The Productivity Commission has published the 28th edition of its annual Report on Government Services, providing information on the equity, effectiveness and efficiency of Government services in Australia.
The Report covers a broad range of indicators relating to services, including education, justice, community services, health, emergency management, and housing and homelessness.
Chair of the Commission, Michael Brennan said this year’s Report provided new data on quality and safety in Aged care services and Services for people with disability.
“Understanding the quality and safety of the services that support some of the most vulnerable members of our community is an important part of ensuring that the significant investments Governments make in these services are effective,” Mr Brennan said.
“We are pleased to see these additions to the Report,” he said.
“This type of data helps improve transparency and the accountability of Governments to the communities they serve, and we will continue to look for ways to make more performance data available to the community across service delivery areas.”
Mr Brennan said expenditure on the services in the Report made up over 70 per cent of Australian, State and Territory Governments’ expenditure – or around $313 billion.
He said that understanding the impact the expenditure had on the lives of Australians was critical to understanding value for money for the community.
“As Governments everywhere manage increasing fiscal constraints, it’s more important than ever before to know money is being well spent,” the Chairman said.
Mr Brennan said the Report covered 17 services and was being released in seven parts through to 7 February on the Productivity Commission’s website.
Of these, Approach to performance reporting; Community services; and Housing and homelessness have already been released.
Justice and Emergency Management are scheduled for release today (31 January), followed by Health on 2 February, and Child care, education and training on 7 February.
The Productivity Commission’s Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
