A. The
short period of time available for public comment and the lack of notice to the
community about the issues papers have made it impossible for REDWatch and
local services to undertake consultations to obtain specific input from the
community and service users on the Issues Papers or the service areas under
review by the RWA.
B. The
combination of four service areas in one forum, coupled with the limitation of
only one delegate per organisation,
limits the opportunity for specialised input into the forum discussions on the topics
under discussion.
C. Active
community members, who would have attended open community discussions as
undertaken in phase one of the HSP, have been excluded from the process and
replaced by those chosen by the RWA.
D. The
only opportunity most people will have to make comment will be when the Draft
Phase Two Plan goes out for public consultation. Based on the Phase One
consultation there was little room for change to the plan at the final stage; this
will be especially so if it to goes to Cabinet before community consultation.
REDWatch has
identified the following issues from the RWA Issues papers and our limited
discussions, as important for the RWA and the Forum to consider:
1. Identifying the needs of service
users in the area – There has been no process that we can see that identifies
the met and unmet needs of service users in the area. Any Plan must start with
the needs of the services users and an identification of met and unmet need.
The RWA should undertake a process of identification of met and unmet needs
with the users of the services prior to drawing up plans for reforming the
various services.
2. The lack of lead-time given to
respond to the RWA Issues papers means
that there has not been time for community groups to undertake any discussions
with service users.
3. The RWA should not assume that the
existence of services to one CALD community means that all CALD communities have
access to services so CALD service needs should be assessed for each of the
CALD community sectors.
4. There has been nothing supplied in
the issues papers that identifies the projected growth of service users.
Clearly in the case of services for the elderly the demographic trends need to
be taken into account when looking at service organisation.
5. There is nothing in the issues
papers dealing with the pivotal role played by DoH tenure and allocations policy
in determining the demographic shape of the area in future.
6. Housing is a pivotal service for all
the service areas under consideration and great emphasis should be put into
ensuring that housing policy is fully integrated with service delivery to the
services areas. In particular, there needs to be effort to reduce duplication
with the DoH’s Human Services Accord and for local services to be integrated
into it.
7. A full range of accommodation
options for the aged community and their families need to available in the area
including serviced accommodation, nursing homes and retirement facilities. This
should include consideration of Rachel
Foster Hospital
as a well placed site for the provision of such community services.
8. Transport options need to be
available for people to get access to services and recreational activities.
This is not just in terms of adequate community transport, but also improved
public transport and local transport (such as Perth’s Central Area Transit (CAT)) type
options. Older people losing their spouse driver or their licence places
increased reliance on public transport options.
9. There is an assumption that
reorganisation can fund unmet need. With service providers saying they are
operating at capacity and that there is significant unmet need the Government
must commit to ensuring adequate funding to meet the identified needs. This
must involve additional one off funding for any reorganising of services and
any additional funding required for services if savings can not be achieved by
efficiencies.
10. As with the HSP phase one services,
government departments and services must develop an integrated approach to
dealing with service delivery and adequately fund it. They must also have in
place programmes for identifying and meeting unmet need.
11. The RWA HSP Phase 2 must build on
what already works rather than starting new initiatives from scratch.
12. Service users and service providers
both bring different perspectives to how services can be improved and what
needs are not being adequately met. The RWA should listen carefully to input
from both these sources before reforming services.
13.
Issues of safety are central to why
many residents do not access services, or do not access services as early as
they could. These safety issues need to be addressed.
14.
Policy changes by the DoH, which
promote limited tenure, have significant effects on the community, reducing
residents’ stability and identification with the community. This creates higher
needs for services, particularly when existing government policy meant that new
residents will have complex higher needs.
15.
There is a need to ensure Indigenous
specific and appropriate services. Many of the issues raised in the CALD issues
paper are also relevant to indigenous people.
16.
There is a need not only for aged
services, but also for services for younger families, both in the Indigenous
and non-Indigenous communities. The lack of these services impact on the sectors
under consideration in Phase 2.
17.
Foster care is an important issue,
particularly for the Indigenous community. Increased support needs to be given
to older people providing both formal and informal foster care as well as
crisis assistance.
18.
Many of the issues identified in the
discussion paper are structural issues decided by state and federal
governments. These need to be identified as such, and strategies identified for
dealing with state-commonwealth issues, rather than services being implicitly
asked to address structural issues outside their control.
19.
Adequate funding must be identified
to implement the review. If this funding cannot be secured through departmental
reallocations, then the RWA should make a separate request for additional
funds.
20.
Multiple access points are often
preferable because different people and communities access services
differently.
21.
RWA should avoid duplication of
taskforces where effective taskforces already exist, as with the CoS Community
Safety taskforce. The RWA should instead look at resourcing and facilitating
existing taskforces and inter-agencies rather than setting up duplicating
structures.
22.
There should be opportunities for
those involved in the consultation to see the plans and comment on how their
views have been represented prior to the draft plan going to Cabinet.
23.
There is no system for monitoring
the quality and quantum of service delivery to service users
24.
REDWatch reaffirms the need for a
more community driven and cooperative approach to service review.
25.
In the community consultation for Phase
One of the Human Services Review the community expressed a strong desire for a
number of outcomes which should also be taken up in Phase Two. Theses included:
- greater community involvement in
planning and decision-making about local services - increased accountability and
reporting to the community from all human services, government and
non-government - equity of access to services
- improved coordination among the
local services - politicians and senior managers with
responsibility for services experiencing local issues by coming to
Redfern-Waterloo - community meetings to be widely
promoted (through letter drops and word-of-mouth) and held in accessible venues
(such as schools).
(Report of
Community Outcomes Workshops of 4 April 2005 in Redfern-Waterloo Human Services
E-Newsletter – Issue Two 19 April 2005)
Issued by REDWatch Co-ordination Group 19th July 2006
For Further
Information contact:
REDWatch
Representative to HSP Phase Two Forum – Tiffany McComsey or
REDWatch
Spokesperson – Geoffrey Turnbull Ph Wk: (02) 9318 0824 mail@redwatch.org.au
or
REDWatch
Secretary – Ben Spies-Butcher secretary@redwatch.org.au
REDWatch
is a residents and friends group covering Redfern Eveleigh Darlington and Waterloo (the same area
covered by the Redfern Waterloo Authority). REDWatch monitors the activities of
government activities such as the RWA and RWPP and seek to ensure community
involvement in all decisions made about the area. More details can be found at www.redwatch.org.au.