Abstract
The response to community service need is a critical responsibility of government. Effective and efficient service provision is primarily implemented via contractual arrangements with the predominantly nonprofit community services sector.
The ongoing financial sustainability of the community services sector has been under increasing strain in recent years. Such financial duress often results in significant negative impacts on service delivery including the likely reduction of service capacity, the reduction of the number of service types and the reduction of the number of services delivered for each service type (we call these service iterations) (Gilchrist & Perks 2025).
Additionally, strain has been felt as a result of increases in the number of people needing community services and supports as well because many of these services and supports needs are becoming increasingly complex, adding monetary and time costs to service provision.
Generally, these services are funded via government procurement processes and the ACT Government establishes contractual arrangements with the community services sector. Principally, these contractual arrangements are established in one of two ways: (1) Service Funding Agreements; and (2) deeds of grant. We will use the term “contract” when considering both of these financial instruments unless specifically noted otherwise.
In determining how many service iterations of what type of services to purchase, the ACT Government undertakes complex decision-making processes. However, the ever-changing need in the community combined with the administrative processes necessary to facilitate the deployment of resources via the community services sector means that there are significant challenges in ensuring the number of iterations of each service purchased meets the community need, especially given the ACT Government’s need to contract prospectively for future need.
This document reports on a study undertaken by the Centre for Public Value at the University of Western Australia that examined the possibility of using Australian Bureau of Statistics published data to estimate community services need in the ACT community to support both the contracting process and to inform the structure of the contracts themselves with respect to intra-contract period quantity changes.
The study findings are summarised in the next section below. However, we currently think that a whole-of-population level change analysis using lagged data over approximately a five-year period could provide a balanced view of program needs over time and against which an assessment of actual need subsequently identified can be made. This process would require funding to be provided to the community services sector in order to support their provision of service data and to the relevant ACT Government directorates to support the collection and analysis of that data.
The ongoing financial sustainability of the community services sector has been under increasing strain in recent years. Such financial duress often results in significant negative impacts on service delivery including the likely reduction of service capacity, the reduction of the number of service types and the reduction of the number of services delivered for each service type (we call these service iterations) (Gilchrist & Perks 2025).
Additionally, strain has been felt as a result of increases in the number of people needing community services and supports as well because many of these services and supports needs are becoming increasingly complex, adding monetary and time costs to service provision.
Generally, these services are funded via government procurement processes and the ACT Government establishes contractual arrangements with the community services sector. Principally, these contractual arrangements are established in one of two ways: (1) Service Funding Agreements; and (2) deeds of grant. We will use the term “contract” when considering both of these financial instruments unless specifically noted otherwise.
In determining how many service iterations of what type of services to purchase, the ACT Government undertakes complex decision-making processes. However, the ever-changing need in the community combined with the administrative processes necessary to facilitate the deployment of resources via the community services sector means that there are significant challenges in ensuring the number of iterations of each service purchased meets the community need, especially given the ACT Government’s need to contract prospectively for future need.
This document reports on a study undertaken by the Centre for Public Value at the University of Western Australia that examined the possibility of using Australian Bureau of Statistics published data to estimate community services need in the ACT community to support both the contracting process and to inform the structure of the contracts themselves with respect to intra-contract period quantity changes.
The study findings are summarised in the next section below. However, we currently think that a whole-of-population level change analysis using lagged data over approximately a five-year period could provide a balanced view of program needs over time and against which an assessment of actual need subsequently identified can be made. This process would require funding to be provided to the community services sector in order to support their provision of service data and to the relevant ACT Government directorates to support the collection and analysis of that data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Australia |
| Publisher | UWA Centre for Public Value |
| Publication status | Published - 11 May 2025 |