This is a brief paper drawing attention to market economics terminology which is inappropriately used in policy and practice in human services systems. We challenge the description of human services provision as a ‘price’ clearing market. Economic descriptions which misrepresent the human...

Queensland’s community services sector experiences underfunding in part due to a lack of adequate indexation of government pricing for services purchased. This problem accumulates year-on-year to increase in significance as time progresses. This was demonstrated in research conducted in 2022...

This report provided information and findings related to the indexation arrangements established in funding social services in Queensland. Our aim was to examine the extent to which current arrangements are appropriate. To do this, we:1) Described why the current arrangements for indexation in...

This brief paper is intended to share information and insight into the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wage Price Index (WPI) in the context of human services funding indexation. The measurements and methods of calculation for the CPI and WPI are outlined in accordance with the national...

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government has partnered with the public sector commissions of Queensland and Western Australia to commission a research project investigating small statutory agencies, with the goal of producing best practice guidance for establishing, governing and...

This report sets out the findings for the Western Australian Council of Social Services’ (WACOSS) Sustainable Funding Survey.48% of WACOSS’ social service organisation members responded to the survey held in October and November 2022. The key findings from survey responses include:1....

This report was commissioned by the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) using funding provided by the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy under its peak services contract and workplan with QCOSS.It is focused on building our understanding of the Queensland Social...

We report on our analysis findings in the remainder of this report. In this section, we have reported primarily on the 2020 year and compared those results to the 2018 reported data. Typically, the reported results are presented directly for 2020 and in brackets for the 2018 data. We comment on...