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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 540 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I am very pleased to table today the Government's response to the inquiry report on the implementation of service purchasing arrangements in the ACT. On 9 December 1999 the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration tabled the report on the implementation of service purchasing arrangements in the ACT. The report contained 11 recommendations from the inquiry. The change in the funding processes that provide community and social services through non-government organisations has been informed by the Rogan Johnston report on the implementation of service purchasing arrangements in the Australian Capital Territory produced in 1997.

The Government has undertaken a three-year process to make these changes, with the final stages due to be completed late this year. The ACT Government has always emphasised two significant features of this implementation process - a robust partnership with the community sector and a whole-of-government approach so that all government agencies use the same policies and principles when purchasing services from the sector.

The Government welcomed the service purchasing inquiry as an opportunity to extend consultation even further and to seek feedback on the achievements we have made on the implementation to date. I am particularly pleased to see that the committee noted that the ACT Government had gone further than other governments in analysing the changes implied by a move to service purchasing; that the agreed process for implementation is seen as fundamentally sound; and that progress on the implementation is favourable.

I was also encouraged to see that the committee found a broad acceptance by the community service sector of the need for appropriate accountability in relation to funding for services provided. The committee noted that this acceptance should be attributed to the education role of government agencies with their providers in this area.

The ACT Government has already undertaken and put in place some of the developments referred to in the inquiry report. The key initiatives have included the development of an exposure draft of the guidelines for purchasing and pricing services from non-profit, non-government organisations and other suppliers using competitive assessment; the development of the "Quality Improvement in Human Services in the ACT - Framework for Future Development"; and the development of a standard service purchasing contract. These and other initiatives have been developed in close consultation with the community sector using a range of workshops, forums and review processes.

The Government is pleased to report that there is agreement in full, in principle or in part to eight of the 11 recommendations of the committee. The other three recommendations that are not agreed to refer to two particular strategies. The Government believes that recommendation 3 assumes a causal link between contestability and reduction in service levels that is not accepted as a policy intention or the outcome in practice.

Recommendations 4 and 5 require a definitive classifying of individual services as to their contestability. This process would fall outside the tenor of the Rogan Johnston report and would also contravene the Government's purchasing policy in this area.

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