The seventh edition of the annual Report on Government Services, a product of the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision, was released today. The Report examines the performance of the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments in the areas of education, health, justice, community services and housing. Collectively these services represented approximately $64.3 billion of government expenditure in 2000-01 and 9.6 per cent of gross domestic product.
Gary Banks, the Chairman of the Steering Committee which oversees the Review, commended participating agencies for their continued cooperation in producing this detailed Report He said 'there has been a general improvement in the data presented in the Report this year. The advances in reporting for existing performance indicators encompass improved comparability, timeliness and quality of data, and enhanced reporting on special needs groups'.
In addition, this year's Report contains new performance indicators for health (maternity services and general practitioners), court administration (Federal Magistrates Services), aged care (compliance with service standards for residential care), disability services (social participation) and housing (Aboriginal Rental Housing Program) chapters.
There has been a concerted effort to improve the Report's coverage of government services to Indigenous Australians. For example, the Aboriginal Rental Housing Program is the first targeted Indigenous program that the Review has reported – until now all Indigenous data have been disaggregated from mainstream program data.