Not enough money is being spent on access to services for Indigenous people and educational and community consultative services, a new report from NSW Treasury has revealed.

The Interim Indigenous Expenditure Report details the NSW Government’s expenditure on Indigenous-specific programs and services that are specifically provided to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

The report identified the total budgeted general government spend to be $1.1 billion on these programs and services for 2021 and 2022, an increase of 18.9 per cent on the previous financial year.

The largest expenses categories were infrastructure ($316.6 million), crisis services ($151.0 million) and education ($140.4 million).

While the lowest expenses categories were access to services ($7.2 million), educational and training services ($6.8 million) and community consultative services.

Access to services initiatives allow First Nations people to access government services, educational and training services are programs that exist outside of the standard curriculums, and community consultative services ensures First Nations people are adequately represented in government policy.

Rick Macourt, Director of Strategic and Aboriginal Outcomes in the NSW Treasury, helped develop and draft the interim report.

“One thing that has stood out for me is the level of investment in crisis services, including $136.4 million for targeted out-of-home care services whereas, you see, preventative services is not receiving as much funding,” he told Government News.

“I think the fact that we have this baseline and the fact that we can point out those trends is incredibly important to inform future decision making.”

“We need to understand what we’re currently doing that needs to stop [and] what’s not being effective.” – Rick Macourt, Director of Strategic and Aboriginal Outcomes in the NSW Treasury

Implications from report

The clear implication from the interim report is that the government needs to invest in reporting indigenous expenditure, according to Mr Macourt.

“We need to really create a solid process in alignment with our community to make sure that this data is published and that it is shared under the principles of indigenous data sovereignty,” he said.

“We need to understand what we’re currently doing that needs to stop [and] what’s not being effective.”

Indigenous-specific expenditure data has not previously been collected or reported on within the NSW Government and NSW is also the first state to publish its own Interim Indigenous Expenditure Report.

Mr Macourt believes this lack of reporting is due to the systems currently in place.

“There is no overarching reporting system that can collect this information on a routine basis, we had to undertake a manual data collection,” he said.  

The current NSW Government financial reporting platform, Prime, does not have capability to attribute government spending to unconnected Indigenous-specific programs and services, the report said.

To collect this information, Treasury undertook a manual data collection exercise using an excel-based template that requested all government departments, agencies and organisations, or clusters, to return details of financial and non-financial data.

“Our intention is to make sure that the systems that we use to report this information can be leveraged to ensure that it happens on a regular basis and that the information is accurate,” Mr Macourt said.

“There is no overarching reporting system that can collect this information on a routine basis.” – Rick Macourt, Director of Strategic and Aboriginal Outcomes in the NSW Treasury

Working with First Nations people

Mr Macourt, who is also a Gumbaynggirr man from the Mid North Coast, undertook extensive consultation with First Nations stakeholders for the report.

This consultation ensured that the data collected was appropriate, met the expectations of Indigenous communities and included information identified as being important by communities.

He said it was a privilege to work with his own community but there is still more that needs to be addressed.

“As a First Nations man myself working in government, it can be challenging… there’s some triumphs but there’s also some significant challenges,” Mr Macourt said.

“Closing the gap points to the sheer amount of inequities that we are faced with as First Nations people in this country

“And it’s very difficult to be at the center of policy making and really trying to shift outcomes in what can be a really tough environment.”

NSW Treasury is currently developing the NSW Comprehensive Indigenous Expenditure Report, which aims to address the areas of concerns identified in the interim report.

“We’re working to understand how much more its costs to be able to deliver services in remote communities… [and] really focusing on the effectiveness of the spends,” Mr Macourt said.

“We’re going to work with Clusters to get more accurate disaggregated data so that we can understand what’s happening at the local level and so that communities can have access to that information and we really want to understand the entire picture.”