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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (13 December) . . Page.. 208 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
None of us were there when these things occurred, and I simply cannot comment on the veracity one way or the other. But I think, given that the department has now gone down the path of a tender process, some alarm bells are ringing and I really think this needs to be, in all fairness, evaluated by an independent body, and I think our committee is probably the ideal way to do that.
I will highlight fairly briefly the problems with the evaluation, and the examples of inaccuracy, as seen by the MAACS people. Firstly, they state, and they are referring to the final evaluation report:
The statement about counselling being "contracted out" by MAACS is not correct. There was no "contracting" of this kind.
Secondly, they state:
The evaluator states that "... indigenous backgrounds were not reported in periodic reports by MAACS.
They comment:
Indigenous status was in fact identified by MAACS in every case.
Thirdly, commenting on a lack of client data being provided to the department by MAACS, MAACS state:
Very full data has been supplied on nearly all the clients who have passed through MAACS over the last 18 months or so.
On page 19-I won't read this out; I will table it and members can look at it if they wish-they detail what they did in terms of six monthly reports, stating the number of accommodation events, the total number of forms sent to the department, forms not sent and why.
The evaluation report states:
Firstly, due to missing data in some categories, particularly for the periods January to May 2000 and from January 2001 to date, it is not possible to develop a full time series profile.
The MAACS people state:
The "missing" data are not in fact missing.
Contrary to the claim by the evaluator, for "January to May 2000" (which should read "January to June 2000") the number of fathers with children was reported. The number reported was ...
And they go on to give a number. They have some further documentation.
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