BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of some of the Victorian Government’s key investments in relation to affordable living. For a quick summary of these specific Budget initiatives, click here.

The decision to make a universal Power Saving Bonus the headline Budget initiative on cost-of-living issues is an important recognition that times are tough for many Victorian households. However, the strengths and limitations of this payment are a salient reminder of some underlying and emerging household equity and wellbeing challenges at a state level.

Every dollar counts in a low-income household. So this $250 payment – which is conditional on accessing Victorian Energy Compare – will be welcome, along with any ongoing bill savings achieved by using the independent price comparison website.

Connecting the new cash payment to the Victorian Energy Compare tool, encouraging consumers to shop around, is smart policy, designed to maximise the public value of that existing market tool while also serving broad cost-of-living policy objectives. We are also pleased that the pre-budget announcement confirmed that households who have received a Power Saving Bonus payment in the past – including those who are still to access the current $250 payment for concession households – will be eligible again in 2022-23.

However, for households carrying significant COVID-era utility debts, even greater assistance is needed. In electricity alone, there are 16,495 households in Victoria who are receiving help from their retailers but nonetheless cannot afford ongoing usage. These household are currently in-arrears by an average of $1,916 (latest public data as of 26 December 2021). Consequently, VCOSS will continue to advocate for a flexible, cross-cutting and one-off “Utility Debt Demolition” payment of up to $2,000 for households that require additional targeted support. 

It is significant that the Budget announcements acknowledge the key role of community outreach partners and the importance of one-on-one assistance for Victorians experiencing vulnerability and who need help to navigate the energy market.

Prior to the Budget, VCOSS called on the Government to fund a comprehensive suite of ongoing independent energy advice services. These services are an important complementary measure to both the significant market fairness reforms in the last four years, and the major programs currently underway to upgrade heating and cooling appliances in low-income households. While those reforms and programs are key pieces in the affordability puzzle, the overall complexity and rapid changes in energy mean that “shopping around” for the best deal on electricity and gas will always be an unrealistic expectation for many households, and effective access to these essential services will inevitably require ongoing frontline community support.

In our view, the time for trials is over: rather than rushing to a short-term competitive tender for a new Energy Assistance Program, this next phase must build on past evaluations and include the community sector in a co-design process that establishes a collaborative platform that could be the basis for addressing this inevitable need. We also note that the Budget allocation of $4.5 million per year for two years includes maintenance of the Victorian Energy Compare website. It is vital that the Energy Assistance Program is adequately funded.

Sustained government investment in household-level support to help consumers to effectively navigate the retail markets for electricity and gas is important. However, these programs are not enough to address the deeper structural problems of household energy affordability. Low-income households spend a much greater share of their limited income on energy than other households, and so those that rely solely on retail providers are particularly at-risk from potential bill shocks from wholesale price rises. Shifting the dial on these underlying problems will likely require a combination of long-term strategies, including ongoing household energy efficiency and electrification (reducing the dual-fuel burden of two sets of retailer administration costs), and a targeted top-up energy concession for those who, at the current time, are “solar have-nots” (who are unable to avoid the impact of wholesale price changes).

the time for trials is over… this next phase must build on past evaluations and include the community sector in a co-design process that establishes a collaborative platform that could be the basis for addressing this inevitable need

Finally, beyond the immediate and emerging cost-of-living implications created by our energy system and its ongoing transition, there are other major state-level household challenges that impact on the overall affordable living picture for low-income Victorians. These include the hidden costs of school education, the unaffordability of private renting, and the ongoing challenge of food insecurity.

As highlighted by a recent 20 year review of data from the longitudinal Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, 13 per cent of Australians continue to experience persistent poverty. This has been exacerbated by COVID-19 and increases in the cost of living, including the recent interest rate rise, all of which are giving rise to additional demand pressures from sections of the community who have not previously required social assistance.

Food insecurity has emerged as a significant concern, with small food relief and emergency relief agencies and organisations unable to keep up with demand. Worryingly, some of these frontline community support providers are reducing vital services at the very time they are needed most, due to inadequate and insecure funding. Further Victorian Government funding is urgently needed to support frontline capacity and boost volunteering.

There is also a Commonwealth Government dimension to this. Beyond this State Budget, VCOSS will continue to call on all stakeholders to learn the key lesson from the real-world experience of the “2020 COVID fairytale”: that raising the ongoing rate of Commonwealth Government income support remains the single most important thing that could be done to substantially and permanently reduce poverty in Victoria. However, in the absence of that national investment, the state must use all the levers and resources at its disposal to support vulnerable Victorians – including the services who are on the frontline with them.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in climate change and climate equity. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the 2019-20 bushfires and severe storms have sorely tested Victoria, and building resilience to future stressors including climate change must be an ongoing priority.

Community organisations are key to building resilience and to supporting people and communities during a crisis. They have knowledge and skills that are vital during disasters, crucial in their aftermath, and essential to building community resilience. However, the full value of this sector is not being realised.

Prior to the pandemic, community organisations were struggling to reconcile increasing costs with inadequate funding and revenue. This has been exacerbated during COVID-19. Consequently, many community sector organisations are constrained in their capacity to undertake comprehensive emergency planning. Furthermore, as a consequence of short-term contracts, there is a lack of institutionalised knowledge and skills for emergency planning and preparedness.

Another challenge is that community sector organisations are typically overlooked in emergency planning, despite their strong connection with clients and local communities and their ability to provide critical information and services before, during and after extreme events.

While some funding toward emergency resilience has been provided in the Budget, it doesn’t go far enough in the current environment. VCOSS welcomes funding for the Food Relief Taskforce and pop-up food relief markets across metropolitan Melbourne and operational funding for six regional food hubs (Albury-Wodonga, Bendigo, Geelong, Mildura, Shepparton and Warrnambool). VCOSS also notes funding for volunteers in the SES and Surf Life Saving Victoria.

However, VCOSS had hoped to see additional investments, such as renewed funding for the eight Regional Ethnic Communities Councils to prioritise issues, coordinate resources and lead COVID recovery initiatives, and participate in regional incident teams for other emergencies. We note the Budget does include continuing COVID-19 support and recovery for Victorian communities and will be keen to see if this provides an opportunity to help sustain the regional councils.

VCOSS notes that the total spend on climate change next financial year is just $27.6 million, down from the $46.0 million spent in 2021-22. That is a 40 per cent decrease at a time when Victoria is feeling the impacts of climate change each year, and there is still a chance of reducing emissions quickly enough to limit global warming to 1.5^oC.

While some funding toward emergency resilience has been provided in the Budget, it doesn’t go far enough in the current environment.

The Budget could have provided funding to implement the seven Adaptation Action Plans, including the Health and Human Services plan, which sets out actions to help the community sector adapt to climate change. And Victorians experiencing disadvantage need more support to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, which reduces emissions but also helps people keep cool in summer and warm in winter without exorbitant energy bills.

The Budget also could have committed long-term funding to the Latrobe Valley Authority, which is helping the local economy transition from coal-fired power generation to new industries. While $7.5 million is welcome for 2022-23, we note that the transition could take decades and the community sector is concerned about residents’ social wellbeing.

On the plus side, the Budget does include a $26.3 million boost to the Solar Homes program so more households can receive subsidies for solar panels and batteries. The no-interest loan scheme is particularly useful for low-income homeowners, though work will be needed to boost uptake by landlords for their renters.

It is also promising that $7.7 million is being spent on creating two air quality precincts and reducing local air pollution. Victoria is home to three of Australia’s 12 air pollution hot spots so it is hoped that the precincts are established in the Latrobe Valley and western Melbourne where residents are most affected by dirty air.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in the community sector. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

It is crucial that the Government supports and adequately funds community service sector organisations so they can continue to provide vital services and support for all Victorians.

VCOSS notes the ongoing investment ($90.4 million/4 years) in supporting community sector organisations to meet the rising cost of wages and inflation.

The funding allocated in this Budget is not sufficient to fully cover the increasing financial pressures facing the community sector. Given the impact of the pandemic and other economic trends, this funding will not address the underlying, structural challenges facing the sector, including the recruitment, training and retention of community services workers. VCOSS continues to call for a workforce strategy that will inform and shape government investment in the sector going forward.

The Victorian Government must be fully transparent on the indexation formula used to fund the sector and to factor in the full costs of service delivery such as superannuation and portable long service leave. Indexation at 2.5 percent effectively means a cut for community service organisations, likely to lead to job losses and service reductions.

Volunteers are also fundamental to the operation of the community services sector and sustain a wide range of community and social service organisations. There is some welcome funding to support volunteers in emergency services including Life Saving Victoria and the SES but the Budget does not adequately provide for Victoria’s vital volunteer workforce. 

COVID-19 has decimated Victoria’s volunteer workforce, directly impacting organisations’ ability to deliver services. Funding is urgently needed to reinvigorate volunteering, including to support place-based volunteering services, help Volunteering Victoria build the capacity and capability of volunteer organisations, and to deliver a communications campaign to boost the volunteering sector.

Indexation at 2.5 percent effectively means a cut for community service organisations, likely to lead to job losses and service reductions.

The local labour market has never been tighter. The Budget provides welcome, record investment ($371.5 million/4 years) to continue to build the pipeline of workers required to deliver Victoria’s mental health reform agenda. However, finding a workforce to enable the mental health system’s expansion is going to be a significant challenge. There is a risk that the mental health system’s expansion may exacerbate workforce shortages in intersecting sectors, such as alcohol and other drugs, disability support, homelessness, family violence, child and family services, and aged care. That’s why VCOSS is calling for an overarching strategy to grow, sustain and skill all parts of the community services industry. This must include action to address the key structural barriers to workforce attraction and retention: insecure work and low and unequal pay.

In the meantime, VCOSS acknowledges the Government’s funding ($7 million/2 years) for a recruitment campaign and scholarships to help attract workers to the sector and improve employment pathways for people with lived experience of using social services.

The budget makes a mammoth investment in health infrastructure, particularly hospitals. VCOSS notes the need for equitable investment in community services infrastructure. Too many community services are operating out of ageing facilities that are no longer fit-for-purpose.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in the justice system. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

VCOSS has long advocated for prevention and early intervention approaches to stop people from becoming involved with the criminal justice system – that is, ensuring people have safe and stable housing, adequate incomes and can access health and social services in their communities to address issues that place them at risk of becoming criminalised.

The 2021-22 Budget introduced an early intervention investment framework (EIIF), which aims to reduce the budget pressures caused by reliance on acute and crisis services.

An additional 16 initiatives have been funded in the 2022-23 Budget, many of which will have a direct impact on people at risk of or involved with Victoria’s justice system, including:

• Legal assistance, comprising $50 million/2 years for Victoria Legal Aid and $7 million for community legal centres.
• $73.6 million/4 years for the “reducing justice system demand and keeping the community safe” package that comprises funding to continue effective programs including:
  • Continued operation of the Maribyrnong Community Residential Facility that provides housing and transition support to men leaving prison
  • Expanding the family visits support program
  • Enhanced rehabilitation and reintegration support services
  • Bolstering the Women and Mentoring Program
  • Improved oversight of high-risk offenders on Community Corrections Orders.
• $4.5 million for preventing youth crime through early intervention programs aimed at engaging young people in the community.

We welcome the Government’s recognition of the critical role of legal assistance in early intervention. However, VCOSS understands that the already modest funding for Victoria Legal Aid is not new money but is instead from their cash reserves. Further, it is unclear how the funding for community legal centres will be allocated, and given the ever-increasing demand for these services across Victoria it is unclear what impact such a modest amount will have on community legal service delivery. Looking ahead, we would like to see additional government revenue for VLA, and a sustainable funding model for community legal services to ensure access to justice for Victorians experience disadvantage.

The other initiatives funded under the EIIF are sensible to improve justice system responses. However, this Budget again misses the opportunity to adopt a justice reinvestment strategy.

Under a justice reinvestment strategy, partners (including government) make longer-term investments in long-term change. Decisions and action are underpinned by new forms of community governance and funding structures. There is a strong focus on communities owning and controlling data and using that data to determine which interventions will deliver the best social and economic return on investment for their community. 

While there is $0.6 million provided in this Budget for data integration to support the EIIF to measure the benefits of the Government’s approach, it is not yet clear whether this data will be publicly available – under a justice reinvestment strategy, systems could be established to ensure that shared learning and evidence can be derived from place-based programs.

VCOSS continues to advocate for the adoption of a wellbeing approach to budgeting, which would assist the state to address risk factors for criminalisation at the population level.  

Under a justice reinvestment strategy, partners (including government) make longer-term investments in long-term change. Decisions and action are underpinned by new forms of community governance and funding structures.

The recent Inquiry into Victoria’s Criminal Justice Systemacknowledges thelink between socioeconomic disadvantage and increased risk of criminalisation and victimisation, and makes a number of recommendations aimed at prioritising early intervention and providing social supports to divert people away from the system.

This Budget provides welcome investments in a range of initiatives that respond to some of the long-standing justice system issues found in the Inquiry, including:  

• $5.9 million/3 years to expand the highly successful Assessment and Referral Court and provide therapeutic responses to persons with mental illness and/or cognitive impairment.  
• $11 million/2 years to provide a range of pre-court and case management programs in the Magistrates and County Courts.
• $39.5 million/4 years to establish a new financial assistance scheme for victims of crime, and $13.3 million/4 years to provide a range of supports to improve responses to victims of sexual violence and harm.
• $2.5 million to provide aged care health services for people in prison, and $35.9 million/2 years to improve integration between state services and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

VCOSS looks forward to the Victorian Government’s response to the Inquiry and future investment in criminal justice reform that prevents people from becoming criminalised in the first place, as well as ensuring people leave the justice system for good.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in housing and homelessness. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

Off the back of a record $3.5 billion investment in the family violence system since Victoria’s landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015, the 22-23 Budget continues the commitment to supporting family violence services and systems reform, with an additional $240 million.

This includes funding to build new refuge and crisis accommodation, invest in crisis case management and therapeutic support, deliver perpetrator intervention programs (including building the evidence base around what works), expand the Central Information Point and better support victims of sexual violence and harm.

VCOSS is pleased to see that this Budget has delivered an uplift in funding to support crisis case management, and funding to support Sexual Assault Services Victoria. However, we note that a sustainable funding increase is needed in the specialist family violence sector to ensure that services can respond to both increased demand and complexity of cases.

VCOSS also welcomes the increase in funding to support 12 women’s health services across Victoria (including new funding for Women with Disabilities) and support for sexual and reproductive health services. This funding will enable more Victorian women to access the medical and health services they need. It also addresses increased gender inequity across the Victorian healthcare system arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, readdresses systemic underfunding of this part of the sector and aligns with VCOSS’ budget submission.

VCOSS was particularly pleased to see the impact of the new Gender Responsive Budgeting Unit in the Department of Treasury and Finance. This year’s Gender Equality Budget Statement demonstrated real progress towards implementing gender responsive budgeting in Victoria, including discussing how gender impact assessments have occurred across new policy programs (e.g., Head Start and Events Recovery and Support) to help refine the program design and improve gender outcomes. 

We were pleased to see that gender responsive budgeting will be embedded in Victorian legislation to ensure that an equality lens is applied to all future budget processes, and that the Budget affirms the intention that, over time, gender analysis will be applied to every stage of the policy making process – from identifying budget priorities, through to policy design, decision making, implementation and evaluation.

There is a continued need for a greater focus on primary prevention of family violence, including strong investment in Respect Victoria. Whilst we welcome the boost in funding to women’s health services and the Elder Abuse Prevention Networks, VCOSS has long advocated for an increase in funding for family violence prevention from 3 per cent to at least 10 per cent of the total family violence budget, as we believe that this will produce long lasting benefits for the Victorian community in helping stop violence before it starts. Unlike previous years, this Budget did not contain any new funding pools for primary prevention projects.  

VCOSS has long advocated for an increase in funding for family violence prevention from 3 per cent to at least 10 per cent of the total family violence budget

VCOSS welcomes the continued investment in the Equal Workplaces Advisory Council and its focus on undertaking research and providing advice on issues relating to pay equity, equality and productivity in Victorian workplaces. We look forward to seeing the recommendations of the Inquiry into Economic Equity for Women, which was established last year to find solutions for problems such as unequal pay and workplace barriers to women’s success. We note that the Victorian Government has a number of levers at its disposal to effect transformational change for workers in the community services industry – the state’s largest industry based on employment, in which women make up 83.5 per cent of the workforce. Government funding has a direct impact on wages, conditions and the length of employment contracts. We believe that more can be done to advance gender equality and improve pay equity in the sector.

The Budget recognises the increased pressure on child and family services and provides funding to bolster capacity in key parts of the system. We welcome the announcement of $57.6 million over three years to meet increasing demand for targeted and specialised family services and support for up to 1,000 additional vulnerable families. This funding also includes the introduction of a carer help-desk dedicated to assisting carers and providing them with support to acquire a range of essential documents and services for the children and young people in their care.

However, there remains a gap in the funding required to support volunteer foster carers. Despite rising cost of living pressures and the large number of carers exiting the system, there has been no increase or indexation to the Carer Allowance since 2016. VCOSS looks forward to working with Government on this important issue.  

VCOSS would also like to see additional funding provided to expand high-quality evidence-based programs, such as SafeCare, Functional Family Therapy and Caring Dads.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in early childhood education, schools and skills. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

Early childhood education

This Budget continues to embed nation-leading early childhood education reforms. It includes continuing funding for existing programs, such as the roll-out of universal access to three-year-old kindergarten – a life-changing investment for Victorian children.

This investment is complemented by continued investment in state-wide delivery of four-year-old kindergarten.  

The 2022 Budget provides clearer line of sight to a number of cohort-specific initiatives – for example, this year’s budget itemises investments to improve outcomes for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, expand the Kindergarten Fee Subsidy, and continue programs like Access to Early Learning. (These items were previously captured under broader headlines.)

While this Government has a clear commitment to early learning, there is more work to be done to improve participation and outcomes for children with disability. VCOSS members consistently highlight barriers to early childhood education for this cohort, and the flow-on effects of this inequity across the life course.

For example, while this Budget provides funding of $4 million per year over four years for the Kindergarten Inclusion Support program (offered in both three- and four-year-old kindergarten), the papers show it will only support 600 children in the 2022-23 financial year. That’s less than 1 per cent of the number of children anticipated to attend four-year-old kindergarten alone.

We acknowledge that some children will receive support from the Commonwealth’s Inclusion Support Program and that other significant state reforms like School Readiness Funding also benefit children with developmental delay and disability. However, given recent data from the Australian Early Development Census (which found that the number of children with disability rose from 4.6 per cent in 2018 to 5.2 per cent in 2021, and that teachers reported that children needing further assessment rose from a whopping 13.3 per cent to 16.3 per cent across the same period), we are concerned that the current level of investment in early childhood education inclusion programs may not be enough to meet hidden demand.

VCOSS members are also pointing to new and emerging issues, such as an increase in the number of children presenting in early childhood education with complex behaviours related to their experiences of COVID-19. 

This national data, paired with local insights from Victorian community sector organisations, indicates that additional resources are required to support the full participation of all children with disability in two years of high-quality early learning before school. 

As we look ahead to the state election, we are keen to explore other measures to increase the take-up of kindergarten amongst all children and opportunities to reinvigorate playgroups.

Schools

Two main themes emerged from this year’s schools’ budget – investment in a high-quality teaching workforce and significant senior secondary reform that will create a VCE Vocational Major stream and Victorian Pathways Certificate in place of VCAL.

Government’s hope is that these major reforms will change the lay of the land for senior secondary school students, driving up engagement and school completion by removing the stigma of vocational and applied learning, ensuring a minimum offering of core VET subjects and enabling students to pursue whatever combination of subjects reflects their interests and meets their needs. These investments are welcome and include the state-wide roll-out of Head Start, which will give all government secondary students the opportunity to complete an apprenticeship or traineeship while completing school.

Interestingly, Government has packaged a number of initiatives under its Early Intervention Investment Framework that we think are great, but could be even better if they intervened even earlier. Government can ramp up or build on current initiatives by:

• Increasing Navigator funding to support students before they’ve missed more than 70 per cent of school. 
  Funding in this Budget will significantly increase the number of students receiving Navigator support to reengage in school. It also funds a pilot program for students as young as 10 or 11 – a welcome response to years of advocacy from VCOSS and the sector. But we know we can achieve even greater impact by supporting students sooner with additional resources.

• Formally declaring digital devices, school uniforms and other hidden costs as an essential part of the standard curriculum and funding schools to provide these items to all students.
  The Victorian community sector’s research and advocacy has consistently highlighted school costs as a major barrier to student participation and learning. Key investments in this year’s Budget are a great start – VCOSS particularly welcomes funding to cover the cost of essential learning materials in VET studies, the introduction of a 30-day travel pass for students in crisis, and the International Student Travel pass. But what better way to celebrate 150 years of free, public education than by removing hidden school costs and preventing students from being excluded or risking disengaging because they can’t afford to fully participate in school life.

• Speeding up the roll-out of the Disability Inclusion Package.
  This significant reform will give students with disability access to a high-quality education. The only catch is that the roll-out is five years, meaning many current students will finish school without the benefit of those supports, impacting their post-school pathways.

• Starting the Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Strategy earlier – at the end of primary school or start of secondary school – so students don’t have to wait until Year 9 to access the individual supports they need to boost their literacy and numeracy skills.

Training and skills

In recent years the Victorian Government has invested significant funding to bolster Victoria’s vocational education and training system, placing TAFE as the centrepiece in government reform. To support the continuing revitalisation of the system, this Budget invests $83 million in strategic initiatives that will drive greater coordination and efficiency across the network. Government’s agenda also emphasises TAFE network collaboration.  

To build on these initiatives and give Victorians the best chance at finding the right training pathway, Government should also strengthen the relationship between the TAFE network and the state’s Learn Local sector. Learn Locals deliver adult and community education that engages disadvantaged learners and sets them up for later success in TAFE. However, the sector is constrained by inadequate funding. Looking ahead, the Government should introduce a sustainable funding model for Learn Local providers.

This Budget invests $10.4 million to strengthen the community services workforce. A component of this funding is for scholarships to increase education and training pathways for under-employed cohorts and those with lived experience who have interacted with social services. This is a valuable contribution to building the lived experience workforce. Additionally, this kind of support is a tangible example of how government can help to remove or reduce peripheral costs associated with study that might otherwise be a barrier to study for students on low incomes. VCOSS welcomes this investment. Down the track, we would like to see more scholarships for other groups of disadvantaged learners. Additional investment in the TAFE system to deliver more wrap-around support to students at risk of disengagement, including literacy and numeracy support, would also boost completion rates and support Government’s significant investment in the Free TAFE initiative.

Following the Parliamentary Inquiry into access to TAFE for learners with disability, this Budget makes a welcome first step by investing in an audit of all TAFE campuses to ensure people with disability can access training and skills. We hope to see the recommendations from this inquiry fully funded and implemented as Government considers its response to the report. In particular, we would like to see a dedicated funding stream to meet the needs of learners with disability and resourcing to strengthen the transition process into TAFE.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in employment and sector workforce. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

Victoria’s employment growth is strong, with unemployment at 4 per cent and regional unemployment at 3.2 per cent. We are pleased to see that up to mid-April 2022, of all the people helped into employment by the Jobs Victoria Fund, 63 per cent were women. The Fund’s initial target was to pay 60 per cent of wage subsidies to women, so it is a positive development to see that this investment has delivered greater gender equity outcomes. This demonstrates the value in setting targets to guide funding decisions. 

VCOSS advocated in our State Budget Submission for further investment in the Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund, which focuses on investing in priority economic development projects and community-led responses to social and economic challenges in rural and regional Victoria. We are pleased to see that this Fund will receive funding for a further year.

We know that employment figures don’t always tell the full story, so we continue to advocate for policy measures and programs that wrap support around disadvantaged jobseekers who continue to be locked out of opportunity in the labour market even in ‘good times’ – especially older women, people with disabilities, early school leavers and Victorians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

VCOSS welcomes funding in this year’s Budget to support the Career Pathways into Employment for Unpaid Carers program, which delivers tailored employment support for carers and creates pathways into jobs in the disability, community services and aged care sectors. 

We are also pleased that the Budget provides funding for the First Jobs program, which VCOSS advocated for in our submission. This program helps support secondary and post-secondary students living in public housing, who need assistance to find their first job ever, or their first job in their field of study. We eagerly await details of the quantum and scope of funding.

We know that employment figures don’t always tell the full story, so we continue to advocate for policy measures and programs that wrap support around disadvantaged jobseekers who continue to be locked out of opportunity in the labour market even in ‘good times’

Despite significant progress being made in reducing Victoria’s unemployment rate and regional unemployment rate, youth unemployment is currently double the general population at around 9.6 per cent. VCOSS would like to see the State Government commit to a Youth Guarantee, ensuring that all young Victorians under 24 years old receive an offer of employment, education or an apprenticeship/traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. This will require a suite of measures and refinements to current policies across employment, education and apprenticeships/training in order to increase engagement and participation, and improve completion rates.

Funding has also been provided to continue the implementation of the Government’s response to the Inquiry into the Victorian On-Demand Workforce. This includes provision of support services for on-demand workers, including advice in relation to their entitlements and work status and administration of the Fair Conduct and Accountability Standards.

While VCOSS is pleased to see that nearly $250 million has been allocated for the two-year pilot of the Sick Pay Guarantee, which will support over 150,000 workers in highly casualised and insecure positions, we would like to see this expanded to support more casual workers in the community services sector. Currently the Fund supports workers in retail, hospitality, cleaning, security and aged and disability care. 

Looking ahead, we are also keen to see greater investment in the care economy, as an engine room for jobs growth, including lived experience workforces.

Pre-COVID, many community service organisations struggled to secure enough new workers to fill vacancies. Workforce shortages were particularly acute in regional areas. These workforce pressures have been exacerbated by COVID-19, with exponential growth in demand for social assistance. This represents a major existential challenge for the community services industry – and government.

While this Budget contains welcome, record investment to grow the state’s mental health workforce, VCOSS’ State Budget Submission made the case for Victorian Government investment in an overarching community services industry workforce strategy[DF1]  that enables all parts of the system to grow and develop their workforces. 

The community services industry is one of Victoria’s largest employers of women. VCOSS eagerly awaits the final report of the Government’s Inquiry into Economic Equity for Victorian Women and implementation of recommendations that support women’s participation, including leadership. 

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in health, mental health, alcohol and other drugs, and oral health. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

The theme of the Victorian Government’s 2022-23 Budget is ‘Putting Patients First’, and it’s certainly a bonanza for the health system, which has been put to the test during COVID-19.

With ‘pandemic repair’ a key priority, this Budget makes a mammoth investment in measures to grow and develop the health workforce (nurses and midwives, paramedics, allied health staff, Triple-Zero call takers and dispatchers, and other healthcare roles) and provides funding to increase surgical activity across Victoria to record volumes, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 25 per cent. This is coupled with a significant future-focused infrastructure program.

Running alongside this is substantial funding for mental health, to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.  This includes record investment in the mental health workforce – $371.5 million over four years–to continue to build the pipeline of workers required to deliver the reforms.

This is important, welcome investment – supply and capability are fundamental to delivering the Royal Commission reform agenda. These jobs will span all parts of the mental health service system, including mental health and wellbeing services delivered by community sector organisations. However, the local labour market has never been tighter. The sector has noted that finding a workforce to enable the mental health system’s expansion is going to be a significant challenge.

There is a risk that the mental health system’s expansion may exacerbate workforce shortages in intersecting sectors, such as alcohol and other drugs, disability support, homelessness, family violence, child and family services, and aged care. That’s why VCOSS will continue to advocate to government for an overarching strategy to grow, sustain and skill all parts of the community services industry. This must include action to address the key structural barriers to workforce attraction and retention: insecure work and low and unequal pay.

The Mental Health Royal Commission also identified the value of lived experience. Consumer peak bodies (such as VMIAC and Tandem) have highlighted the need to ensure that the record investment in the mental health workforce includes an equitable focus on supporting the growth and development of the lived experience workforce.

Another area identified as missing from an otherwise very positive budget for mental health is prevention. For example, the sector has noted housing as a protective factor (and as central to support and recovery). However, this year’s Budget is silent on this area of significant need. Though the nation-leading Big Housing Build is making a positive investment in 2,000 new supported housing homes for people living with mental illness, the sector says this quantum will not be sufficient to meet demand and is seeking additional growth beyond the current four-year program.

While many of the big attention-grabbing investments in health and mental health are at the pointy end of the health system – for example, hospitals – this Budget does make some excellent investments in community-based health care, including healthcare in the home. (Refer to VCOSS’ list of significant initiatives, such as ‘Better at Home’, here. We are particularly thrilled that the investment in public health and local place-based delivery includes $19.4m over two years for women’s health services, a doubling of their previous budget.)

Victoria’s community health services will be key to delivering many of the 2022-23 Budget commitments.  This is a sector that has been on the frontline of Victoria’s response to COVID-19. Government has relied heavily on community health services to provide public health information, primary healthcare and social assistance to people who are socially or economically disadvantaged and have complex care needs or limited access to appropriate healthcare. They stepped up to provide COVID testing and vaccination to Victorians who otherwise faced barriers to accessing essential health information and services.

But – as VCOSS noted in our State Budget Submission – the celebratory stories about community health’s impact have concealed an ugly truth – the sector is struggling with inadequate funding and infrastructure.

While this Budget includes some welcome extensions of funding that will assist community health services to meet local demand (including pent-up demand and new and emerging demand) and provide targeted support to vulnerable and at-risk cohorts and communities, the community health sector needs an increase in core funding for its ‘business as usual’ activities, as well as longer-term funding contracts.

We also continue to call for an increase in core funding for Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) – including ACCHOs – to meet rising demand for services, including in the growth corridors of Ballarat, Ararat and the Surf Coast, and to address the sustainability of the Aboriginal Community Controlled sector more broadly. This Budget contains significant funding for health infrastructure – some of this funding should be quarantined to fund the completion of Infrastructure Master Plans across the Aboriginal health sector.

Another area of concern is access to oral health. While the Budget includes some investment to increase the capacity of ‘Smile Squad’ (additional specialist dental treatment), it does not deliver on the more ambitious agenda set out in VCOSS’ budget submission.

There is an urgent need for the Victorian Government to address major backlogs and gaps in the provision of public dental health. The Victorian Oral Health Alliance reports there are 1.5 million Victorian adults eligible for public dental care, but only 175,000 were treated in the year to June 2021 (11.6 per cent, or equivalent to treatment every 8.5 years). In June 2021, the average wait for non-emergency public dental was 22.7 months. There were more than 154,000 people on waiting lists. While the pandemic has exacerbated wait lists, timely access to public dental is a long-standing issue.

This negatively affects quality of life for low-income Victorians, and has direct and indirect impacts on the Victorian economy. For example, poor oral health is associated with other health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, hepatitis C, and pancreatic and oral cancers, as well as lost productivity.

We need the Victorian Government to invest in a catch-up program in community clinics and set in train longer-term changes to the funding model, to increase access to public dental care for low-income Victorians and support a greater focus on prevention, in line with the Victorian Government’s Early Intervention Investment Framework.

Victoria’s community health services will be key to delivering many of the 2022-23 Budget commitments.  This is a sector that has been on the frontline of Victoria’s response to COVID-19.

Another area that presents opportunity for greater investment is the alcohol and other drugs space. The Budget provides welcome funds for a new mental health and alcohol and other drugs residential rehabilitation facility in Mildura, mental health and alcohol and other drugs emergency department hubs in regional Victoria, and an additional $10 million for the Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs Facilities Renewal Fund. However, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA), has identified an overall cut of $39 million in service funding to 2021-22 revised budget figures for alcohol and other drug treatment and prevention. The sector is concerned this will negatively impact treatment and prevention services that support people experiencing substance dependence.

Additionally, VCOSS notes that VACCHO has been calling for the establishment of Aboriginal community controlled residential AOD detox and rehabilitation facilities. This investment is needed, as an adjunct to the decriminalisation of public drunkenness.

In our State Budget Submission, VCOSS noted that in September 2021 there were 3,599 Victorians waiting for treatment on any given day – a 50 per cent increase in just one year. When people cannot access treatment voluntarily, they risk being pushed into the forensic system. This puts additional pressure on the service system – and is out of step with the Government’s Early Intervention Investment Framework. 

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in wellbeing approaches. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

VCOSS has been advocating for Victoria to become a wellbeing economy. In our State Budget Submission, we called for a formal declaration in the budget papers that future Victorian budgets will take a wellbeing approach for funding initiatives and for immediate funding to develop a Wellbeing Framework that captures communities’ unique needs and goals.

The 2022-23 State Budget includes an Early Intervention Investment Framework (EIIF), which commits $504 million for 16 initiatives including ‘Sustaining student mental health services for schools’ and ‘Supporting community legal centres’. The EIIF was introduced in the 2021-22 Budget to fund programs that reduce usage of acute services and to measure the resulting savings.

Two aspects of the EIIF that bear similarities to wellbeing approaches implemented internationally are the focus on participant outcomes and the pool of funding for programs that meet specific goals. The Budget also includes $0.6 million for data collection so the benefits from early interventions can be accurately measured, which is comparable to using wellbeing indicators to track progress and ensure a wellbeing approach is working.

The EIIF is a solid start but there are key components of wellbeing economies that are missing. For example, a Wellbeing Framework would be developed after thorough consultation with the community and be published publicly to improve transparency and buy-in. The EIIF was created within the bureaucracy and is still only accessible for departmental representatives.

A Wellbeing Framework would also state a set of holistic priorities matched with desired outcomes that the whole of government would be tasked with progressing collaboratively through new and innovative ideas. This is in contrast to early intervention, which describes an approach rather than an outcome.

The EIIF is a solid start but there are key components of wellbeing economies that are missing.

As an example, one of the initiatives funded under the EIIF is ‘Investing to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring’. Although $51.3 million for reforming the specialist homelessness service system is welcome, in a wellbeing economy this would be just one of a suite of holistic measures across government to address homelessness, including building new social housing, improving housing affordability, and reforming land tax.

There are countless initiatives in the State Budget (outside the EIIF) that would form part of a wellbeing economy. The word ‘wellbeing’ appears 90 times in Budget Paper 3 – Service Delivery, which shows that Victorians’ wellbeing is front of mind for the Victorian Government. It is time to package these initiatives in a coherent way and imbue the budget with priorities linked to what Victorians care about most.

VCOSS has been undertaking a Listening Tour around Victoria. This has uncovered common challenges being felt across the state, such as financial insecurity, access to safe, affordable and fit-for-purpose housing, loneliness, and digital access. These wellbeing priorities would be an excellent start, while deepening the consultation, building upon the EIIF and developing a Victorian Wellbeing Framework for future budgets.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This is a long-form analysis of the Victorian Government’s investments in housing and homelessness. For a quick summary of specific Budget program expenditure in this space click here.

The 2020-21 Budget investments in housing and homelessness initiatives have been a tough act to follow.

That Budget introduced a nation-leading $5.3b Big Housing Build (BHB) investment into social and affordable housing, and a program that effectively halved rough sleeping in Victoria – Homelessness to a Home (H2H).  

These investments coincided with the introduction of significant housing policy reforms, including new rights for renters enacted in 2021 through changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997.  For current and prospective social housing renters there is also the promise of contemporary regulation and support via the Social Housing Regulation Review and the development of the Ten-Year Strategy for Social and Affordable Housing (the Ten-Year Strategy) respectively.  

This Budget provides sensible funding for essential initiatives to stay on track with this ambitious reform agenda, including:  

• $51.3m for specialist homelessness service system reform, to prioritise prevention, early intervention and housing stability reforms. We understand this includes welcome funding for intake assessment and planning workers in Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.  
• $42.2m over four years for expansion and upgrade of the family violence refuge and crisis accommodation network, as well as for new supported housing models.  

• $21m for additional VCAT members, building on funding to make technological improvements to VCAT in the 2021-22 Budget. Access to VCAT is an important part of delivering the Fairer, Safer Housing reforms for Victorian renters – this additional funding will go some way towards addressing the massive VCAT backlogs renters face due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions and demand for hearings. 

However, the 2022-23 Budget could have gone further to ensure that all Victorians have safe, stable and affordable homes. 

This Budget has essentially cut funding for H2H delivery by 80%. H2H has been a highly successful program using a Housing First approach to support people sleeping rough or experiencing chronic homelessness into permanent housing. The cut to this funding is disappointing for current participants as well for the prospect of permanently embedding Housing First in the specialist homelessness sector across Victoria.   

The Budget papers indicate that average wait times for public housing are over 12 months, even for those on the priority access category, and we know there are still 100,000 Victorians waiting for social housing on the Victorian Housing Register.  

While the 9,000 new community homes being built under the BHB are much needed and most welcome, to address these demand pressures we need a sustained pipeline of new social housing growth over the next 10 years.  

the 2022-23 Budget could have gone further to ensure that all Victorians have safe, stable and affordable homes. 

The proposed social housing levy would have provided much-needed revenue to invest in new social housing, and its ultimate demise – as a consequence of fierce opposition from developers and investor lobbyists – is disappointing. We welcome an initial $2.2m of funding to make an additional $1b of low interest loans and government guarantees available for community housing agencies for cheaper debt. But direct capital investment in new social housing, in particular new public housing, is still needed.  

The sector has been anticipating both the launch of the Ten-Year Strategy and the Government response to the Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria, which we expect to provide the strategic direction and investment framework for social housing growth as well as the supports people need to access and maintain housing.  

VCOSS continues to advocate for the adoption of a wellbeing approach to budgeting, which is well suited to guide the structural change needed to ensure that all Victorians have safe, stable and affordable homes.  

This approach would invest in initiatives across government such as reforming planning and building laws, rethinking land tax, building new social housing, addressing housing affordability, supporting financial wellbeing, and embedding strong tenancy rights in all types of housing, as well as the range of health and social supports to address issues that place people at risk of housing insecurity and homelessness.