- Services and funding arrangements
- This Chapter discusses the evidence received about the provision of community services and programs in the Northern Territory (NT), as well as funding arrangements.
Service delivery and funding in the NT
4.2Community services and programs are provided by government and non-government entities and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs).
Remote service delivery
4.3There are geographical challenges associated with delivering services and programs in the NT.
4.4The NT is Australia’s third largest jurisdiction according to land mass. Its overall population is approximately 246000 people—one per cent of the national total—with Aboriginal peoples comprising more than 30 per cent of total residents. Over half the population live beyond the Greater Darwin region, across urban towns, remote communities, homelands and outstations, with 76.6per cent of Aboriginal peoples living in remote or very remote areas.
4.5The NT Government emphasised in its submission the significant impact that distance between communities and the remoteness of its population has on the cost and ability to deliver services and programs to its residents.
4.6However, these difficulties do not mitigate the need for adequate investment in basic community services in remote communities. The Committee heard evidence that resourcing for services in remote communities was significantly lacking. The Northern Territory Council of Social Services (NTCOSS) stated:
…remote service delivery is extremely under-resourced. We know that there’s a huge lack of services, specialist services in particular, being delivered in remote communities.
4.7As a result, services are often accessible only in regional centres, requiring people to travel from their remote community to Alice Springs or Darwin to access basic services. Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory (APONT), stated:
A lot of our service provision is focused at supporting the mob who’ve had to come to Darwin to access services that they can’t access in community – health probably being the predominant one.
4.8Similarly, the West Arnhem Land and Maningrida Community Stakeholders joint submission talked about the decline in remote service provision, and concerns with the centralisation of services, particularly in relation to the effect on education:
Significant decreases in funding for infrastructure, maintenance and provision of essential homeland services such as, power, water, health, sanitation, access to food, remote road and airstrip maintenance has further compounded regular education provision, particularly in homelands…
The centralisation of services has resulted in funds and services being held in and delivered from urban centres such as Darwin and Alice Springs. This centralisation has made it difficult for remote schools to implement appropriate place-based programs…
4.9Many witnesses said that more appropriate investment in remote infrastructure andservices would address issues of community safety in places like Alice Springs. Forexample, Mr Danial Rochford, Chief Executive Officer of Tourism Central Australia, stated:
When you have investment in remote communities, whether that’s infrastructure or services, you support people who live in those remote communities…There should be very little discrimination between living in a place like Kintore and living somewhere like Alice Springs. Some of the basic fundamentals—access to Centrelink, access to services like education and health—need to be invested in in a much stronger manner to lessen the need for people to come into Alice Springs.
Certainty and longevity in funding commitments
4.10With the cost of delivering services and programs, several stakeholders have noted that gaining access to long-term and consistent funding for these services is crucial.
4.11This is particularly evident in remote communities. The Northern Land Council stated:
Remote communities remain in desperate need of equity and service. There needs to be long-term investment in remote communities, housing, and essential and social services. Both the [Commonwealth] and NT governments need to recognise the value of supporting Aboriginal people to live in remote areas and acknowledge the full cost of support by commitment to long-term funding.
4.12As noted in Chapter 1, the Commonwealth and NT governments contributed funding over ten-years to complement the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012 (Cth) (Stronger Futures Act). However, it does not appear that equivalent 10‑year funding certainty was provided to organisations that were delivering relevant services.
4.13At the time, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples and Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) welcomed the long-term funding, whilst expressing concern about the Stronger Futures Act.
4.14Longer-term funding agreements provide certainty and consistency for organisations to continue delivering services to the community. They benefit workforce attraction and retention and help develop meaningful outcome measurement tools. All of this is made more difficult when funding agreements with government are for one or two years and reapplication after each round. MsTessaSnowdon, Acting Policy Manager from NTCOSS stated:
In the Northern Territory we’ve got services moving to five-year funding agreements, which is a start. That’s created a basis for services to start to implement monitoring and evaluation frameworks, to be able to measure the more long-term impact. Up until that point, the funding cycle of a lot of the community services [was] inconsistent or up in the air, with funding rounds always coming up.
4.15Further, long-term funding arrangements allow organisations to plan for ongoing progress. Indigenous Allied Health Australia [Northern Territory Workforce Development Ltd.] (IAHA) stated:
The uncertainty of funding for our organisations, through short-term agreements and political cycles…inhibits the ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to [implement] solutions and build on successes with long term, generational thinking.
4.16According to Children’s Ground, government funding is often ‘directed towards deficit based and crisis focused programs that do not deliver outcomes in the critical areas of health, education, economic development, community development, and cultural development and wellbeing’. Instead, funding should be committed to ‘long-term outcomes rather than short-term outputs.’
Flexibility in design and delivery of community services and investment
4.17Many community members queried the effectiveness and accountability of government investment to deliver better outcomes.
4.18Mayor Matthew Ryan of the West Arnhem Regional Council (WARC) told the Committee that it is disappointing there is ‘no accountability [for] funding’ coming into communities or the NT. He stated that nothing has improved and that he is unsure where funds are going.
4.19There was a common theme that government investment needs to continue, but delivered in a more flexible, outcomes-focused way. APO NT stated:
[W]hile the additional Commonwealth support needs to be continued, it must be delivered in a very different way to how it has been provided since the Intervention commenced in 2007. That way must reflect the priority reforms agreed to by the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory Governments in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the centrepiece of which is shared decision-making between them and representatives of Aboriginal people on policies, programs and services.
4.20Children’s Ground also stated:
Often government want output, not outcome, measures. We collect so much data it’s not funny, so we could probably meet any output measure. We make sure the outcome measures are aligned with community, but we’re not aligning them to Closing the Gap. So I think that would be okay. I think what the government wants to achieve is what we all want to achieve.
4.21Mr Tyson Mpetyane Carmody from Kings Narrative, an organisation providing culturally safe counselling and coaching for Aboriginal men, said that status quo government funding would constrain their service delivery model:
…we’re not looking for government funding to run government programs. We’re looking for investment to run our programs they way we know they can be run, and we’re looking for those partnerships.
4.22Further, the Chief Executive Officer of Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, MsPerlinSimon and other members of the Maningrida community reiterated the need for direct funding to maximise the benefit for the community. Ms Simon said:
If we get direct funding, it will eliminate those onion layers of funding where, instead of employing local people, we are employing people in Darwin to do all this admin work, which then doesn’t really benefit locals. If we get direct funding, it benefits the locals. The money stays locally. We are accountable.
4.23Both the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) and the NT Government have overarching commitments that would indicate openness to considering alternative ways of funding Aboriginal organisations.
4.24The NT Government advised the Committee that its Aboriginal Grants Policy is under development in partnership with the APO NT. The aim of the policy is to support the National Agreement on Closing the Gap priority reform 2—building the Aboriginal community-controlled sector.
4.25The NIAA’s grant opportunity processes preference working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, and focus on building the capability of such organisations to work with communities in delivering services.
Community-led, place-based solutions and service delivery
4.26There was significant evidence indicating a desire for communities to work together to determine solutions, as opposed to top-down approaches. Many witnesses shared successful initiatives that had followed this model. NTCOSS stated:
[I]t’s that bottom led approach…That’s why that program, the Galiwin’ku Women’s Space, is such a success—because it was started by local women.
4.27The Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA) highlighted the importance of community-led, culturally safe and tailored service delivery, because government approaches will ‘fail to address the deeper challenges faced by community members’. They noted:
[community-led programs are] more likely to gain the trust and support of important cultural and community leaders, who will hold significant influence over how communities will respond to and engage with [new programs].
4.28Mr Leslie Manda, Chief Executive Officer of the Central Desert Regional Council stated that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and that each community has different needs and a vision for themselves, and that ‘it helps to make sure you’ve got direct engagement with residents’.
4.29Mayor Ryan, WARC, and Mr Reggie Wurridjal, a Dhukurrdji man and Traditional Owner, advised the Committee that governments need to work with communities.
4.30Associate Professor Kylie Lee, Deputy Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Indigenous Health and Alcohol Research at the University of Sydney, reiterated the importance of prioritising local voices ‘to produce community owned outcomes and build local capacity.
4.31While it is important to support community-led and flexible service delivery models, it is critical that they are adequately resourced for all components of service delivery. Ms Jackie Phillips, Chairperson of Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, stated:
Our core services…are housing and construction; arts and culture; and government programs like the [Community Development Program], money management, school attendance strategy—the Remote School Attendance Strategy program—rangers program and community patrol.
It’s a big region, and we are one of the largest organisations in Maningrida providing all these services with limited funding.
Access to data and evaluation
4.32A key issue outlined in this report is the inadequate collection and sharing of data.
4.33In terms of supporting community-led service deliver, it is critical that organisations have 1) access to data that government (or other organisations) hold and 2) the capacity to undertake outcomes-focused evaluation of their programs.
4.34Many organisations are unable to undertake outcomes evaluation due to the need to prioritise meeting the administrative requirements tracking against outputs in funding agreements.
4.35The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) advised that collecting and analysing data of this kind is difficult due to staff resources within current funding regimes. Furthermore, NTCOSS advised not all grant agreements include dedicated funding for evaluation purposes.
4.36NTCOSS, has access to publicly available data sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the NT Police, as well as data through the Tripartite Forum and Cross Agency Working Group on domestic, family and sexual violence reduction. However, not all organisations have such access.
4.37ALPA advised that the performance framework of programs is critical, and has considerable influence on the delivery of services and programs, including areas for priority. It advocates for measures that are genuinely co-designed through significant community consultation and involvement.
4.38Children’s Ground recommended a model of ‘[m]onitoring and evaluation, combined with robust data collection [to form] performance quality and development [involving] longitudinal evaluation [overseen] by a national Research Advisory Group… co‑designed and led by First Nations peoples on the ground’.
4.39NAAJA suggested that longer-term funding (three or more years) will allow for data collection that reflects impacts, and the application of data sovereignty principles. This includes allowing for community governance of the data’s ‘collection, ownership and application’.
Committee comment
4.40The Committee considers that investment in services and support programs inremote communities is fundamental to improving outcomes across all socio‑economic areas for Aboriginal peoples living in these communities.
4.41The Committee acknowledges the importance of locally-led, place-based initiatives tosupport community development and provide opportunities across all areas of this inquiry’s Terms of Reference.
4.42The Committee considers that there needs to be greater attention to outcomes, rather than outputs, as part of service delivery funding agreements. This will likely require governments to work differently, and embed flexibility in their ways of working.
4.43The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth and Northern Territory Government departments and agencies review their funding agreements with service providers to ensure that they are fit-for-purpose, including:
- Moving towards outcomes-focused funding agreements, rather than output, to provide sufficient flexibility for locally-led approaches to shared outcomes.
- Whether there are opportunities to enhance place-based models of funding by supporting collaboration among organisations delivering similar services in the same region.
- Embedding holistic health approaches to service provision that will support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’ social, emotional and cultural wellbeing.
4.44The Committee recommends that the Northern Territory Government work with local communities to prioritise the sharing of real time data and information, with consent, to enable them to deliver initiatives and responses to issues in communities.