The Productivity Commission has updated its report on Government Services for the year finding three groups have been affected by COVID-19.
The Commission said its update covered seven performance indicators across three sections, Section Five, vocational education and training (VET); Section Six, Police services; and Section 18, Housing.
“For the VET section, there has been some impact on the data that could be attributable to COVID‑19 but this has not affected either the comparability or completeness of any indicators,” the Commission said.
“These impacts are likely to be primarily due to the social distancing restrictions implemented in March 2020 and associated economic downturn, which may have affected 2020 data for the Student employment and further study outcomes indicator,” it said.
“This section reports performance information for vocational education and training (VET) services.”
The Commission said the VET performance indicator results updated in its mid-year release were students who achieve main reason for training; student satisfaction with quality of training; and student employment and further study outcomes.
It said COVID-19 may affect data in a number of ways, in respect to actual performance as well as the collections and processing of data.
The Commission said Police services indicators, Magistrates’ court decisions resulting in a guilty outcome for defendants, 2019-20 data and Crime victimisation, 2019-20 data had also been updated.
It said there had been some impact on the data for the Police services section which was attributable to COVID-19, but this hadn’t affected either the comparability or completeness of any indicators.
“For the Housing section, rent freezes due to the impacts of COVID-19 affected affordability indicator data in some jurisdictions,” it said.
“There were also increases in waiting lists due to decreased exits from social housing.”
The Commission said its mid-year release also updated the data for four sections on Indigenous community housing data.
The Productivity Commission’s Government Services Report, including the updated data, can be accessed at this PS News link.
