Working on reform policy will always require some degree of patience between political, government, industry, community and other stakeholders, but a new review of an entire decade’s worth inquiries into the community services sector suggests a seemingly futile cycle of evidence-based, largely-untouched calls for action.
Commissioned by the Community Services Industry Alliance (CSIA), the Centre for Social Impact UNSW (CSI) report ‘Moving the conversation forward: A decade of reform recommendations for the community services sector asks the question: how does the sector move forward in calling for change?’ examines 92 commonwealth-level inquiries, including by the Productivity Commission, royal commissions, ombudsman and senate, and finds largely identical recommendations emerge across four key themes:
- Joined-up and integrated working
- Competition and contestability
- Government as steward
- Workforce reform
That third theme forms something of an exceptions to the claim these recommendations span a full decade; uniquely, inquiries were not calling for government stewardship until 2015, when the marketisation of social services apparently required it.
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