Response to the Inquiry into Workforce Australia Employment Services

SVA’s submission to the Inquiry draws on our 20-year experience in ensuring fair and equal employment opportunities for everyone in Australia.

This submission to House Select Committee’s inquiry into Workforce Australia Employment Services focusses on areas of Social Ventures Australia’s work that have given insight in to one or more relevant issues.

• The submission draws on several research programs and initiatives including: The What it Will Take report (with Apprenticeship Employment Network and Price Waterhouse Coopers); The SVA led Employer Innovation Lab; Partners in Recovery and Paying What it Takes (two explorations of the financial viability of the charity sector); SVA’s work with First Nations Communities; and our impact investing work developing social impact bonds and other forms of outcomes-based contracting.
• SVA recommended that the objectives of the employment services system should be reframed so to focus on maximising long term economic opportunities for those who are unemployed, underemployed, or at risk of economic exclusion.
• Recommendations are also made around the important role of non-for-profit organisations, who have the potential to be highly effective and innovative providers of employment services, given their close connections to community, integration with other key service systems, and concern for public benefit.
• SVA’s in-depth work around outcomes-based contracting contributed to the recommendation that governments should consider the potential of these types of contracts as a mechanism for enhancing collaboration across departments and jurisdictions, and in achieving better outcomes for people facing complex challenges across multiple domains.