Report on Government Services

At a glance
Media release
About report

This report was released on 30 January 2009. It has been produced by the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision (SCRGSP). The report has been published in two volumes. Also released with the report are attachment tables. These are not part of the printed report but are available on this web page.

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Media release

The Report on Government Services 2009 is being released. This is the fourteenth edition of the Report, produced by a Steering Committee of senior officials from Australian, State and Territory governments for the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). The Steering Committee is chaired by Gary Banks, Chairman of the Productivity Commission.

Mr Banks noted that the Report promotes open and informed debate about the performance of governments providing a range of services. He stated, 'This Report is important to us all: everyone relies on government services at different stages of their life, and services are particularly important for the more disadvantaged members of society. Improving government services is also important economically. Governments spent over $132 billion on the services covered in this year's Report, more than 70 per cent of their recurrent expenditure, equivalent to around 13 percent of Australia's gross domestic product.'

Mr Banks drew attention to significant improvements in this year's Report, including: a revised ambulance indicator framework with reporting against four new indicators, and reporting for the first time on: hospital readmissions and community follow up after an episode of mental illness; maintenance of individual functioning from the Transition Care Program for aged care; response times for child protection services; and school attendance data for students in years 1 through 10.

Reporting on services to Indigenous Australians remains a priority. Improvements for this Report include school learning outcomes for Indigenous students by remoteness area for each State and Territory, and data for Indigenous preschool attendance. There has also been further improvement in the reporting of Indigenous hospitalisations data.

During 2008, COAG emphasised the importance of performance reporting in its reform of Specific Purpose Payments. New National Agreements set out agreed objectives, outputs, outcomes and performance indicators, which will be monitored by the COAG Reform Council. The Steering Committee will provide relevant performance information to the Council. COAG has initiated a review to ensure this Report is appropriately aligned with the National Agreements, and to examine improvements to the Report's scope and processes. A link to the terms of reference for the COAG review can be found on the Steering Committee's website.

Further information on each service covered by the Report is summarised in the attached Fact Sheets. The most recent data and any errata will appear on the Steering Committee's web page.

Factsheets

Errata

The following errata have been issued for the Report on Government Services 2009. All chapters and attachment tables have been amended on the website to reflect these errata.

Chapter 4 School education

Data for 2006-07 relating to government recurrent in-school expenditure in government secondary schools was incorrect and has been revised. The revisions affect the in-school secondary expenditure on depreciation in attachment table 4A.12 in the 2009 Report.

Errata: Chapter 4 School education attachment (PDF - 19 Kb)

Chapter 6 Police services

Police staff numbers per 100 000 population in 2007-08 are correct for each State and Territory, but the Australian total rates were calculated incorrectly. The revisions affect the last two numbers in the Total column in Table 6.1 of the 2009 Report.