This project explored the financial and non-financial burden of disadvantage across Australia.

This involved exploration of the key impacts of disadvantage, and a quantification of those costs where sufficient information, evidence and data existed to do so.

The purpose of this project was to design a service system response to address the needs of those that are economically inactive that want to work.

In designing the solution at a systems level and building off best and promising practice, the approach involved six key components. The components included:

• a system level governance model to support individuals with additional needs to access the wrap-around services required to reduce the barriers in securing employment.
• the establishment of a System Service Manager to build capacity at the local level to better support individuals seeking assistance.
• an intensive case management approach to support individuals in their journey to employment.
• a focus on working with employers to activate employment options suitable for people that are economically inactive at a local level.
• an emphasis on prevention to remediate the drivers that create economic inactivity.
• the development of a comprehensive data model to track and monitor performance at the individual, providers and systems level.

As governments moved from grant funding to new costing approaches associated with the commissioning of services, unit pricing models for support emerged.

As part of this process a range projects were undertaken to develop a costing and unit pricing models for community-based disability services. These projects all entailed:

• The establishing of a set of pricing principles to inform how prices were to be set.
• Development of definitions of units of service to be priced.
• A baseline cost analysis of providers over the preceding three years to understanding the costs drivers for services and to provide a comparative basis for assessing the various cost buckets that aggregated created the cost-of-service delivery.
• The development of a theoretical cost model drawing on the data collected from the baseline cost analysis to inform the potential funding envelope.
• Sensitivity analysis to assess pricing scenarios.
• Recommendations for implementation over and agreed time horizon.

Due to the complexity of these projects and the transformational impact of the change arising exhaustive stakeholder consultation was undertaken at each step of the process.

A comprehensive impact assessment was also undertaken from the perspectives of individual organisations, across and between regions and the sector as a whole.

The NSW Social & Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) was a major initiative of the NSW Government to secure the ongoing provision of social and affordable housing. The SAHF captures the delivery of new dwellings to be maintained and operated for 25 years and complimented by tailored support services that empower people to improve lives and achieve greater security and independence.

The Department of Communities and Justice working closely with NSW Treasury conducted two procurement processes through the SAHF, awarding nine contracts to secure access to over 3,400 additional social and affordable housing dwellings.

The projects involved the provision of lead bid advice to two separate Community Housing Providers (CHP’s) that were successfully awarded contracts under the SAHF Phase 1 and 2 respectively.

The advice covered every aspect of the bid proposal from bid strategy, bid management, site selection / property strategy, commercial and financial structuring, financial modelling, and capital arranging.

As part of this work private sector capital was organised to support construction and drive value-for-money outcomes through utilising optimal capital structures.

Improved policies and procedures were developed, following best-in-practice review, to inform the establishment of a commercial platform to provide future growth in housing.

This project delivered successful outcomes for both CHP clients through demonstration of ability to management highly complex bids within tight delivery timeframes.

Social impact funding opened a new pool of capital for investment in social services. Requiring detailed design and a rigorous performance management approach for investors to secure their returns, social impact investing has been used successfully in a number of initiatives that were not funded by government but had clear beneficial impact.

A range of projects were undertaken in the social impact sector to better leverage capital and financing from non-traditional sources for social service provision.

Key projects included:

• Evaluation of the first social impact bond trial in NSW
• Provision of advice to NFP organisations to secure social impact financing from private sector funders
• Development of the Leaving Care Social Impact Bond for Anglicare Victoria
• Development of a social impact bond readiness tool to assess an organisation ability to secure funding
• Provision of advice to support an adoptions benefit bond
• Evaluation of a Justice Reinvestment initiative

The project sought to redesign the end-to-end processes (application, award, contract, payments, reporting, and monitoring) for managing and funding non-profit organisations and education districts.

The scope included 500 State grant programs with total expenditures of US$24 billion per year across 30 state agencies.

Current grant programs experienced several challenges in their grant processes:

• 75% of grant contracts were executed late.
• The process was bureaucratic and burdensome for both State agencies and grantees.
• The State was receiving audit findings related to grant management.

The key project tasks included current state analysis, business process analysis, performance measures design and dashboard development, and strategies for technology optimisation. Supporting this was an implementation plan and roll out strategy.

In addition to a streamlined grants management approach and delivering significant costs savings, this new way of working enabled program professionals to spend more time on higher-value program activities and core mission rather than grant administration activities.