Taken from our funding body’s submission to the Senate inquiry into disability purchasing”
“The DES Star Rating system measures the relative performance of providers by comparing job seeker engagement and achievement of outcomes. The Star Ratings take into account the disability type, service requirements of participants, labour market conditions, job seeker characteristics and other factors to ensure a fair and consistent approach in comparing performance.
The DES Star Ratings are a relative not absolute measure. The lack of a competitive tender process to this point means that there can be no certainty or confidence that ‘relative average’ represents the best outcomes or services for people with disability.While the performance framework can compare existing services to each other, it does not substitute for a competitive tender by comparing an existing market to a potential future market. Optimal performance requires both mechanisms”.
You can read the whole thing here (no47): http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/disability_employment/submissions.htm
Is it flawed?
You betcha!
“The Star Ratings take into account the disability type, service requirements of participants, labour market conditions, job seeker characteristics and other factors”
Where’s wages earned?
Where’s independence from welfare and individual independence?
Not here – and why not?
because the increased numbers that are the Department’s stated goal require service providers to cream off the most able job seekers and encourages services to find casual positions of little real worth.
The submission states that this system has been in operation since 1999 (like that’s a good thing) – has anyone questioned the coincidence of this system with the casualisation of our workforce and the concomitant lack of job security?
2 part time (8hr) positions don’t equal 1 38 hour a week integrating, independence promoting real job that empowers a person with a disability to fully integrate into the community of taxpayers.
This submission is riddled with inaccuracy and misleading nonsense such as: “Competitive tendering offers incentives for providers to better their performance, leading to more outcomes for jobseekers”.
No it doesn’t.
Experience here and overseas shows it leads to the creation of an industry to ‘beat’ the ratings. Providers are encouraged to seek which ‘outcomes’ gain the biggest reward and a race to the bottom begins. It brings about 'creaming' of the most able applicants and causes the creation of numerous part time and casual positions.
Another: “However, the existing ‘capped’ stream was not subject to tender. Nineteenof the current 207 DES-ESS providers entered the market as a result of this tender in 2006”.
Fallacious and designed to mislead (I accept the raw numbers are accurate). These 19 providers which included predominately overseas and local ‘for profits’, received approximately 50% of the available business and have been exporting Australian taxpayers money ever since. Despite assurances from DEEWR (then DEWR) and the then Minister, many programs were wound up and lots of skilled staff left the industry.
(Side Point: NOVA doubled in size)
Australians who have a disability are amongst our most vulnerable groups. Again, this submission demonstrates fundamental misunderstandings about the needs of such individuals and risks exposing the most exposed of these to a real reduction in services.
Maybe its telling you something when the only 'pro' voices are a foreign owned for profit and a funding body that will see a reduction in its own labour needs.
Do I have an alternative?
Absolutely!
License disability employment services against the Disability Service Standards and a 'pass' against the annual Quality Assurance audit. Remove the ridiculous geographical boundaries and reward services for a reduction in welfare dependency. Measure the outcomes through cooperation with Human Services.
Watch that work for the improvement of people who have a disability
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