Background

In June 2005, the then Australian Government announced the new family law system reforms as part of its response to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs' report, Every Picture Tells a Story. The reforms, described by the Government as ‘the biggest investment in the family law system ever and the most significant changes to family law in 30 years', were designed to support a new approach that helped prevent family separation, but where separation did occur, encourage parents to agree on what was best for their children outside of the court system. In the 2005–06 Commonwealth Budget, $397 million was provided over four years for the implementation of the new family law system.

A centrepiece of the family law reforms was the establishment of 65 Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) across Australia at a cost of $199 million over four years. The FRC initiative is jointly administered by the Attorney-General's Department (AGD) and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).

FRCs were expected to provide an entry point into the family law system, delivering services to families through the provision of:

• information and referral services on parenting and relationships to intact families; and
• information, referral, advice, and dispute resolution services to separating and separated families to help them reach agreement on parenting arrangements without the need to go to court.

To provide national coverage and equitable access to families, 65 locations in metropolitan and regionalreas were chosen for the new FRCs. Service providers to operate the FRCs were selected following three public tender processes in 2006 (15 centres), 2007 (25 centres) and 2008 (25 centres).

Audit objective

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the selection, implementation, operation and monitoring of FRCs by AGD and FaHCSIA. The three main criteria for this audit assessed whether AGD and FaHCSIA had effectively:

• planned and implemented the FRC initiative, including the FRC selection and funding processes;
• undertaken administration activities to guide the operation and progress of the FRC initiative towards meeting its objectives; and
• monitored, evaluated and reported on the performance of FRCs.

Overall conclusion

The FRC initiative was a centrepiece of the new family law system, attracting just over 50 per cent of the funding allocated to the reform package. FRCs represented a shift in the approach to assisting families and were designed to be a visible first port of call for those families seeking information, referral or dispute resolution services. In the event of separation, FRCs were expected to help avoid, where possible, the need for court intervention in reaching agreement on parenting arrangements.

With the Business Partnership Agreement (BPA) as its basis, AGD and FaHCSIA established a governance framework for the administration of the initiative; enabling the selection and roll-out of the 65 FRCs through three tender rounds between 2006 and 2008. FRCs commenced operations within the expected timeframes and overall funding parameters of the policy, with the centres from each round opening in July¹of the respective years. This achievement by both the departments and the providers was particularly significant given FRCs were a new initiative providing national coverage. The departments effectively assisted the FRC providers to meet the often tight establishment deadlines, as well as the policy's requirements for the layout, appearance and branding of the centres.

While the departments successfully initiated the establishment of the 65 FRCs, there were some notable gaps in the selection, implementation and ongoing administration and performance monitoring phases. These gaps, particularly in the performance monitoring component, have limited the ability to assess the success, or otherwise, of the FRC network in achieving its objectives and delivering a value-for-money outcome.

The processes supporting the selection of locations and providers were largely undertaken by AGD in consultation with FaHCSIA. Some parts of these processes could have been better documented to provide greater transparency around recommendations and decisions. This included outlining a clear methodology for the selection of FRC locations and detailing the relevant funding information in the documentation provided to the Attorney-General on which the decisions for the selection of providers were based.

As part of the implementation phase, departments developed a plan to support the timely and successful roll-out of the centres. Within this, a risk management register was developed by AGD that identified key risks and mitigation strategies. The effectiveness of this register was limited, however, due to the absence of a program for the ongoing monitoring and assessment of risks and risk mitigation strategies.

FaHCSIA, as the department with primary responsibility for the day-to-day administration of the FRC initiative, has developed systems and procedures to support this role. These systems include a performance framework, based on the one used for other FRSP services, which was developed at the outset of the initiative and formed part of the funding agreements. The effectiveness of the administrative systems and procedures, including the performance framework, has been limited by a number of factors, including:

• the absence of a common approach to collection and storage of compliance and performance documentation;
• data integrity issues with the key data collection system, FRSP Online; and
• a lack of key performance indicators to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of FRCs in delivering services to families.

This has resulted in limited analysis by departments of important matters such as the overall success of the initiative, and the demand for particular aspects of the FRC service offering (the importance of this analysis increases in circumstances where the available data demonstrates little correlation between the funding provided to an FRC and the number of client contacts²).

In June 2009, FaHCSIA issued revised guidelines for FRSP which included a new performance framework and KPIs.³ Of the 16 KPIs identified for FRCs in the new framework, 13 are common to all services within FRSP, with the remaining three being FRC specific. The new performance framework is a positive development in being able to assess the performance of individual FRCs. Nevertheless, the success of the new framework is reliant on the consistent and accurate collection of data, and the identification of data sources and definitions for each KPI. Prior to the introduction of the new framework, no training or guidance had been provided to the individual FRCs nor to FaHCSIA's STOs on how to administer the framework. It will be important for the future success of the framework that there is a common understanding of its application by service providers and STO staff.

Performance reporting and analysis has largely been at the FRSP level, rather than the FRC level. Public performance reporting on FRCs is limited to client contacts. AGD reported that in 2008–09, following the roll out of the final 25 FRCs, there were 154 158 contacts with FRCs, an increase of 7 per cent on 2007–08.⁴ This data provides a high-level insight into the uptake of the service⁵ but does not provide for an assessment of whether FRCs have been a successful centrepiece of the new Family Law Reforms and have met their objectives, including reducing the need for court intervention and providing information, referrals and services to families.

The implementation of the new performance framework and the July 2009 changes to the departmental responsibilities supporting FRCs have the potential to improve the administration of the program, including its monitoring and review. The new performance information that will be garnered, supported by an analysis of expected community demand, will be important considerations to inform the next round of contract negotiations or tender process, due following the expiry of all existing FRC contracts on 30 June 2011.

Recommendations

To assist AGD and FaHCSIA with the ongoing oversight and administration of FRCs, and address the gaps identified in the existing arrangements, the ANAO has made four recommendations. Three recommendations relate to the capture, storage, quality and use of compliance and performance data and the broader operation of the performance framework. The fourth recommendation relates to the complaints handling system to assist FaHCSIA to identify any systemic business or service delivery issues and areas for improvement.

Attorney-General's Department welcomed the audit and agreed with all the recommendations.

FaHCSIA noted that the audit provided an informative and constructive appraisal of the implementation of the FRC initiative. The department agreed to three recommendations and agreed with qualification to the recommendation that it assess the quality and integrity of its cost and client data to inform an analysis of the value-for-money outcomes of the FRC initiative.

Footnotes

¹ The Broome FRC, which was part of the third round of funding in 2008, did not commence operations until October 2008 due to accommodation issues. This delay was anticipated by AGD and FaHCSIA.

² For example, two FRCs in round one (FRC A and FRC B) received similar levels of annual funding of $977 000 and $969 000 respectively. FRC A saw 1394 clients in the period 1 July 2008 to 2 May 2009, while FRC B saw 369 clients during the same period.

³ FaHCSIA is implementing its new performance management framework incrementally, with full implementation expected to be completed in 2012-13.

⁴ Attorney-General's Department Annual Report 2008-09, p.46. Contacts include registered and unregistered telephone and walk-in clients.

⁵ Although no client number targets for individual FRCs or the collective have been established.