Human Service CEOs & FONGA Annual Implementation Meeting

Communiqué – August 2008

Directors-General and representatives from the Departments of Health, Housing, Education and Training, Community Services, and Ageing, Disability and Home Care met with FONGA representatives for the third annual meeting of the Committee overseeing the implementation of the Working Together for NSW agreement. The meeting, held on 5 August 2008, focused on:

1. Assessing progress against joint projects commenced in 2007-08;
2. Discussing strategies to support workforce capacity building in the non-government sector;
3. A proposal for an industry development strategy for the community sector in NSW , and
4. The NSW Government's approach to indexation policy.

Progress on 2007-08 Projects

There were three major project areas for joint work during 2007/08:

• The Commonwealth/State Accreditation and Reporting project (DADHC) has resulted in the development of a single set of Quality Requirements for all Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC) service programs and delivery arrangements. These Quality Requirements align with the nine (9) key domain areas of the NSW Human Services Quality Framework that was developed in consultation with the NGO sector in 2003. They cover three broad areas: organizational capacity, providing services and programs and building capacity.
  
  A key part of this project was to explore the possibility of mutual recognition of other quality systems. DADHC will share the results of this project with other NSW government funding agencies to determine how a model might be applied across NSW programs on the extent to which shared recognition of generic aspects of service delivery, such as governance, financial management and human resources could be implemented. The Committee acknowledged that the ability to achieve this across all program areas could be limited due to the need to align with quality and review processes for national programs.
  
  In an endeavour to raise the profile of this issue, FONGA will also consider making a submission on behalf of its members to the Senate Inquiry into the Disclosure regimes for charities and not-for profit organisations. The focus of the submission would be to describe the impact of multiple reporting processes for NGOs, and advocating a streamlined approach to quality and accreditation, possibly in the form of a single system of accreditation to be led by the Australian Government.
  
  For more information go to: http://www.dadhc.nsw.gov.au/dadhc/Doing+business+with+us/Integrated+Monitoring+Framework.htm
  
  
• Following on from Stage 1 of the Office of Community Housing’s (OCH) review of models of shared services in community housing further work is now underway to develop and implement shared service arrangements through two or more pilots across rural community housing providers. The Homes Out West Opening Doors Alliance co-location project will be evaluated. Housing providers in northern NSW are proposing to look at shared systems and skills in asset management, information technology, and financial and human resource management, and a further proposal from the western region may be developed. These projects will also be evaluated. A report is due in 2009.
  
  
• A number of new shared service projects have also emerged during the year:
  • DADHC is funding a significant project in the Western Sydney area to deliver capacity building services through both an ‘in situ’ incubator model (Social Enterprise Centre), and/or a series of community based workshops. For more information go to: http://www.dadhc.nsw.gov.au/dadhc/Doing+business+with+us/Building_Capacity.htm
  • Marrickville Council has recently commissioned NCOSS to examine shared service options for NGOs within the Council area with initial consultations conducted with NGOs, and early indications suggesting that the consultations have been well received.
  • The Department of Community Services (DoCS) have also funded NCOSS to develop and pilot a training and resource kit that can be used by small NGOs to support and resource them in creating partnerships and forming consortia. For more information go to: http://www.ncoss.org.au/content/view/1077/111/
  • DoCS is also working with the NSW Women’s Refuge Movement Working Party Inc to consider a proposal to establish a back office bulk purchasing support service for member agencies.
  • DADHC have developed a resource kit (It’s Your Business) that is designed to enhance the capacity of boards of management to meet requirements set out in funding agreements. The tool covers corporate governance, financial management, risk management and legal issues.

The Committee decided that in light of this substantial body of work on shared services, and the need to look at the results of those projects, the proposal from 2007 to develop a Good Practice Guide on shared services should be deferred.

• Substantial progress has also been made against a number of projects under the NGO Development and Support initiative sponsored by the Human Service and Justice CEOs Forum. Particularly:
  • DoCS has continued with Results Based Accountability (RBA) pilot projects with 3 representative organisations – Local Community Services Association (LCSA); NSW Family Services Inc and Youth Action Policy Association – including two further workshops on concepts, terms and process led by Mark Friedman the founder of RBA. Consideration is being given to extending the LCSA and NSW family Services pilot projects to consolidate current achievements, and extend training and support to additional providers.
  • DADHC has developed guidelines and standardised the service specification for its funded peaks. DADHC used the RBA process to establish results and performance indicators for funded peaks that could be included in the Service Plan.
  • NSW Health is working with its peaks to improve the information management capacities of their members and the collection of data and exchange of information processes.   The project is being jointly developed with the NSW Health NGO Advisory Committee and will also explore options for the use of minimum data sets by NGO peaks.
  • The Aboriginal out-of-home care Capacity Building Project (DoCS) aims to develop the organisational capacity of Aboriginal OOCH services so that they are able to expand their operations in a sustainable way. During the year an independent consultation undertook a business analysis of participating services and services were given the results of the assessment and a plan to guide their future expansion over three years. These three-year plans have now commenced for 6 services and remaining one will commence shortly.

Workforce Capacity Building Strategies

The Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) has developed a package of projects designed to support workforce capacity building in the NSW NGO sector. These projects complement the already significant contribution that human service agencies make to workforce development in parts of the NGO sector – particularly community services, disability and health – and to the work being initiated through NCOSS and Sydney University to develop a survey of NGOs and a base line data set of current workforce demographics in the NGO sector.

This package of projects has been developed by DPC to support workforce capacity building in the NGO sector, in consultation with relevant agencies. The package was developed in recognition of the proposal for a workforce development strategy tabled at the 2007 annual meeting, and issues identified in the NCOSS pre-budget submission. It was intended that this work will deliver a solid basis for identifying issues and the skill mix necessary to deliver a more sustainable workforce and will complement other work already underway. The main components of the package are:

• Five (5) scholarships to the Sydney University Graduate School of Government for NGO sector students to develop strategic leadership capacity. The scholarships would also allow participation in joint work based projects which contribute to better partnerships between the government and non government sectors ($123,200 per annum);
• A NGO research project through the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) of the University of New South Wales to consider labour market dynamics in the non government community services sector, including job design, education and training, and recruitment and retention ($107,363), and
• An indigenous women’s leadership program to develop the leadership capacity of indigenous women in the NSW community sector and establish an ongoing Indigenous Leaders Network – to be implemented jointly by NCOSS and Tranby Aboriginal Cooperative College ($56,000).

This important work will be sponsored by the Hon Carmel Tebbutt MP on behalf of the NSW Government.

The Committee asked for an additional consideration to be included in the SPRC research project – being an analysis of tax benefits associated with charitable status. Subject to the results of the analysis, NSW Treasury will also include the issue of charitable status in the NSW submission to the Australian Government’s review of the tax system, highlighting the consequences of changes to charitable status for the NGO sector in NSW.

Industry Development Strategy

Alison Peters presented the FONGA proposal for an industry development strategy for the NGO sector in NSW. Details of the proposal are available on the NCOSS website at:

  http://www.ncoss.org.au/content/view/890/111/

The proposal focuses on providing a consistent comprehensive plan for the whole sector against which current and future work is based and placed and was a feature in the NCOSS pre-budget submission. FONGA representatives emphasized that the proposal is seen as critical to ensure that the NGO sector has ownership of its future, and they will continue to seek support for it.

Indexation Policy

FONGA representatives included this issue on the agenda to confirm the NSW Government position in respect to future indexation policy, and to determine how the NGO sector might contribute to that policy development. NSW Treasury has committed to arrange a meeting with peak representative bodies on this matter in advance of the 2009-10 budget process.

Reporting to the NSW Government

The Committee has agreed to co-ordinate a report to the NSW Government on progress in implementing Working Together. The report will now be by the end of 2008. At the last meeting the reporting arrangements for the Agreement were also discussed, however during the year it was decided to defer that report until after the 2008 meeting – to reflect a full 2 years of the Committee being in place. 

The report will include an overview of governance arrangements; progress on joint projects; broad application of Working Together principles, including a stocktake of initiatives that support the general implementation of the Agreement, and a communication strategy (including a possible relaunch of the Agreement to refresh knowledge across agencies).

Next meeting

The Committee will next meet in mid-2009.

August 2008 – meeting participants

Participants at the August 2008 meeting were: