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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-09 Daily Xml
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NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS

Adjourned debate on motion of Ms Sanderson:

That this house urges the government to better support non-government organisations by streamlining application processes for government funding and creating electronic information sharing to reduce time wasted on applications and increase service delivery.

(Continued from 7 April 2011.)

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (12:25): The government opposes this motion. The reason for this is the government is always keen to receive feedback on ways to improve its funding processes and, if the member for Adelaide has any specific concerns or suggestions about one of the grants programs, she should write to the responsible minister, who will then investigate the matter.

The specific way that funding is provided varies from agency to agency and individual chief executives are ultimately responsible for the process in each case. Grant applications are designed to identify funding recipients that have the capacity to best meet the individual policy objectives of each grant program and agency. Centralisation of application processes to a single office would remove the ability of each individual department or agency to oversee their funding programs and ensure they are appropriately reviewed and administered to best respond to the work of the agency and, ultimately, the needs of the community.

Contrary to the member for Adelaide's assertions that organisations waste time on applications, a thorough application process helps ensure that public money is most appropriately spent. It would be irresponsible of the government to adopt a policy of giving out funding without first appropriately screening organisations and determining their suitability for funding. It is important that good financial management principles are applied to the application of public funds and all public authorities are required to apply Treasurer's Instruction 15, Grant Funding, which provides an accountability framework for grant funding.

The state government maintains a number of online resources to help ensure community groups and the non-government sector can access information about funding. This includes a grants page and grants directory on the sa.gov.au information portal and a funding and grants register on the southaustralia.biz website maintained by the Department of Trade and Economic Development. In addition, most individual grant programs have pages on their agency websites where users can download application forms and funding guidelines.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:28): The opposition is very disappointed at the response that the government has just given to this very worthwhile motion calling on some streamlining. I know that the government has made much over its term of office about getting rid of red tape and streamlining government. This is—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: I said you have made much of it. I didn't say you have actually achieved anything, minister. You have made much of it.

Mr Marshall: Hear, hear!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I have a point of order, ma'am.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I ask that you remove the member for Norwood from the gallery for making remarks outside of his place. It is highly disorderly and, in fact, I think, rude to the chamber.

The SPEAKER: I did not notice the member for Norwood there. If that is the case, I ask you to refrain and come and sit in your seat if you wish to make remarks. However, that is not appropriate, either. Your interjections are certainly out of order, wherever they are made from. Member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was just making the point that the government has put out lots of press releases and made lots of statements about its wont to reduce red tape. I have not actually seen many positive results emanating from that fine body of rhetoric that has emanated from this government. Notwithstanding that, what the member for Adelaide is calling on here—and as she pointed out to the house—is that a lot of the NGOs operate from within her electorate, notwithstanding their services are quite often right across the state. A lot of them are based within her electorate, and she, as a good, hardworking member, has visited the offices of many of these NGOs. She has reported to the house that what has driven her to move this matter before the house is that she is constantly told by the NGOs that it is overly burdensome for them to make applications for government grants.

They are basically operating on government grants. They are delivering services which would otherwise be delivered by government, and they are doing it by receiving government grants and then delivering their services on behalf of government. It is a system that has served the state very well. It is a system that delivers high quality services at a relatively low cost. This is why governments of all persuasions use NGOs, but the burden that is put on these NGOs is that they have to fill out incredibly detailed applications.

Quite often, the same NGO will apply to a number of government agencies for funding to provide a not dissimilar service, but they have to go through the whole process each time. They have to rewrite their funding application. They have comply with the individual nuances of the government agency that they are making their application to.

I would have thought that, if the government had any common sense and any desire to cut red tape, this would be an ideal place to get cracking, to actually go to the various agencies that are dispensing grants to NGOs for this sort of work, and say to these agencies, 'Let's develop a common template for the process of issuing grants, accepting applications, processing applications and the making grants. Let's develop a common template process.' Surely, it is not imperative that every agency does it differently.

The government has argued for a long time over the benefits of shared services. Again, it has failed to deliver, but the basic principle of shared services is doing collectively what you would otherwise do individually in a lot of different places, because you are of the mind to apply the same template and do the same thing in a central location, but it is farmed out to the various agencies that you are supporting through the shared services network.

The government is on one hand arguing with regard to the services that it provides to its own agencies. Yes, we will have one template, and we will have a common set of laws and a common set of practices and policies, but when it comes to dealing with NGOs, particularly when they are asking us to develop a common template which would allow them to increase their level of efficiency and in so doing drive the efficiency of the taxpayers' dollars, which are funding these NGOs, when they ask the government to do this, the government says, 'Sorry, not interested.' It then has the temerity to say, 'The reason we are not interested is because we are trying to protect the integrity of the process and we are trying to protect the use of government money.' Nonsense.

The fact that two agencies cannot provide the same set of policies, the same template application process and the same adjudication process to the applications that come in is a nonsense. It is that silo mentality which really costs taxpayers greatly, where one agency says 'We've always done it this way, and that's the way we are going to continue to do it,' and the other agency says, 'No, no; we've done it this way, we are going to continue to do it that way, and to hell with the impact that that has on the expenditure of taxpayers' money and to hell with the impact it has anybody else outside of our silo.'

It is time that the government got serious about this and accepted the motion that has been put forward by the member for Adelaide as a good place to start. Part of what the motion goes to is to have this process done electronically so you can speed it up. Goodness gracious, in this day and age we might even have an interactive process where an NGO could put forward some or all of its application and get a response from the assessing agency to say, 'Sorry, we need to have this additional bit of information.' That could be an interactive process where the NGO could then provide the additional information.

Currently, the NGO has to put forward virtually every piece of information that it even suspects the agency might want. As was pointed out by the member for Adelaide, that is a very long and burdensome task, largely being funded by money either derived from an earlier government grant or from some fundraising activity by the NGO. In any case, the member for Adelaide was arguing that it is a waste of money. The process is causing us to waste money.

I repeat that I am very disappointed with the government's attitude to this, but obviously not surprised, because the government has shown that it will rarely, if ever, certainly in the first instance, take up a good idea that is proposed by the opposition. The government's default position is not to agree. Generally what the government does is wait for a while and then reintroduce the idea and try to mask it as one of its own ideas. There are a huge number of examples of that. I suspect we might even see a couple of those in the budget this afternoon, good ideas of the opposition roundly and soundly rejected as stupid by the government at the time. We will no doubt see some issues raised in this budget where the government will brand them as its ideas.

I put to the house that this is a good, sensible idea proposed by the member for Adelaide. It should be taken up by the government as at least a starting point. The government should say, 'Yes, we agree.' Some of these agencies need to sit down together—have their heads banged together, if that is necessary—and formulate a template system to make life easier for NGOs.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:38): I support the motion of the member for Adelaide. It is a common-sense motion.

An honourable member: We can't have that.

Mr PENGILLY: No, we can't have that; you are quite right. You only have to go back over these last nine years or so of this government, and it has employed nearly 20,000 additional public servants in that nine or 10 years, and it is even further bogged down. So, the member for Adelaide, supported by others in this place, has come up with this motion to try to assist the government and give it the message. Remember, the Premier said last year after the election, 'We are going to reconnect.' Well, there ain't a lot of reconnecting going on. The government does not want to reconnect with anything from outside this place.

However, when a member on this side of the chamber comes forward with a good idea to assist the government and to try and streamline things for the poor old, long-suffering taxpayer of South Australia, who is faced with hideous increases in the price of power, water and just about everything else, it is pooh-poohed by the government. Is this good government? I think not. Is this the reason that the government is sitting, in the last poll, on 24 per cent? I think yes. Government members do not want to listen. They do not want to listen at all. They are that bound up in their own internal squabbles that they cannot even think through and give due attention to a perfectly good motion put forward by the member for Adelaide.

My offices have a constant stream of people coming into them highly indignant over the nonsense and the paperwork they have to go through to apply for funding. Sporting organisations and any non-government organisation that come through are totally frustrated. Not only are they frustrated with the paperwork but they are also frustrated with ringing up government offices or government numbers and being put on hold forever and a day while listening to nice music or a recorded message or, usually, promotions of a failing government, that come over while they are hold—whether it be for five minutes, 55 minutes or an hour and 55 minutes.

The motion put forward by the member for Adelaide deserves a lot more respect. Not everything that comes from this side of the chamber is foolish, just as not everything from the other side of the chamber is foolish. Why don't you give a show a bit of respect to the member for Adelaide who, let's face it, represents the central business district of the city? Why don't you allow this motion to go through and support it in the best intent and for the aims of the people of South Australia? I just find it absolutely foolish. It is no wonder that people ridicule politicians when this sort of thing is held up because of the political reality that the government does not like it because we thought it up, or in this case, the member for Adelaide.

The member for Adelaide is out there pounding the pavements of her electorate and listening to people; that is why she was elected with such a large majority. She is still out there doing it and going to this, that and everything else. She is seen everywhere and she listens everywhere. She is reporting back to this parliament and getting good feedback. She has come back to this place with a motion to try to simplify government process, and she is getting knocked down by the government. I just think it is damned foolish.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (12:41): I am very disappointed that the government has spoken against this motion. It certainly was not a passion of mine to be so involved with NGOs. However, I have spent the last 18 months—because there are so many in the electorate of Adelaide—visiting as many of them as possible. It was consistent feedback when I met with these people and asked, 'What can we do to make this system better? If I did not have more money to give you, how could I improve it?' Consistently, they came up with the same answer—that no-one else had asked them before, and they were surprised to see me. Many of them had not even seen their local member of Parliament before.

I thought, after six months of visiting endless numbers of NGOs and the same pieces of information being put forward, that I would continue meeting with more people but that I would bring a motion to parliament so that maybe we could start work on fixing a very broken system Currently, there are four recommendations in particular, and one of them is to do with a database, which I do not think would be that difficult to set up.

I had someone from Lutheran Care who had a family that needed emergency accommodation, and he said that Lutheran Care has financial assistance for three nights' accommodation. He rang Families and Communities Services and could not get an appointment for them for one week. He said, 'Where do I send the family? We can only fund them for three days,' and he was given a pamphlet (which I photocopied) and told to just start ringing all these other services.

I copied the pamphlet because half the numbers are wrong, and half the people who used to give food, accommodation or help with certain things are not even the same people who do it any more because it changes so often. Departments keep changing and staff move, and you have to apply for funding so often that there is no consistency.

My own office is trying to work on a spreadsheet to actually work out where you would go if someone came in to my electorate office with these issues and who I would ring. There are a hundred different people and no-one ever knows, so one of the ideas would be a database where I could just go online, as could anyone else in the system, and say, 'Right, I have a family that needs a home. Who can I ring? How many beds are available at this place? Where can I get food, accommodation, and really help them in the system?' and see the information immediately.

If you had someone with a drug and alcohol problem, you could see that there were two beds were available in Whitmore Square and that there was one bed available at Hutt Street (not that they have beds) and you could see information about different facilities. I think it would save a lot of time, whereas at the moment you have to ring around endlessly and cannot even get help. So that would be one idea, that you could actually access the services online and be up to date and see what was available.

Another computer system that would also be useful is a database of the same people, the people who have required assistance in the past. If you went to Anglicare you would see that they had been to Centacare, that they had had financial counselling at Lutheran Care, and that they had been here and there. You could actually track what they had already been given and what they now needed, because clearly, if you keep giving them the same thing you are not improving their life. You need to get them off the system and help them in a better way. So, I do not think computer programs are really that difficult to sort out, and I think they should be worked on.

The other issue was that a lot of the larger organisations—Lutheran Care, Centacare and Anglicare—have enough staff available to spend two weeks putting in a proposal for funding; and that is what they are telling me they have to do. The proposals are so lengthy and copious that they are losing staff for two weeks just to put in a submission. A small place like Cystic Fibrosis does not have a spare staff member for two weeks to fill these in, so it puts them at a serious disadvantage, and a lot of the smaller agencies are being taken over by the larger ones.

Another example was that you put in this proposal, you spend all this time and effort, and then you do not actually find out until the last minute whether you have got it. So, the smaller agencies, and even the larger ones, find it very hard to keep their staff when they are on a contract basis. There is no job security and they do not find out till the last minute whether they have the next contract and whether than means you have a job or you have not. So they often lose some of their good staff to government departments, because they have job security rather than continually having to put in for more money and waiting till the last minute to find out if they have got it.

Again, the issue that comes up with that is that the larger agencies have spare space available, so if they get funding for a training course they have actually already got the space, whereas a smaller agency that finds out only four weeks before the program is due to start has to hire staff, and rent or lease space to perform their duties.

The house divided on the motion:

AYES (19)
Brock, G.G. Evans, I.F. Gardner, J.A.W.
Goldsworthy, M.R. Griffiths, S.P. Hamilton-Smith, M.L.J.
Marshall, S.S. McFetridge, D. Pegler, D.W.
Pengilly, M. Pisoni, D.G. Redmond, I.M.
Sanderson, R. (teller) Such, R.B. Treloar, P.A.
van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Venning, I.H. Whetstone, T.J.
Williams, M.R.
NOES (22)
Atkinson, M.J. Bedford, F.E. Bignell, L.W.
Caica, P. Conlon, P.F. Foley, K.O.
Fox, C.C. Geraghty, R.K. Hill, J.D.
Kenyon, T.R. Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A. (teller)
O'Brien, M.F. Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, T.
Portolesi, G. Rankine, J.M. Sibbons, A.L.
Thompson, M.G. Vlahos, L.A. Weatherill, J.W.
Wright, M.J.
PAIRS (4)
Chapman, V.A. Rann, M.D.
Pederick, A.S. Snelling, J.J.

Majority of 3 for the noes.

Motion thus negatived.

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