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The Government has a strong record of innovation in the way services are delivered and is continually looking for new approaches that improve the effectiveness of programmes and services delivered by Government agencies and that strengthen the capacity of community service providers to achieve better outcomes.
The Government has provided $43.8 million over the next four years to ensure health, housing, employment, education and legal services provided by not-for-profit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations are not disadvantaged by the new concessional benefits caps through the fringe benefits tax arrangements. This initiative will ensure these organisations can continue to offer attractive salary packaging arrangements to entice professionals to provide assistance to Indigenous communities, particularly in rural or remote areas of Australia.
The Australians Working Together package provides an additional $9.3 million over four years to establish twelve new Centrelink remote area servicing centres. Employing local staff, these centres will provide better services and support to Indigenous people in remote communities through improving access to the wide range of services available through Centrelink. The new Centrelink remote area servicing centres will add to existing agency arrangements and will work with communities and ATSIC to implement the new Community Participation Agreements.
One of the Government's principal aims in Indigenous affairs has been to direct resources to where they are most needed. In 1998 the Government made a commitment to have the Commonwealth Grants Commission develop measures of relative disadvantage to identify those communities in greatest need. The Government recently received the Commissioner's final report and is currently considering the results of its inquiry.
In November 2000 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), in a ground-breaking decision, agreed that reconciliation was an ongoing process and that the role of governments is to reduce Indigenous disadvantage. COAG determined that governments needed to work in partnership with Indigenous people focussing efforts on improving outcomes through flexible approaches to programme delivery. As part of the Commonwealth's response to the COAG decision on reconciliation, the Prime Minister has asked all portfolio ministers to review their mainstream and Indigenous specific programmes and services to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians. These reviews will consider the extent to which programme guidelines allow for flexible responses in partnership with local communities and the extent to which programmes are integrated with the range of other federal, state and local government programmes at the local community level. These reviews will be completed this year and a comprehensive whole of Government response will be provided.
In May 1997, the Prime Minister tasked the Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision to give particular attention to the performance of mainstream services in meeting the needs of Indigenous Australians. Since then the Report on Government Services has been improving the reporting of Indigenous peoples' access to mainstream services.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has established an ongoing programme to develop and improve Indigenous data flowing from Commonwealth, State and Territory administrative systems. The ABS is working with agencies to develop and support national Indigenous information plans and Indigenous performance indicators. The quality of Indigenous data from the 2001 Census of Population and Housing will be improved. The ABS is also expanding the data available on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by improving the Household Survey programme, conducting regular Indigenous general social surveys, including Indigenous samples in regular health surveys and by publishing annual Indigenous labour force estimates.
