The Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford has released a report on how the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) was contracting non-Government organisations (NGOs) to deliver community services in its support programs, finding that it could be improved.
Ms Crawford’s report, Contracting Non-Government Organisations, found the Department could do more to demonstrate it was effectively and efficiently contracting NGOs to deliver services in its Permanency Support Program (a component of out-of-home-care services) and Specialist Homelessness Services.
Noting that agencies such as FACS were increasingly contracting non-Government organisations to deliver human services, Ms Crawford said it meant they had to be more responsible for ensuring the services achieved expected outcomes.
“Since the introduction of the Commissioning and Contestability Policy in 2016, all NSW Government Agencies are expected to include plans for customer and community outcomes and look for ways to use contestability to raise standards,” Ms Crawford said.
She said her audit found that FACS was moving to an outcomes-based commissioning model and recommended this be escalated to align with Government policy.
“The current procurement approach restricts the selection of NGOs to current market participants,” Ms Crawford said.
“This limits the entry of new service providers to the market and also means FACS may miss the opportunity to benchmark existing providers against the whole market.”
She said FACS did validate financial data but there was only limited validation of self-reported information about client services.
“This audit also found that FACS does not provide contract management staff with sufficient training, support or guidance to identify errors or inaccurate reporting by NGOs,” Ms Crawford said.
The Auditor-General’s 30-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
