There are problems in aged care, but more competition isn’t the solution

‘Competition’ is often seen as a major driver of quality and efficiency in social care markets. But a team from the University of Melbourne conducted a study into the effect of competition on a range of nursing home quality and price measures, and found no evidence that competition increases quality of care, and only a weak association between competition and price. In today’s post, originally published on the Conversation, Ou Yang, Anthony Scott, Jongsay Yong and Yuting Zhang report on their findings.

Creating using evidencePower to Persuade15 June 2021aged care, markets in public services

Markets in social care: outsourcing administrative burden to citizens and the third sector

We know that the NDIS is a lot of administrative work for scheme participants, but the administrative burden isn’t just borne by people with disability. Today’s post comes from Ellie Malbon (Centre for Social Impact), Gemma Carey (CSI), Helen Dickinson (Public Service Research Group), Megan Weier (CSI), and Gordon Duff (National Disability Services), who have done some research on the administrative burden of the NDIS for service providers.

Service Delivery, Policy and governancePower to Persuade3 November 2020NDIS, markets in public services, Disability

Critical Junctures: opportunities and threats for democracies in the pandemic

Jensen Sass and Kate Henne, from the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the ANU, argue that the pandemic has opened up space for reconfiguring the relationships between states and markets.

Mind the gender gap: The hidden data gap in transport

There has been much lament over the discarding of Australia’s Women’s Budget Statement as part of the budgeting process, and reinstating this process was one of Labor’s promises should they have won the election. While this is an absolutely critical document, there is an upstream problem that also needs addressing - data collection. The data which is collected and analysed is often itself subject to gender bias, resulting in huge gaps in our understanding of how policies effect women.

Today’s analysis looks at the problem of women’s invisibility in data sets using the example of transportation policy. Transport policy researcher Nicole Badstuber (@NicoleBadstuber) has written an explosive piece that resonated strongly with readers in the U.K. but also hit a nerve with Australians, as evidenced by a viral tweet on the piece from Per Capita’s Abigail Lewis. This piece originally appeared in London Reconnections and can be viewed in its original format here.

Does tree-shaking work? Evidence based policy and welfare conditionality

This article from Dr Simone Casey explores why Australia’s Mutual Obligation requirements are so demanding and whether this is based on evidence about what works. It asks why critical research evidence has not received more attention from Australia ‘s activation policy makers. She argues that lack of engagement with critical social research is a limitation which hampers social justice efforts and reflects disregard for social suffering, and says there is plenty of room for stronger engagement with participatory policy design approaches. Dr Casey is an Associate of the RMIT Future Social Services Institute.

We are creating new inequities around PrEP HIV Prevention

When the debate about public funding for PrEP started up, I was concerned that it would go down the same path as PEP — with a set pool of funding, left to state/territory governments to administer, with de facto rationing based on sexual risk, and only available from a set number of locations. So my own position on PrEP was that it needed to be funded via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and not rationed.

The Issue of Equity in the Market

Markets are all well and good, but with the NDIS, we have to be careful that we don’t sacrifice equity in the name of efficiency, writes Associate Professor Gemma Carey.

Policy and governance, IssuesDr. Gemma Carey22 March 2018Disability, ndis, markets in public services

Why commissioning is like a unicorn

Commissioning is like a unicorn? (Are your eyes deceiving you?) Although this might sound like a bizarre analogy, Helen Dickinson, director of UNSW Canberra's Centre for Public Service Research, illustrates the surprising ties between the mystical creature and public sector commissioning in this repost from her blog.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade12 April 2017Commissioning, markets in public services

Aggressive outsourcing undermining service quality and trust

Is aggressive outsourcing of government services affecting service quality and trust? The Mandarin's David Donaldson spoke to contracting expert and NSW Premier's ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Delivery Gary Sturgess for his take on the matter. This post originally appeared on The Mandarin.

Citizens are happier in countries where the government intervenes more frequently in the economy

What types of public policy promote greater happiness among citizens? Many governments justify pro-market policies on the basis of offering their citizens ‘choice and control’. Today’s post by Patrick Flavin, Alexander C. Pacek and Benjamin Radcliff presents results from an analysis of survey data across 21 industrialised democracies between 1981 and 2007. They find that in countries where governments intervene more frequently in the economy, insulating citizens from market fluctuations, there is a higher degree of self-reported happiness among citizens. While the authors note that these findings cannot strictly be taken as evidence that social democratic policies are better in a normative sense overall, the results suggest that more research is needed on the impact of a country’s political context on the happiness of its citizens. This article was originally published on the LSE EUROPP - European Politics and Policy – blog.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade9 March 2017markets in public services, social welfare

Can we have a pro-community welfare state without the big society bullshit?

In this blog Simon Duffy explores the question of how to narrow the gap between public services (the official welfare state) and the community. He asks whether it is possible for use to develop a pro-community welfare state, one which works in harmony with its citizens, not against them.

Quarter Time at the Productivity Commission inquiry into social services: who’s winning?

The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Human Services has released its interim report, and Policy Whisperer Paul Smyth identifies the social services sector as leading the match – but is there scope to carry this important conversation to completion? Together with Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey, Paul led a coordinated response to the Inquiry in the form of the report Social Service Futures and the Productivity Commission.

Reform and the (not so) new role of stewardship

Australian reform discussions have of late focused around some seemingly new language and ideas concerned with stewardship and commissioning. This is being touted as a fundamental change in what government does, but what does this actually mean and will it really lead to significant reform? Helen Dickinson asks these questions and more in our latest post.

Is neoliberalism making you anxious? Metrics and the production of uncertainty

Market models of delivering publicly-funded services are underpinned by systems and processes of measurement designed to change the way citizens and service providers behave and interact. David Beer argues that to understand how markets shape our behaviour, we need to think about the role of measurement in our lives and reflect on how it makes us feel. This post originally appeared on the LSE Politics and Policy blog.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade8 September 2016markets in public services

Reality check: is VET really an exemplar for the marketisation agenda?

Some have suggested that vocational education and training in Australia provides an exemplar for the further marketisation they urge within health, community and educational services. But is a reality check in order?

David Freeman has worked on Australian skill reform resources and research since 1993. He is currently completing a history of its three decades to 2016.

Identity in a time of social sector change

Profound changes are underway in the social sector. In this post, innovation consultant Dale Renner shows how not-for-profit organisations are wrestling with fundamental questions of identity: what to keep, what’s important and what can be changed? This post originally appeared on Pro Bono Australia.

The marketisation of social and community services: Finest hour or poisoned chalice for the Productivity Commission?

The marketisation of health, education and welfare is one inquiry the Productivity Commission may well wish it had never been given, reflects Policy Whisperer Paul Smyth of The University of Melbourne.

The market in social services-does motivation matter?

Antony McMullen of Catholic Social Services Victoria (@CathSocServVic) outlines some of the implications of competitive social service markets for not-for-profit service providers, ahead of their Feb 2016 conference.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade2 February 2016markets in public services

Competition in healthcare-myth mantra or mandate?

Yesterday, Paul Smyth provided a reflection on the Government's response to the Harper Review from a community sector perspective. In today's piece, Dr Lesley Russell from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy reflects on the Review from a healthcare perspective. Lesley worked in Washington DC on a range of issues around the enactment and implementation of health care reform, initially as a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress (known as the 'Obama think tank') and later as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Social Policy Whisperer: Taking Harper out of the Social Services and Community Sector

While most in the social services and community sector assumed that the 2014\15 Harper review concerned the ‘economy’ and not them (see the very limited range of ‘social’ submissions) it has indeed turned out to be a Radical Liberal push to undermine social services and the community sector by an inappropriate extension of market principles into our community and social life. Even as the Federal Treasurer initiates a ‘reform’ process together with the States we have Mr Harper himself already positioned as an ‘independent’ advisor (representing the for-profit firm Deloites) to the Victorian Government’s current Roadmap for Reform. Push is turning to shove and it behoves anyone with a concern for the future of Australian society to take stock of the situation and develop their action plan.

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