A number of evaluations and other studies of income management programs have been made. The methodologies of these have varied, as has the specific set of subprograms they have studied. This has led to an apparent diversity of findings that has been exaggerated by selective use in public debate. The relative findings of the studies...

The recent coroner’s inquest into the death of Chloe Valentine outlined a number of recommendations for improvement of South Australia’s child protection system to prevent any future deaths resulting from child abuse or neglect. One such recommendation related to income management as a child protection tool. The Australian Centre for Child Protection was commissioned by...

The capability approach has recently been used in Australian Indigenous policy formation. Of particular note is how it has been used in some instances to justify current paternalistic and directive policies for Indigenous Australians. These include behavioural conditionalities on state support and income management—policy apparatuses that aim to create individual responsibility and to re-engineer the...

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...

This paper discusses the main challenges of targeting programs aimed at increasing school enrollment, and draws some lessons for improving targeting effectiveness.