The
Redfern Waterloo Authority has released their Draft Human Services Plan
for Redfern and Waterloo and our community members have grave concerns
for the future of human service delivery in Redfern and Waterloo.

South Sydney Community Aid Coop Members have identified several
areas of concern in the newly released Redfern Waterloo Authorities
(RWA) Draft Human Services Plan for the communities of Redfern and
Waterloo. As for implementation there is a complex hierarchy of
advisory groups to the RWA, senior officer’s implementation groups of
NSW government departments and CEO’S group and cabinet subcommittee.
There is little representation of the community and Non Government
Organisations (NGO’S) in the RWA committee and none in all the layers
above. Nor is there a formal role for Commonwealth and Council
participation. Overall there is little evidence of any integration
happening in service delivery unless you count the threat of
consolidation of NGO’S.

A Quick Overview of the Draft Human Services Plan’s issues of concern.

•No outcome / performance indicators

•No evidence to support a move to precinct model for youth services

•A Charitable Trust with private donors control

•No distinction drawn between small local and large general NGO’S and no NGO lead agency

•The presentation emphasises the negative rather than the positive attributes of the community

•Nor is credit given to those activities that are already
successfully under way by NGO’S (eg Community Safety Plan, ATSI
community justice group)

•It implies the need for better facilities and the capacity
building but there is no indication of where the funds might come from
(except for the charitable trust/private donors.)

•No news on a community health facility

Questions that need to be answered!!!!

1. Why was the Education Department the only Government Department
targeted in the report? This is related specifically to the stated
focus on local school literacy and numeracy levels and school
attendance and retention rates.

2. Does this mean that the Alexandria Park Community School is a
failure? The report identifies this situation clearly at the time of
the delivery of the report.

3. The proposed Redfern Waterloo Trust will compete directly for
the private sector donations with the NGO’s in the area. Currently any
organisation has the right to approach any DGR Registered organisation
in the area to make a donation. Why the duplication?

4. Is the Charitable Trust a means of raising money from the
Private Sector to finance the redress of Government agency service
delivery shortfalls?

5. Why were Government agencies core functions specifically excluded from the review of Human Services in Redfern, Waterloo?

6. Where is the accountability and transparency for Government
agencies to at least the same standards as those imposed on the NGO’S.

7. Why is the Redfern Waterloo Authority setting up a Human
Service Delivery model that does not fit in with the rest of the State?

If your answers to these questions cause you concern please contact your local members:

Kristine Keneally MP, Phone: 9314 2339 Email: Kristina.Keneally@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Clover Moore MP, Phone: 9265 9229 Email: Electorate.Office.Bligh@Parliament.nsw.gov.au

From: South Sydney Community Aid Spring Newsletter 21/10/05

There
seems to have been a good response to the focus in the Draft Plan
shifting from the service delivery of NGOs to the responsibility of
Government to provide core services at a level commensurate with local
needs. Government has recognised that they need to do much more in the
area to address the area’s human services needs. They need to implement
policies in Redfern Waterloo that have been on departmental books for
quite some time, but which have not yet been implemented in Redfern
Waterloo. Yes, there are some new aspects to the plan, such as the
commitment to greater integration of departmental programmes which seem
not to have been tried elsewhere in NSW, but there are also existing
policies which should have been rolled out into the area quite some
time ago and which the Plan says now will be.

There is concern that there are no performance indicators and time
frame for them to be delivered by. The rolling out of the Plan will
require the relevant government departments committing the necessary
funds within their existing budgets to implement the programs proposed.
There is considerable unease that the resources may not flow quickly
enough to implement the grand plan that the Government’s Human Service
CEOs have signed up to.

This is not just the usual cynicism. On the day the Draft Plan was
released DoCS was being strongly criticized by the NSW Ombudsman for
not being able even to meet its obligations for following up at risk
notifications statewide and yet DoCS will have a key roll in overseeing
aspects of the Redfern Waterloo Human Services Plan’s implementation
even though its Director General admits DoCS is grossly understaffed
(see
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-in-ten-babies-reported-to-docs/2005/10/15/1128796715153.html
). A couple of days later the SMH ran the story “NSW in the sin bin on
mental health” which said “NSW is one of the country’s worst performers
on mental health”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nsw-in-the-sin-bin-on-mental-health/2005/10/19/1129401317073.html
. This was from an independent report which criticized the under
resourcing of mental health programs around Australia including NSW.
This health issue affects Redfern Waterloo more profoundly than in many
other areas. The Department of Health will have to find significant
extra resources if it is to adequately address this and other health
issues in Redfern Waterloo as will the Department of Housing to deliver
on its side of the Joint Guarantee of Service (JGOS) which remains the
laughing stock of public tenants who have had cause to deal with it.

For education the Plan seeks to lift school retention rates and the
level of literacy and numeracy to the state average. This is such a
huge and necessary task that the RWA is considering asking the private
sector to help fund literacy and numeracy programmes, as well as early
intervention programmes such as subsidised child care places. This
would appear to be an admission that not only are huge resources needed
from the department of Education to address the problems in Redfern
Waterloo but that the problem is such that this will need to be
supplemented by new funds from outside government. This proposition has
raised many eyebrows.

At least the Plan is getting to the heart of the problem.
Government Policy and Government Departments have not been delivering
for Redfern Waterloo for many years. If there is to be any real change
they have to start addressing the needs of the area seriously. It is
said that all the area has to show for the increased Government
interest over the last few years is a new Police Station. The
Government has to change this quickly by making sure the resources are
available to make this plan work. Many are unconvinced that it will
happen and suspect it is just another round of promises.

The initial focus of reforming NGOs, while still on the agenda, is
at least in perspective now with government departments having to
shoulder their responsibility as the lead agencies in lifting service
delivery in the area. If history repeats itself, calls for increased
government commitment and resources to address the problems of
ingrained disadvantage will mean more government funding for the work
NGOs do at the grass roots level.

Mind you NGOs are still very much in for reformation. Youth
Services, which government have tended not to be good at and hence have
left to NGOs, are to be the first lot of services to be reformed,
co-located and turned into three one stop shops. However there has been
no discussion within the youth cluster about the proposals or between
the agencies to be combined. Many questions remain unanswered. How do
you combine The Settlement, a community centre with its own act of
Parliament, with The Redfern Community Centre? The community centre
runs a wide range of programmes, not just for youth, as part of the
City of Sydney’s services in the area.

Since the Draft Plan went to cabinet a decision has been made to
disband the RWPP’s flagship Street Team. So what will happen to the
services they provided? Will they go to South Sydney Youth Services
with whom they were supposed to combine to provide support services or
will this money go to provide the weekend and evening youth services
proposed in the Plan? Even the proposal for a co-located Fact Tree and
PCYC will not be straight forward as there will be a the need to find a
new location for the combined service within 18 months when DoH resume
the PCYC site as part of the Elizabeth Street Housing Redevelopment.
There are many issues to be resolved in setting up the Plan’s new look
youth services!

The draft Plan continues the push that integrating the back office
functions of the handful of local NGOs can save a significant portion
of the 20% allowed for overheads in the grants they receive. Coming up
with cost effective OH&S and insurance arrangements for these
agencies would probably contribute to more significant savings than
integrating their back office functions. Agencies are also asking if
they will get to keep any savings to cover other activities which are
currently not adequately covered in their funding.

There is also growing concern about the RWA’s proposal to set up a
trust to bring in private funds to the area. On one level agencies
which already tap private funds feel that they will not be able to
compete with the RWA’s program and that the RWA’s prospectus will only
carry projects that suit the RWA’s priorities. In addition there is the
concern that the projects that look sexy in an annual report will get
funded, while others dealing with more complex issues like domestic
violence will be difficult to fund.

It appears that the implications of RWA’s duel role as developer
and service provider has not been considered in the administration of
the proposed trust. The RWA will also be involved in approving
development applications and deciding who gets what tenders. On the
broader stage the Minister responsible for getting things done in
Redfern Waterloo is also responsible, as Planning Minister, for
approving major projects across the state. This opens up major probity
questions which need also to be considered in setting up such a
charitable fund raising venture. The last thing the RWA needs is any
possible suspicion that developers are putting money into human service
projects, in the absence of sufficient government funds, as a way of
gaining consideration for their developments in Redfern Waterloo or in
other parts of the state.

The myth that there were enough resources going into human services
in Redfern Waterloo is at least dead. The Government programmes and the
RWA’s proposed trust will both bring in new funds and hopefully better
co-ordinated services to Redfern Waterloo. The fact that the funds do
not come from a special budget allocation for Redfern Waterloo matters
little – they confirm what many have said; that to solve the area’s
problems there is a need for more resources and for the government to
seriously implement their programmes.

We have heard little so far from the Aboriginal community about
their reaction to the draft plan, other than that there is concern
about how the information exchange procedures proposed between agencies
will work. Ever since the colonisers arrived Aboriginal people have had
their lives ruled by one government department or another. It is still
DOCs with Police backup who turn up and take away kids, so there is
real concern about how information supplied to one department might be
used against people by another. This is an issue which will need to be
handled carefully by the RWA. Another concern raised is that the
wording of the Draft Plan makes it look like the RWA is planning to
take over the local Blackout Violence program.

These are just a few of the issues that we have heard raised and we
are sure there are many other concerns that we haven’t heard. Hopefully
all these and other concerns will be taken up in peoples’ responses to
the RWA. The question is will there will be time for the RWA to take
such comments on board in the 11 days between when responses need to be
in and when the RWA hopes that cabinet will be able to sign off on the
final Human Services Plan?

Ideally we would like to have seen greater emphasis on cluster
groups, agencies and the community discussing the issues and being able
to make responses from these discussions as well as the individual
responses. We would have liked the RWA to have the time to come back
come back after submissions had been received and let the community
know what the RWA was told and the way they propose altering the plan,
but there is no time to allow this. Hopefully one day someone will
listen – you have to allow time for the community to be involved in a
number of different ways if you want them to own the outcome!

The draft plan lacks outcomes, benchmarks, and specific details, even more so in the case of the Government Agencies.

It singles out the Education department as being a
sub-standard performer with no mention of other Government
Agencies/Departments and their performance levels achieved in the
Redfern Waterloo area.
This is despite the Education Department’s closure of the public
schools throughout the Redfern Waterloo area and the opening of a new
centre of excellence called Alexandria park Community School.

It describes a “Trust” or “Charitable Foundation” to be set up for
the purpose of attracting extra private sector funding into the area.
This in itself is a tacit admission that there already is a shortfall
of Government funding for core functions such as Education, Health,
Policing, and infrastructure such as Affordable/Public Housing etc.
What the true situation will be like when the RWA dramatically
increases the population density of the area under its Redfern Waterloo
Plan is a whole new ballgame.

The Trust fund has the ability to steer private sector money
towards those projects/programmes given endorsement by the RWA and the
Trust through the stated intent to publish a list of ‘suitable
projects’for donors to direct their donations towards.

The Trust fund has the potential to adversely impact on those small
local NGOs who already do access the private sector for quite
significant slices of their total funding, especially if those
organisations decide not to become involved with the RWA agenda.

The Trust fund is a duplication of an already existing system of
private sector benvolence whereby the donor decides all by themself as
to who or what they wish to support by donation. If the
group/organisation already has DGR/PBI status then the donation is ‘tax
deductible’.

The Trust fund opens up the issue of the perception of, or
potential for, the ability of a donor to acquire a tax deductible
licence to exceed current planning laws anywhere in the state of NSW.

The Human Services Advisory Committee that is meant to provide
oversight for the implementation and on-going development of the Human
Services Plan operates behind closed doors.
In the interests of perceived transparency at the very least the
minutes and members attendance details should be made available and
also posted on the RWA’s website. [for those matters considered
‘commercial confident’ etc there is the ability to move the meeting
into ‘camera’ and then resume normal function as neccessary] From the
very outset the community was told that it was to be their plan and
they would be able to at all times make comments and have input.

The announced importance placed on Memorandums of Understanding,
CEO Agreements and other shiny pieces of paper sound nice until the
phrase “subject to budgetary restraints” appears. This historically has
happened when Government Departments have been held accountable for
lack of visible performance at the coal face of reality. What is
different this time?

There is a distinct lack of specific planning for ‘on the ground’ service delivery to the community.

There is a huge potential for a lenghty ongoing phase of committees
and report preparation with the attendant delay in service delivery.

In summary, besides the ‘Charitable Foundation’ what makes this
social engineering experiment any different from its myriad failed
predeccessors?

The
local Community Services currently operating and being delivered to the
community from the Redfern Public School site have not been consulted
or given any advice regarding the sale of the old Redfern Public School
to the Federal Government’s Indigenous Land Corporation. There is also
no mention of the current Human Service Delivery being offered by South
Sydney Community Aid Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre, The Aboriginal
Resource Centre, the Benevolent Society (SCARBA), the Montessori Play
Group, the Redfern Computer Centre and South Sydney Youth Services
‘Street Beat’ and the Factory’s bus.

The only organisation mentioned in Minister Sartor’s Press Release
was that Murawina Long Day Care Centre will stay and the introduction
of the Exodus Foundation into the Old Redfern School site in six months
time.

South Sydney Community Aid Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre
currently offers Human Service delivery to over 200 people per week. We
have not been consulted and we have not been able to get any feedback
about our current tenancy at the site from the Redfern Waterloo
Authority and we’re also unable to get any information from the
Indigenous Land Council about whether we’re staying on the site.

While we believe that the introduction of an Aboriginal School of
Excellence onto the Old Redfern Public School site is wonderful for
Aboriginal Youth in our community. We’d like to know what’s happening
to our Tenancy.

Relocating a Neighbourhood Centre such as ours would take a lot
longer than six months to find suitable affordable premises. We have
been located with the Aboriginal Resource Centre for more than 30
years. South Sydney Community Aid Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre is
38 years old and originally sponsored the Aboriginal Resource Centre.
We continue to provide a high level of support to the ATSI community
who think of South Sydney Community Aid Multicultural Neighbourhood
Centre as their local Neighbourhood Centre with individuals and
families coming into the Centre on a daily basis for information, group
work, referral and support.

Why have we not been consulted and embraced in the current plans
for the School along with our partner agencies offering Human Service
delivery at the Old Redfern School site? If we are included in the
current plans for the site why haven’t we been consulted about this?

Is the Federal Governments Indigenous Land Council aware that we’re here?

As anyone who could give me this information today is either not at
work, un-contactable or in a meeting, I’d really like the Hon Minister
Sartor, Robert Domm, Aldo Pennini from the RWA or someone from the
Indigenous Land Council to respond and come and meet with us urgently
to let us know what’s going on with our current tenancy at the Old
Redfern Public School site.

Jan Leach

Coordinator

South Sydney community Aid Coop Ltd

Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre

Ph: 9319 4073

2 November 2005

Mr Aldo Pennini,

Director Reforming Human Services

Redfern Waterloo Authority

Dear Aldo,

The Settlement Neighbourhood Centre will not be providing a
detailed submission on the Draft Human Services Plan for the following
reasons:

1. The time frame for responses is inappropriate for democratic
organisations, especially those, like the Settlement, which have
volunteer management committees. Government agencies dealing with NGOs
should begin by respecting their work and governance structures, rather
than allowing themselves unlimited time and expertise to prepare
reports, leaving none for preparation of community responses.

2. The Draft Plan wrongly confines its attention and language to
the “efficient” provision of “services”. The Settlement takes an
altogether broader view, which recognizes the importance of services,
but also the social and physical landscape of our district, and its
vibrant mix of communities. We also see:

• communities and groups which are sites of historical and cultural identity;

• communities and groups which are capable, self-determining, autonomous yet collaborative;

• communities and groups which are sites of dissent and resistance.

3. When we talk about Redfern-Waterloo we are not merely talking
about best ways of delivering commodities (“services”) in a market
place, we are talking about challenging and transforming the context
for the benefit of all. The Settlement supports a society of social
justice, and we expect from the RWA a serious challenge to the
privileging arrangements which run along lines of race, class, wealth,
gender, age, disability and sexual orientation, and which result in the
present inequalities in health, housing, education, employment, law.

4. The Plan leaps to the conclusion, uncritically and resting
unsoundly on one research document (which also confines itself to the
language of “services”), that “integration of services” will produce
improvements. There is almost no examination of the value of diverse
provision in a diverse and changing community, and no examination of
unifying strategies that are not based on location – alternatives to
the precinct model.

5. We have been told that no substantial changes will be made to
the Report. Dropping everything to respond to the major defects of this
Plan when we know none will be rectified is hardly good time management

6. We have been told that the end result of the implementation of
this Plan will be the “better management” of around $2million per year,
the majority of which comes from the disbandment of the Street Team.
Even if major benefits could derive from this restructure, the
percentage gain in dollars or services will be infinitesimal in
comparison with unmet need in our area. We are better off, in our view,
getting on with the job in hand than responding to a Plan with such
paltry intent.

7. In our view this Draft Plan should have commenced with an
objective assessment of the immense unmet need in our area, and a frank
admission by Government of the extent of its ability to meet it.
Instead, the Plan consists of the compulsory “restructure” of services
delivered by NGOs, the goodwill and volunteer effort of which the
Government relies on, and vague, motherhood-style statements of intent
by government agencies that have no new funds, staff or facilities to
implement them, or publicly accountable reporting.

8. The Plan is a band-aid over a gaping wound at best, scapegoating
of the hard-pressed volunteer sector at worst. We expected better after
all the hype produced to justify the passage of the Redfern Waterloo
Authority Bill.

The Settlement has a century-long tradition of both independence
and cooperation. We will work with any government or non-government
agency to improve services to the disadvantaged of our area. We will
support changes to the organisation of service delivery where they can
be proved to bring genuine improvement. But we will oppose any moves to
“rationalise” services when this means loss of the ability to design
and get funding for tailored programs for particular (sometimes quite
small) groups of high need people whose needs have been failed by
government services. We will work against “one stop shops” where that
means “one size fits all”. We will continue to assert that the RWA has
been given immense powers to improve the life opportunities of people
living in some of the greatest concentrations of disadvantage in the
country, and has so far failed to produce a Plan capable of making more
than a cosmetic difference.

The Settlement Neighbourhood Centre Management Committee

The
Redfern Legal Service has been preparing a response to RWA’s Draft
Human Services Plan on behalf of a consortium of local Redfern Waterloo
human service agencies. This draft has been posted to allow the
opportunity for broader comment and suggestions prior to the submission
being finalised.

Due to the number of pages in the response and that it has been
posted for comment we have posted the file at the following address
which you will need to cut and paste into your browser due to the
limitations of this web page:

http://www.redwatch.org.au/redw/speakout/051023hsp/HSP%20RESPONSE%20RLC.doc

You can also get to this page by clicking on “Have your say about
Current Issues” in the Left hand side menu and the choosing “Draft
Response to Draft Human Services Plan from RLS”

Please direct any commnets to Hellen Campbell at the Redfern Legal Service.

The
following short piece was originally written as a ‘discussion starter’.
The subsequent disposal of the Redfern Public School site adds even
more relevance to the theme developed in the piece – the sale of public
property at the expense of the community and the use of ‘crocodile
tears’ after the predetermined outcome has been achieved. Please
remember that this site offers you the ability to post your comments
and views.

Sartor’s Abandoned Generations

The ‘to be announced’ Human Services Review of the Redfern Waterloo
Authority under the ministership of Frank Sartor has given a new
meaning to the term “Abandoned Generations”.
In Minister Sartor’s vision it is the members of the community
that are not currently youths or children, i.e. 85.33% of the
population of the area covered by the Redfern Waterloo Authority, that
form the Abandoned Generations. The needs of these people have been
specifically removed from consideration under the current Review of
Human Services.
The RWA said that they were going to, at some undetermined time
in the future, look at the needs of the overwhelming majority of the
residents of the area, those over the age of twenty four years.
In the interim the RWA will have overseen the moving into private
ownership of the Rachael Forster Hospital site and the Redfern Public
School site. When the need for Aged Care facilities is ‘discovered’ in
the yet to be proposed Review of Human Services for the other 85.33% of
the area’s population the RWA will be able to say “we recognise the
need, but there are no available premises where the services can
operate from”. The end result will be that those aged members of the
community will be forced to move out of the area that they grew up in
and abandon all their family, community and social ties. They will also
be moving away from the support services and medical practitioners that
they are familiar with.
Many of the healthy people in Sartor’s Abandoned Generations will
be forced out of the area by the ‘innovations’ in town planning to be
introduced by the RWA. These “innovations” will price accommodation out
of reach of the existing population and thus finally achieve the
designed result of the 1948 County of Cumberland Planning Scheme. This
scheme was designed to create maximum opportunity for developers to
build high-rise buildings, the units in which would sell for a lot more
than the current community members could afford. To achieve fulfilment
the current community would have to be replaced by a much more affluent
one.
The RWA makes the ‘three card’ sleight of hand operator in a back
lane look like an angel in the morality stakes. The three card
operator’s success depends on giving the selected victim(s) a belief
that they are on a winner. The RWA has failed to instil such a belief
in the community, indeed it has acted in such a manner as to destroy
any credibility that it initially claimed it wanted to generate.
The RWA’s choice of promoting projects for children and youth is
a clever ploy to buy time. The RWA has a legislated ten year lifetime.
The timeframe to measure the success of child and youth based projects
is longer than the balance of the RWA’s lifetime. This gives the RWA
the perfect excuse for achieving nothing on the Human Services front
whilst it performs its real role of the cashing in of government asset,
reducing government expenditure in the area and destroying the existing
community to hand the developers a bonanza.

These
comments on the draft HSP have been prepared by Elizabeth Rice.
Elizabeth has previously worked with the Human Services CEO’s on human
services policy. She has been providing expert advice to REDWatch and
some aboriginal groups on a number of human services and planning
issues.

Elizabeth is looking for any comments on the draft from the local
community. She can be contacted by email at erice@comcen.com.au .

As this is a draft and runs to a number of pages the document has
been posted at the following link. Due to the limitations of this web
page you will need to either copy the address into your browser or
alternatively click on the “Have your say about current issues” left
hand side menu item and then choose Elizabeth’s article.

http://www.redwatch.org.au/redw/speakout/051023hsp/Rice%20Final%20DHSR%20Sub.doc

As
a result of the Government’s planned private/public residential
development on the Redfern public housing and Police and Community
Youth Clubs (PCYC) site at Elizabeth and Phillip Streets Redfern, the
PCYC will be forced to relocate to a new facility.

This week, the PCYC presented a proposal to City Councillors for a
new, two-level facility at Redfern Park, as part of a 13.6m tall, three
storey stadium, virtually the length of the football field.

The proposed complex is costly, includes substantial commercial and
income generating components with the PCYC facilities, and flies in the
face of Council’s plans to increase accessible open space and playing
fields for use by all the community.

The Redfern PCYC provides important recreation and sport activities
for local young people living in the Redfern and Waterloo public
housing estates.

Despite commitments from previous Housing Ministers and the
Department of Housing for the PCYC to retain its current site, the
Department of Housing seems set to sell the site for residential
development, and has no clear proposals for a replacement PCYC in
Redfern.

This is a short-sighted Government asset sale to meet the needs of
a chronically under-funded public housing sector. It follows the NSW
PCYC’s own asset stripping, which saw the sale of the Paddington PCYC
in 2003 for an estimated $7 million, with a paltry $1.4M preserved in
total to upgrade remaining PCYCs in our area, Woolloomooloo, South
Sydney and Maroubra.

If the State Government is not prepared to retain the PCYC in its
current Redfern site, it could ensure a new facility in the old Redfern
Public School. The NSW Department of Education and Training and the
Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) this week announced an
exciting project to transform the school into a centre of cultural, social and sporting excellence for Aboriginal youth.

The PCYC and the Aboriginal Centre would be a good natural fit. It
is a practical solution to ensure the future of the PCYC that I
suggested to the ILC and the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo earlier this
year.