Please refer to the Advocacy section of our website.

Exceptional Events Funding

The Centre is represented on the Price Indexation Working Group, a sub group of the VCOSS/Combined State Peaks Network.  This group is currently concentrating on seeking the triggering of an Exceptional Events funding injection on several grounds of additional financial impost within the sector.  This includes recent changes to Long Service Leave Legislation which will require Community Service Organisations (CSO’s) to draw upon its Long Service leave provisions sooner and allocate additional provisions in the long term.  In addition to this, the Centre is advocating in its own right for support to CSO’s in relation to the cost of Working with Children Checks for existing staff

Registration and Compliance

During September/October 2007, five organisations from the Centre’s membership undertook an exercise to quantify the increases in compliance costs for their organisations during 2006/07 and in the current financial year, as a result of the new legislation.  Only those costs which are currently not covered in CSO service agreements are included in this study, and have been based on a very conservative estimate of costs and staff time. 

The findings show that large and small organisations alike saw an increase in compliance and regulatory costs, ranging between 7.5 to 10% of their annual income for the services subject to the compliance requirements. 

Study by Ballarat University

A team of researchers at the University of Ballarat has undertaken a pilot research project examining the impacts of the current child and family welfare reform agenda on regional Community Service Organisations (CSOs). Initial site-based analysis highlighted an emergent economic and service impact, particularly on service delivery, organisational autonomy and partnership building.

The focus of this research related particularly to: 1) the maintenance of non-government sector autonomy; 2) the costs of compliance to the new requirements; 3) the emerging impact on service delivery; and, 4) the extent to which the aimed for enhanced partnership responses, as embedded in legislation, are translating in the practice context.

The full study, Children Youth and Families Act 2005: Implications for Regional Governance and Service Delivery, has now been published and is available to download in PDF format.