STATE
COMMISSIONING STRATEGY FOR COMMUNITY SERVICES
486. Ms M.M. QUIRK to the Minister for Finance:
I refer to the McGowan
Labor government's commitment to ensuring Western Australia has
high-quality community services that support our communities and help
improve the lives of the most vulnerable.
(1) Can the
minister advise the house what the state commissioning strategy will mean for
the procurement and delivery of community services in Western Australia?
(2) Can the minister outline how the strategy will
provide better outcomes for the Western Australian community?
Dr A.D. BUTI replied:
I would like
to thank the member for Landsdale for her question.
(1)–(2)
This is incredibly exciting. I know people
may not think that commissioning is exciting, but it is. On Tuesday, the
Minister for Community Services and I released the implementation strategy, State
commissioning strategy for community services: Implementation plan 2022–2024.
If members have not read it, I advise them to go to all good bookstores to
collect their copy.
The state commissioning strategy
takes a holistic, proactive and sustainable approach to delivering more
efficient and effective community services. It is the first strategy of its
type to ever be implemented in Western Australia. It seeks to ensure that we
deliver services in a manner that puts the client at the centre of the delivery
of services. It puts at the centre the community services that we are trying to
deliver. They are the prime target of this strategy that we have just released.
It is very transparent. It is holistic. It seeks to be coordinated and to look
at government agencies. It seeks to look at service providers, peak bodies,
consumer advocates and service uses when commissioning services. It looks at
the whole process. It looks at the processes of planning, purchasing, managing,
monitoring and evaluating services with the aim of ensuring that every
available dollar is allocated in an optimal manner.
This strategy will ensure that we
have a greater capability, capacity and flexibility in delivering services to
the community sector. It is also very agile to the needs of the community. The
strategy will seek to drive a fundamental shift in the delivery of community
services, such as meeting the needs of users at the right time and at the right location; being sustainable; being delivered
by organisations that meet the diverse needs of service users; being
evidence-based with robust quality standards; and being culturally safe and
tailored to the local community needs.
On
Tuesday, the Minister for Community Services; Prevention of Family and Domestic
Violence and I went along to the Centre for Women's Safety and
Wellbeing to launch the strategy. I would not be exaggerating to say that that organisation was very happy with
the strategy and very enthusiastic to be part of the launch. It has been
advocating an approach like this for some time. The organisation is a prime
example of what government is trying to do
with its own approach, being integrated and client-outcome focused. I commend
the strategy to the house. It will ensure we will deliver services in a manner
that is more efficient, more holistic and ensures that the people we are trying
to deliver to are the focus.