Measuring Outcomes for
Indigenous Australians
by Matthew James
Outline
• Six COAG Targets for closing the gaps in Indigenous outcomes
• Key building blocks to close the gaps
• Measuring the targets
• Reporting on targets at national & state/territory level
• Improvements in community level data
• Measuring Indigenous outcomes at program & project level
• Providing a “line of sight” between projects & the targets
COAG Targets for Closing the Gap
• Halve gap in mortality rates for children under 5 within a decade
• All 4 year olds in remote Indigenous communities have access to
early childhood education within 5 years
• Halve the gap in reading, writing & numeracy within a decade
• Halve the gap in year 12 or equivalent attainment by 2020
• Halve the gap in employment outcomes within a decade
• Close the life expectancy gap within a generation
The Building Blocks
Early Childhood
Health
Schooling
Healthy Homes
Safe Communities
Economic Participation
Governance and Leadership
Measuring the COAG Targets
• Measuring progress towards achieving the targets:
o specifying the indicators
o need for proxy measures
o progress measures
o selection criteria for indicators & measures
• Identifying data gaps for reporting on the targets
o Indigenous under-identification in administrative data sets
o inconsistencies in definitions across jurisdictions
o need for expenditure data
Framework for measuring progress – Examples for 2 of the targets:
Target
Indicator
Close the life expectancy gap
Halve the gap in year 12 or equivalent
within a generation
attainment by 2020
Estimated Life Expectancy at Birth
Proportion of 19 year olds completed
Y12 certificate or equivalent
Proxy
Mortality rates (& excess deaths)
Measure
Proportion of final year students that
receive a year 12 certificate or equivalent
Progress
Mortality rates (& excess deaths)
Retention rates Yr 7 to 8;
Measure
by leading causes
Attendance rates - Y1 to Y10
The Framework in Action
• Commonwealth payments to States:
o Indigenous-specific reforms via National Partnerships (eg
Indigenous Early Childhood Development)
o SPPs for mainstream services (eg education, health)
• National Reporting Framework
o Indigenous specific outcomes & indicators for all mainstream &
Indigenous specific reforms
o Data against performance indicators for mainstream service delivery
reported at national & jurisdictional level, by Indigenous status
Improvements in community level data
• NTER Monitoring Reports
o Improvements in sourcing community level data from all levels of
government administrative data sets (eg preventable
hospitalisations – reported by community for 1st time)
o use of Government Business Managers Surveys as innovative way
of collecting data on communities
• Baseline data for place based interventions & local planning
o
eg Baseline Community Profiles
Collecting Data at Community Level
• Variety of data collection methods eg GBMs, consultants, ICC staff
o broad, mainly quantitative profiles
o in-depth profiles including qualitative data & techniques
• Data collected directly from communities (eg NTER surveys)
• Supplemented by national & jurisdictional collections which
disaggregate at small area level (eg ABS Census; schooling)
• Comprehensive & standardised coverage of demographics, service
delivery, and outcomes
• Developing a single platform for collecting, reporting and sharing
Indigenous data and information
Measuring Indigenous Outcomes
at Program & Project level
• Review of FaHCSIA’s Standard Performance Framework for community
funded programs - to ensure mainstream access for Indigenous people is
adequately captured in reporting
o eg Family Relationship Services Program – reports # of registered
Indigenous clients against agreed targets for each service provider
• Review of Performance Indicators for Funding Agreements to improve
measurement of project performance & reduce red tape for Indigenous
funded organisations
Reporting on Projects
• FaHCSIA has been working with agencies to streamline the current
suite of several hundred performance indicators for reporting on
projects under funding agreements with Indigenous organisations
• Agencies will initially choose from a set of 10 generic indicators
focusing on 3 basic questions:
Efficiency - How much have we done?
Quality - How well have we done it?
Effectiveness - Did we achieve what we expected?
Reporting on Projects (cont)
Generic indicators tailored to suit each project (eg A Healthy for Life
Service)
Efficiency - How much have we done?
Eg. No of individual clients seen by the health service
Quality - How well have we done it?
Eg Antenatal clinic staffed by midwife operates minimum 20hrs/wk
Effectiveness - Did we achieve what we expected?
Eg 60% of Indigenous expectant mothers in the community attend at
least three antenatal clinics before giving birth
•Project manager should be able to say whether their project works
& how it is contributing to Indigenous outcomes
•When developing projects PIs, agencies need to show how the
project aligns with outcomes at higher levels
 Eg Healthy for Life Service contributes to:
Program objective – improve Indigenous child & maternal
health
Closing the gap
– in mortality rates for children under 5
– in life expectancy
Aligning Projects with Closing the Gap
Population Outcomes e.g.
Targets Indicators & measures
Whole of Government Policy
e.g. Building Blocks
Whole of Government Outcomes
eg OID Indicators
Agency Responsibilities
Program Objectives
Project Objectives
Aligned with
Population Objectives
e.g. Closing the Gaps Targets
Agency Performance Indicators
eg Annual report
Program Performance
Indicators eg PBS reporting
Project Performance
Indicators
What still needs to happen:
• Reporting should distinguish between ‘access’ & ‘take up rate’
(ie services available v’s Indigenous usage of services)
• Enhance collection of Indigenous status to report proportion of
Indigenous clients of mainstream services
• Improvements in Indigenous identification required in administrative &
survey data
• Indigenous people need to be encouraged to identify as Indigenous to
enable accurate reporting