Homelessness Services

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding homelessness.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: The recent letter from 10 major homelessness providers says:

We question if current data sets are mature enough to support adequate servicing under this model within South Australia.

The minister in this place has repeatedly referred to the frequently asked questions on the Housing Authority website, implying that they are the answer to all of the questions from providers. The FAQ about data says:

…different organisations are currently running their own Client Record Management Systems…and that there are legal and logistical challenges in sharing information between these systems.

Alliances will need to develop integrated data and information sharing processes for their Alliances…

The FAQ answer then goes on to stress that these data arrangements will need to cover data in both government and non-government systems. As such, whilst this appears to be a frequently asked question, it does not appear to have an answer that goes beyond acknowledging legal and logistical barriers that providers have to sort out for themselves. My questions to the minister are:

1. What exactly are the legal barriers to sharing information within alliances, and what has the minister done to address these?

2. What processes are in place today to allow data sharing between different alliances that remove any disincentive for alliances to share information that could affect their bids for future contracts just two years from now?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:23): I thank the honourable member for her question. I think it is a case of the Labor Party expects that, before the alliances have even been formed and tendered, we are expected to know what the complete package would look like after the organisations have come together and we know what the final form looks like, which isn't going to take place until after the tenders.

There is a range of data collection systems in the non-government sector and in the government sector. Something that I heard about somewhat extensively in opposition was the H2H system that is used by the Housing Authority, which is still in existence. I think at that stage its own computer system internally didn't enable it to do a whole range of things, but there is now a much more updated system which enables it to do a lot of other things.

The non-government sector do use a range of different customer relationship management-type software. One that is fairly well known is the system called Penelope. There is a range of other systems in place.

I think what we have seen through the Adelaide Zero Project is that we have been able to come together as organisations to work on a common system, which has enabled all providers to be working off the same information. That has enabled the assessment of vulnerability to be consistent across all agencies that work in the homelessness sector. It has also been abundantly useful in terms of allocating people who are the most vulnerable people on that list to the first available accommodation.

The sector is used to being in the situation where it needs to be working towards common datasets. It has been acknowledged that it's something that will continue to need to be evolved, but I think it is premature for anybody to be asking exactly what it's going to look like before the tenders have even been released and before we know what the shape of the alliances are.