This audit assessed the effectiveness of the Department of Human Services’ (DHS) implementation of initiatives to support the delivery of services to Indigenous Australians.

Audit objective, criteria and scope

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of DHS’ implementation of initiatives to support the delivery of services to Indigenous Australians. To form a conclusion against the objective, the ANAO adopted the following high level criteria:

• sound planning and administration arrangements were established to identify and address the access needs of Indigenous customers;
• service delivery arrangements were established to support the access needs of Indigenous customers; and
• performance monitoring and reporting arrangements provided visibility over service delivery to Indigenous customers and information to improve service delivery.

Overall conclusion

The Department of Human Services (DHS) provides services to a large proportion of the Indigenous population and expects that this customer group will continue to grow as a proportion of its overall customer base. Effective service delivery to disadvantaged groups remains challenging for government departments and a number of factors can affect access and uptake of services by Indigenous customers. In line with its goal of providing high quality services to all Australians, the department has made a number of organisational investments to better understand the needs of customers (including Indigenous customers) and the performance of the department in meeting customer needs through universally accessible services. The department has also acknowledged that accessibility to its universal services is central in its approach to Indigenous service delivery.

Overall DHS has developed a reasonable approach to improving its focus on supporting the delivery of services to Indigenous Australians, although there is scope to apply key elements of the approach more consistently across the department. DHS’ key organisational responses to strengthening its approach to Indigenous servicing have included the development of the Indigenous Servicing Strategy in 2012; structural arrangements, including specialist staff focused on supporting Indigenous servicing at both the frontline and national office levels; consideration of Indigenous service delivery issues and priorities in departmental business planning; and development of systems and processes to monitor data relating to Indigenous access and use of DHS services. The department has also worked to promote improving Indigenous service delivery as a corporate priority to which all DHS areas need to contribute, and has promoted this priority through senior management of the department.

The development of the Indigenous Servicing Strategy has provided the foundation of a planning and monitoring framework to support an improved standard of Indigenous servicing across the department. Reflecting the importance of improving access to mainstream services for Indigenous customers, a central aspect of DHS’ approach is the concept that Indigenous servicing is ‘everyone’s business’. However, while various areas of the department pay specific attention to the accessibility of the services they are able to influence or control, this is not uniformly the case across the organisation. In particular, the approach taken by different business areas and service zones to reflect Indigenous service issues was variable, with some areas demonstrating considered approaches while other areas adopted a more minimalist approach with little explicit consideration of Indigenous matters. There is scope to improve guidance for planning and to develop a stronger quality assurance process in relation to the development of plans by business areas and service zones.

DHS collects and maintains data relating to customer usage across a range of service areas. The analysis of usage data can assist departments with respect to assessing the effectiveness of resource allocations and service delivery approaches, as well as informing aspects of policy development. Indigenous usage data, while available, is not regularly extracted for analysis and often does not allow a comparison to be made between non‑Indigenous usage and Indigenous usage of services. Such comparative analysis would contribute to the department’s understanding of whether equitable and accessible services are being provided for Indigenous customers. More specifically, improved data analysis would allow the department to provide front line and program design staff with a better understanding of the composition and needs of their customer base, including the unique needs of particular groups, and allow them to respond to service gaps and needs with targeted resources within operational budgets.

Through the Indigenous Servicing Strategy, DHS has established a performance framework to provide internal management information on the department’s performance in providing services to Indigenous customers. The department’s first report on the ISS identified several areas where DHS had performed favourably against performance measures. These included reported increases in the numbers of Indigenous people registered for Medicare and increases in the use of self-service channels. The framework is a positive step in developing a departmental‑wide view of Indigenous usage of key services. A further positive aspect of the performance framework is that performance information is also collected on aspects of DHS’ internal capability. There is however scope to improve the measures used in the framework through the inclusion of baseline information on service usage by Indigenous customers and targets for its improvement.

The ANAO has made one recommendation aimed at improving the use of existing data within DHS in order to inform service delivery, service design and to enhance the department’s ability to contribute to policy development.