Place Based Income Management (PBIM) was a trial within the Building Australia’s Future Workforce (BAFW) package. This package was a group of initiatives aiming to assist vulnerable families and children, and to enhance opportunities for people to enter or return to the workforce.

The purpose of PBIM is to provide people with the financial stability needed to increase their social and economic participation and to encourage recipients of welfare payments to use them in the best interests of their children and families. PBIM participants were required to direct a proportion of their welfare payments towards ‘priority items’ including food, housing, clothing and utilities.

The process and impact evaluation of PIBM involved a three-year longitudinal study to capture the immediate and sustained impacts of income management on participating families. 

This report summarises the overall findings of the evaluation, including that PBIM appears to have had a positive impact in matters of housing and financial stability for some customers. The evaluation found that the targeting and self-motivation of individuals is important in determining whether positive outcomes are realised. On this basis, several considerations for the future design of the program have been suggested. 

Overall, it was suggested that PBIM is continued as a program but that its application is redesigned to more meaningfully target those who are most likely to benefit from it.