Page 94 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 December 2004
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system, and provide education, training and support for disability service providers in relation to the improvement of service quality. That of course will be an important part of the human rights and services review commission.
As I have indicated before, Mr Speaker, the government’s position on the disability services commissioner was significantly informed by the disability reform legislative working group’s submission. We have agreed with the working group that the disability services commissioner will be an independent statutory officer, established by legislation separate from the Disability Services Act 1991. The commissioner will investigate complaints and decide on how they should be handled; will promote the use of internal services complaints mechanisms; will be independent of the department responsible for disability services; and will report to the Attorney-General.
I think that it is worth noting that there has been a significant drop in the number of complaints about disability services to the current Community and Health Services Complaints Commissioner over the past couple of years. This outcome, I believe, is a positive reflection of the work that has been undertaken by Disability ACT and its community partners in the broader disability services sector. There has been a strong focus on quality improvement in services over the past few years and this is reflected in the drop in the number of complaints.
The other position that I am keen to progress is that of the community services commissioner. As part of the consultation on the FEMAG review, the ACT Council of Social Service expressed a very strong view to government that there existed a gap in the coverage of current statutory oversight agencies. The government accepted this view and committed through The right system for rights protection to a community consultation process on what form and what coverage a community services commissioner would have. Government’s preliminary view is that the community services commissioner would take complaints about and seek to improve service quality and community services, including public and community housing, homelessness, emergency relief, youth services, generalist community services, counselling and support services.
The key question that the government will seek to resolve through community consultation—and I want to underscore that, through community consultation—is how broadly or narrowly to define community services. What exactly do we all understand to be community services? I suspect you might have 17 definitions of that if you went around this room. Drawing on the recently enacted legislation in South Australia, should we define community services as “any service which seeks to relieve poverty and social disadvantage” or should we also include those mainstream services such as mediation, advocacy and community information services? Should we broaden the scope even further and include sport and recreation services or possibly all incorporated associations? These are the sorts of questions that will be posed in the discussion paper that I will be releasing in the coming month regarding the community services commissioner.
The final form of the commissioner will also depend on the outcome of community consultation on the Commissioner for Children and Young People currently being conducted by the government. Broadly, the ACT will be only the third jurisdiction in Australia to cover community services in its statutory oversight regime and, as such, it is critical that we get the best system possible to ensure that consumers are protected.
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