Page 3245 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 September 2014
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MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Dr Bourke.
DR BOURKE: Minister, what savings have been identified for community sector organisations as a result of the changes outlined?
MR GENTLEMAN: The savings that have been identified are considerable. We have changed audit requirements which means we have changed thresholds at which particular audit requirements were needed. Savings from changing the thresholds are estimated at about $800,000 per year. We have introduced the concept of recurrent grants. That is worth about $650,000 per year in reduced administrative effort for community sector organisations. We have changed the term of service funding agreements from three to five years. That is worth around $750,000 per year in reduced administrative effort for community sector organisations.
We are introducing single relationship managers. It is a bit harder to measure, but conservatively it will save more than $200,000 per year in time and effort, and much more of course in reduced complexity and stress for those community organisations. Savings from reductions in reporting costs are ongoing. There are still more reporting costs that can be stripped from the system, but so far we estimate the removal of close to $200,000 in reporting costs for the community sector.
In total, that is around $2.6 million in savings each year through a streamlined relationship between the government and the community sector.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, what further initiatives are being considered with the community sector?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Porter for her supplementary. Reforms of this nature are a journey, not a destination. Right now we are in the process of reviewing the directorate’s community sector procurement prequalification process. Many community sector organisations are required to meet a number of different standards, sometimes several standards. Maintaining all those standards takes a huge effort, particularly when many of the requirements overlap. We are looking at some tools which, if appropriate, could significantly reduce the administrative effort required to support operating over multiple standards frameworks.
There is also the whole-of-government dimension to the red tape reform program. The reform agenda includes the exploration of how and where we might manage the relationship with the community sector on a whole-of-government basis, not just a portfolio-by-portfolio basis.
Service funding agreements have been progressively moved towards the procurement of outcomes rather than outputs. We see multiple benefits in this for the sector, including the increased flexibility in how they deliver their services, with flow-on benefits to clients in the delivery of more flexible services as well as some administrative benefits for organisations.
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