The Skills and Training Incentive is available to individuals aged 45 to 70 who are employed and at risk of entering the income support system, or unemployed within the last 9 months and not registered for assistance through an Australian Government employment services program. The evaluation assessed the relevance, appropriateness, implementation efficiency, and short-term effectiveness of the Skills and Training incentive trial. The evaluation framework was structured around a pre-established program logic model to answer four key evaluation questions across qualitative and quantitative data collection. Specific research instruments included a rapid desk-based review of adult and mature age co-contribution training literature across international jurisdictions; qualitative consultation data including semi-structured in-depth interviews; and a quantitative census survey alongside multivariate logistic regression modeling to isolate digital literacy dependencies.

The evaluation found the program successfully achieved its baseline intent. The co-contribution funding model made training more affordable, with 87% of recipients satisfied with the government subsidy. Personal co-funding served as a powerful self-investment mechanism, motivating 69% of recipients to successfully complete their chosen courses.

The training delivered tangible economic benefits, with 77% of completers validating that the program increased their employment or retention opportunities. However, the evaluation identified distinct operational bottlenecks: 15% encountered initial placement or location constraints, 13% faced technical TAFE/university invoicing hurdles that delayed course starts, and 11% received incorrect or confusing program eligibility feedback from frontline service representatives. Furthermore, the fixed 50% co-contribution architecture proved less appropriate for lower-income sub-cohorts experiencing absolute financial stress or sudden pandemic-related redundancy, who remained locked out due to an inability to cover the upfront matching training cost.

The report recommends programmatic enhancements that heavily inform the extension and restructuring of the initiative. To remove financial accessibility barriers for vulnerable sub-cohorts facing absolute hardship, it recommends transitioning from the static 50% model to an expanded matching architecture that increases the government's co-contribution to up to 75% for occupations suffering recorded national shortages or projecting strong future demand. It suggests broadening overall program accessibility by expanding the intake threshold down to 40 years of age and extending the eligible unemployment lookback period up to 12 consecutive months.

To maximise structural efficiency, the report advocates for replacing rigid individual seat quotas with a unified, flexible national pool of open funding alongside executing robust communication, marketing, and electronic signature workflows to eliminate baseline invoicing bottlenecks, reduce misinformation, and engage a broader range of small-to-medium employers outside of high-saturation real estate or property services sectors.