, a perception this review found to be largely erroneous
strategies for improved management of SRA ‘projects’ at the local level need strengthening, and improved project management skills for ICC staff would enable them to support community members to undertake project management tasks
some local approaches to building project management capacity in communities might assist in sustainability and improved implementation – a strategy of this kind would contribute to shared responsibility, improved governance and management, as well as to training and employment for community members where possible.

There are some elements of implementation which need to be progressed in the next stage of development of SRAs:

delegations for ICC Managers has emerged as a critical issue to be addressed - this will require discussion with ICC Managers, State Managers of Australian Government agencies and possibly the Secretaries’ Group
the development of single funding agreements and single reporting across the funding commitments agreed to achieve outcomes for communities – drawing on work currently in train in some ICCs on this issue will be important
clarification and exploration of the idea of a lead agency role to oversight the implementation of SRAs
a combination of more comprehensive SRAs as well as the use of smaller single issue SRAs is likely to be a valuable way for ICCs to work
further support to communities and government officers to learn from experience together and to avoid any tendency for a rigidity of approach to develop
identifying and documenting examples of good practice in relation to harnessing mainstream services to develop the complementarity of Indigenous specific and mainstream services where mainstream services are available
implementing joint training on whole of government approaches and improving support to ICCs to manage this element of SRAs
exploring the links between SRAs as a tool and the learnings from SRAs for informing new developments in government interventions in complex issues².

Funding, benefits and services are all tangible demonstrations to communities of commitments from governments. However the interpersonal, local level dimension of the behaviours and performance required of staff from all levels of Australian governments to demonstrate mutual obligation has been shown through SRAs to be equally powerful in the:

engagement of communities
establishing the foundations of new expectations between governments and communities and a new experience in working together for improved outcomes.

This included some significant changes to CDEP over the last 6 months.
Recent developments in comprehensive SRAs linking individual benefits to individual behaviour change are relevant here. The findings from this review affirm the value and significance of working alongside communities to find solutions to very difficult issues and challenge practices which are about ‘doing to’ communities.

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