This report evaluates how effectively New Income Management was rolled out in the Northern Territory.

NIM consists of four streams: the Compulsory Income Management (CIM) measure which is targeted at long-term income support recipients of working age; the Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipients Measure, generally referred to here as ‘Vulnerable Income Management’ (VULIM), for those not subject to Compulsory Income Management and who are determined by Centrelink to be vulnerable; the Child Protection Income Management (CPIM) measure for people who come in contact with child protection authorities and whom child protection authorities assess would benefit from income management; and the Voluntary Income Management (VIM) measure which is for people not subject to any of the above forms of income management but wish to participate in the program. An incentive payment is made to those who choose to participate in Voluntary Income Management.

This is the first report of the evaluation of New Income Management (NIM) and considers: 

• how effectively the measure was rolled out;
• how the transition from the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) Income Management to NIM was managed;
• initial data on the impacts of NIM. 

It covers the initial implementation period and the first 12 months after full implementation. While the evaluation will continue to 2014, the data collected to date allows some clear initial findings to be made.

The evaluation has involved extensive data analysis including a survey of over 800 people in the Northern Territory who are on income management and a comparison group of income support recipients outside of the Northern Territory, as well as detailed Centrelink administrative data. There were also extensive interviews with Centrelink staff, those involved in providing money management and financial counselling services, child protection workers, merchants in the Northern Territory, as well as people who are subject to income management. In much of the evaluation, data from all three sources has been used to ‘triangulate’ or verify findings.

The evidence gathered to date for this evaluation suggests that NIM has had a diverse set of impacts. For some it has been positive, for others negative and for others it has had little impact. Taken as a whole there is not strong evidence that, at this stage, the program has had a major impact on outcomes overall. Although many individuals report some gains, others report more negative effects.