UnitingCare Australia welcomes Productivity Commission report

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UnitingCare Australia welcomes Productivity Commission report

UnitingCare Australia Media Release

15 October 2009

Ms Lin Hatfield Dodds, National Director of UnitingCare Australia, today welcomed yesterday’s draft Productivity Commission report on the Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector.

“This is a blueprint to make social services sustainable”, said Ms Hatfield Dodds. “If these draft recommendations are adopted, this report will go a long way towards ensuring that disadvantaged and vulnerable Australians keep receiving vital social services.”

Ms Hatfield Dodds said there would be merit in the Government adopting a number of key recommendations, especially:

• Urgently reviewing and streamlining Government tendering, contracting, reporting and acquittal requirements to reduce compliance costs;
• Governments fully funding those services and activities that they would otherwise provide directly;
• Supporting the development of a sustainable workforce in the not-for-profit sector, by Governments purchasing community services on the basis of relevant market wages for equivalent positions;
• Establishing an Office for Not-For-Profit Sector Engagement within the Prime Minister’s portfolio, for an initial term of five years;
• Establishing a one-stop shop for Commonwealth regulation by consolidating various regulatory functions into a new national Registrar for Community and Charitable Purpose Organisations;
• Establishing a joint working party representing the not-for-profit sector, business, philanthropy and Government to evaluate options to enhance access to capital by the sector;
• Governments using more innovative and appropriate models of engagement with not-forprofits that best suit the service being delivered.

“I congratulate the Productivity Commission on a thorough analysis of the not-for-profit sector and some important draft recommendations which, if adopted, would underpin and strengthen the delivery of social services well into the future”, said Ms Hatfield Dodds.

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You can download the pdf version of the media release here.