Sector sustainability
About sector sustainability
Thousands of Canberrans seek out community sector services each year, including:
- early support and prevention services for children and families
- health and education services
- access to legal support
- efforts to tackle climate change.
The ACT Government invests more than $230 million annually across a diverse non-government sector to deliver these programs, services and support.
A 2021 report Counting the Costs provided evidence for the need for greater focus on sector sustainability. This is to ensure that the community can continue to access support they need. In 2023, the ACT Government released a response to the Counting the Costs Report [PDF 467 KB]. It acknowledged the rising demand and costs across the community sector but noted that a simple increase in funding alone would not result in a more sustainable sector.
The sector sustainability project
The ACT Government proposed a sector sustainability program that aims to move toward a sustainable resourcing and relationship model with the ACT community sector.
The initial phase of work included a sector sustainability project over 18 months. This saw the ACT Government and the NGO sector partner to identify and address a range of sustainability challenges.
The project’s objective was to consider how to address multiple recommendations of Counting the Costs. This included:
- how the government can work with the sector to ensure funding adequately reflects the real cost of services
- getting a better understanding of the impact of increased demand.
A joint Governance Committee oversaw the project.
Sector sustainability project summary
The project concluded in December 2024. A summary of the project is below:
The ACT Government in the 11th term of the Legislative Assembly has also made commitments which are relevant to sector sustainability.
To:
- Explore establishing a unit within the ACT Public Service to be the point of contact for the Community services sector regarding sector policy, supporting community needs analysis and providing greater project co-ordination on sector policy co-design projects.
- Continue to progress the Community Sustainability Program to identify how best the ACT Government can fund our not-for-profit community partners in delivering services to the community.
- Within the first 6 months of government determine a government position on the appropriateness of applying population growth to indexation for community sector government contracts.
- Continue to evaluate and improve the commissioning approach to deliver better outcomes in partnership with the community sector.
- Move towards parity between the public and community sectors for paid parental leave, superannuation and family and domestic violence leave through the Community Sector multi-employer agreement (MEA).
Knowledge hub
We built a Knowledge Hub in partnership with ACTCOSS. Sector Sustainability Project Knowledge Hub - ACTCOSS
The Knowledge Hub sustains access beyond the project start-up phase to materials generated through the project.
Contact us
To learn more email Community Services Directorate at CSDCommissioning@act.gov.au