Integration and
improved Government Programmes for Redfern Waterloo
REDWatch welcomes
the emphasis in the DHSP of the need for significantly improving state
government service delivery in Redfern Waterloo.
REDWatch also
welcomes the proposed mechanisms for the integration of government services
delivered in the area and the taking of responsibility by lead government
departments.
Many of the measures are long overdue and can only be
improved by being delivered in an integrated manner.
REDWatch
however has some concerns about these aspects of the DHSP.
- It
must be recognised that any early intervention program in a closed
community requires additional funds early in its implementation and that
savings are only possible in the long term. Dealing with those for whom
there has not been early intervention must continue while early
intervention strategies are implemented. - It
must also be recognised that Redfern Waterloo is not a closed community.
Government policy changes are likely to increase turnover in public
housing tenants bringing more high needs people into the area. Redfern
Waterloo is also a hub for Aboriginal people through out the city and the
state. Redfern Waterloo’s city fringe location also sees homeless and
troubled people living on and moving through its streets. All these
factors indicate that a successful regional early intervention program may
not see all the expected savings due to the area’s connectivity to the
wider community. This should be recognised at the outset. - Adequate
resources have to be committed by government departments to deliver on
what has been agreed in the plan in a timely manner. Redfern Waterloo can
not afford to have yet another announcement which is not implemented. As
there is no state budget allocation, all funds will have to come from
existing department allocations and this will require those departments
finding the resources required from within their existing activities. If
this is to work the RWA and the ISOG will have to make sure that
commitments from departments are adequate to really implement these
programs in a manner that will make a lasting impact and to ensure that
the commitments are delivered by the departments. - Given
the existing commitments of government departments and the size of the
task for early intervention in Redfern Waterloo, it may be necessary for
the government to provide additional funds so that a department like DOCS,
for example, is not forced to choose between its statutory at risk
notification obligations and these new localised early intervention
programs. - Integration
of government activities will probably not happen unless it is serviced
and driven by the RWA or someone with this role servicing ISOG and human
services CEOs group. - As
far as it is possible the activities of government departments under the
HSP should be transparent and open to NGO and community scrutiny.
Redfern Waterloo can not afford another policy announcement
about the great things government will do and not see the results on the
ground. The RWA already has to deal with the cynicism born of earlier
undelivered government announcements.
Equality in
Service Access – The Employment Example
One area which is important to be emphasised in the DHSP is
the importance of equal access to services for all sectors of the community and
the equal supply of services to all sectors of the community.
At the moment there is significant concern among
non-Aboriginal public tenants that employment programmes are being focused
totally on the Aboriginal population. While Aboriginal unemployment is a major
issue in its own right and needs special programmes targeted to provide
employment assistance, the unemployment problem in Redfern Waterloo is the
major issue for a much wider group in the community. While the Aboriginal focus
may have arisen from Aboriginal services being included in stage one of the
DHSP it is important that the RWA put in place arrangements to address the
wider employment issues effecting the community and put in place employment and
enterprise options for all the Redfern Waterloo community.
Delay in addressing such issues runs the risk of fuelling
resentment in those who can not access a particular service and creating a
“them and us” mentality. In the case of the Aboriginal employment example above
it also runs the risk of providing fuel to any underlying racial tensions.
Integration of
NGOs, One Stop Shops and Learning
for the Past
REDWatch is concerned
about the basis for the reorganisation of Youth services and the proposed
precincts and “One Stop Shops”.
While we agree that there is a need for much better integration and
co-operation between services, we believe the way in which this is undertaken
should be worked through with the services and service users rather than being
imposed upon them. So far we have not seen a theoretical basis for the DHSP
proposal and we recommend that the DHSP should be changed so as not to
prescribe any particular improved integration option. The particular form of
improved integration should be worked out in the context of developing services
response to the needs of particular target groups.
It is vital that the RWA learn from the RWPP’s earlier
experience in making changes to the service landscape in Redfern Waterloo
especially the Street Team experience. It does not matter how great government
think their plan is – if it is not implemented in conjunction with existing
local services and have community participation and support, it is likely to
meet with opposition and fail. This is especially so if initially it requires
the co-operation of local services. The RWA should be careful not to repeat
this mistake with their push to implement a particular view of youth service
integration. Similarly, the RWA should recognise that they can also disrupt
successful existing programs by trying to appropriate or “improve” them, as the
RWPP did with Kid Speak. The DHSP proposals concerning the government taking
over the successful Black Out Violence programme is in danger of repeating
earlier mistakes. It is important to acknowledge and support successful local
programs rather than try and appropriate them.
The RWA must also proceed with care in implementing common
back office services and common referral procedures. Each of these have
opportunities as well as risks and they must be approached in a manner that
allows both the risks and opportunities to be explored by those involved and to
deal with in a co-operative framework. Aboriginal concerns about sharing of
information between agencies must also be addressed.
It will take time for the RWA to earn the trust of the
service providers and the broader community. This will not happen if the RWA
seeks to ram through changes against the experience of the local services. It
is crucial that new RWA employees are aware of what has been done by their
predecessors and that they do not go over the same ground unnecessarily. That
the existing RWA staff did not know of a day workshop conducted six months ago
by RWPP / RWA staff on “One Stop Shops”
in the preparation phase for the DHSP is a major cause for concern. This
workshop of local service providers should have informed the RWA’s DHSP
response.
The Redfern Public School Announcement
Some people find it bewildering that the government now
talks about programs to use schools as community centres after the same
government closed down the local Redfern
School which historically
provided an important community focus and programs within the Redfern Waterloo
community rather than outside it. Many
people still believe that had the Redfern
School not been closed
that the civil unrest in February 2004 would not have happened.
Announcing the school sale in the middle of the DHSP
consultation raised a number of important issues:
- The
key elements contained in the school sale announcement were not covered in
the DHSP and aspects of the announcement were in direct conflict with what
was proposed, especially the introduction of new services. To us this
indicates that the human services functions of the RWA and its development
corporation aspects have not been incorporated within a broad strategic
plan for the area. It is vital that the development functions of the RWA
and the Human Service functions operate within a long term strategic and
integrated framework. - The
sale of the school does not appear to have been based on any demographic
analysis of the future school needs of the area with an increased
population and the increase in children under the age of two already
becoming apparent in the area. - The
sale of the school permanently disposes of scarce inner city publicly
owned land prior to a long term plan for the area being established.
Should the government need land to deliver services in the area in the
future it will need to purchase land at a significantly increased cost. - The
manner of the school sale had implications for both existing human service
providers based there and for the future of human services to be delivered
in the area and should have been the subject of community consultation and
consideration under the DHSP.
Housing
One significant omission from the DHSP in terms of early
intervention is the importance of appropriate housing. It is very difficult to
provide the early intervention services if the “client” does not have
appropriate ongoing housing.
This is another area where the human services side of the
RWA needs to be better integrated with the development / build environment
aspects of the Redfern Waterloo Plan. Unless the Redfern Waterloo Plan provides
for the range of housing options necessary to meet the housing needs of those
in the community it will be difficult to see how early intervention will be
successfully applied to those who do not have appropriate housing.
Process for Change
Process does matter. While the RWA DHSP sets out priorities,
the RWA has to recognise that how it goes about achieving these priorities will
have an equally crucial impact on the outcome.
REDWatch has
previously provided some suggestions on for Community
Participation Principles and also Unhealthy
and Healthy Community Indicators which we have attached. As pointed out in Elizabeth Rice’s
submission other elements of the The
REDWatch Planning Framework for the Redfern-Waterloo Plan are also
applicable to the DHSP as well as the broader Redfern Waterloo Plan. For ease
of reference these are attached and we commend them to you for the DHSP.
Community
participation
There were two community meetings at the beginning of the
preparation of the DHSP. The community was shut out of most of the rest of the
discussion including the meeting about One Stop Shops.
The community meetings made some strong statements on community participation
in human service delivery. While the facilitator’s report was not circulated to
participants we have reproduced the relevant section from the second e-news
about this meeting as it provides some indication of the concerns of those at
the consultation:
In summary, the
workshop participants expressed a desire for:
·
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).
These identified community concerns do not appear to be
reflected in the DHSP. Many of the active community members are / have been
involved in local community directed services and see community involvement as
being essential in getting services that meet the community needs.
The final point from the e-news referenced above has been addressed
in part by the RWA “information” meetings about the DHSP, but the participants
in the earlier community meetings had a much more participatory model in mind
than just being told about what the government thought and being encouraged to
go away and put in a written submission.
The Prospectus and
RWA Trust Proposal
REDWatch is
concerned about the DHSP proposals for a Trust administered by the RWA and
believes that the details of this proposal should be explored further before
being adopted. In particular the RWA should take advice from the ICAC regarding
corruption proofing any trust that is established.
REDWatch is
concerned that the establishment of a Trust may:
- put
the government in direct competition with existing local services for
private funding support. There are already substantial private donations
to NGOs in the area and government completion for donations to these
services may lessen NGO’s private income and make them more dependent on
government funding and hence government direction. Some will see this as
the intent in the RWA proposal. - lead
to private funding replacing government funding over time and resulting in
no net increase in resources being bought into the area. The proposals in
the DHSP already contain proposals for private funding of areas like basic
numeracy & literacy which most consider core government
responsibilities. - distort
the project priorities offered in the prospectus from what the community
most needs (and what the government is not suppling) to that which the
private sector is prepared to fund (ie things that look good in a
shareholders annual report rather than possibly less ‘sexy’ more important
community needs). - lead
to concerns that developers looking for approval for developments in the
RWA administered area, or in the wider state controlled by the same
minister, may invest in the fund with a view to gaining approval for their
developments. - prevent
good local NGO or community proposals from being included in the
prospectus in favour of projects favoured by the RWA and government
priorities.
By definition any trust needs to be completely independent
and disassociated from the RWA, otherwise it gives rise to a conflict of
interest with the RWA being the body approving developments while at the same
time receiving donations from potential developers. On the other hand the
independent trustees also reduce the opportunity for community input and
potentially distances the trust from the community’s view of what is needed
within their community. Trustees would need to be acceptable to both the
community and the RWA and this could be difficult to achieve.
Given all these issues we believe that it is unwise for this
proposal to be pushed through in this part of the DHSP and that more community
consultation and anti corruption advice is required before it is pursued.
Conclusion and
Suggestion on Future HSP Consultations
As mentioned at the beginning of this submission this is not
an extensive response to the DHSP however given the shortness of the time frame
and our limited resources as a community group we can only highlight our major
concerns.
We are strongly of the view that all future consultations on
the HSP and other parts of the Redfern Waterloo Plan should include:
- Two
months for community consideration – many community organisation only meet
once a month and there is insufficient time to prepare reactions and then
for submissions to be discussed adequately by the larger group - That
the consultation should include not only information sessions but also
facilitated workshops which bring together people with a common concern
and experience in a sector / cluster / range of services to discuss the
proposals and their reactions to it - Where
groups have been involved in meetings preparing the plan (as was the case
with cluster groups this time) these groups should be reconvened and given
the opportunity to discuss in depth their reaction to the proposals and to
bring their combined experience to bear on the proposal with a view to
addressing any areas of concern.
We look forward to more participatory processes in the
development of future RWA and human service proposals as the RWA develops a
corporate memory by learning from this “consultation”.
We hope that these brief suggestions will be seriously
considered by the RWA and the MACHS.
Geoffrey
Turnbull
On
behalf of REDWatch
c/-
PO Box 1567,
Strawberry
Hills NSW 2012
Ph
Wk: (02) 9318 0824 email: turnbullfamily@stassen.com.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 the RWA and
other government bodies and seeks to ensure community involvement in all
decisions made about the area.
REDWatch meets at 2pm on the 4th Sunday of the
month at the Factory Community Centre.
More information about REDWatch and the issues of concern to us can be
found at: www.redwatch.org.au
Documents attached to the Submission were:
-
Community Participation Principles -
The submission included some Community Participation Principles which
REDWatch wished to see addopted by the RWA in light of the criticism
that had been leveled against the government’s poor track record of
consultation in Redfern – Waterloo.
-
Unhealthy and Healthy Community Indicators -
In preparing the Community Participation Principles REDWatch’s
attention was drawn to a list of Unhealthy and Healthy community
indicators from Building Healthy Communities. REDWatch felt these
indicators were also important in building a health community in
Redfern – Waterloo. This list was included in our submission and is
contained in the pdf file on this page. -
The REDWatch Planning Framework for the Redfern-Waterloo Plan -
This document contain REDWatch’s ideas on a planning framework for
Redfern-Waterloo. This framework is in four parts: A) “The Plan in
Outline”, which provides a broad overview of how the Redfern-Waterloo
Plan could be developed, implemented and reviewed; B) A summary of the
steps involved in developing, implementing and reviewing the Redfern –
Waterloo Plan; C) suggestions for specific ground rules for developing,
implementing and reviewing the Redfern – Waterloo Plan and; D) more
detailed explanations of why each of the ground rules is needed.