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NSW Labor leader Chris Minns addresses the party’s state conference.Credit:Dean Sewell

Future funding cycles would be lengthened to at least five years for the sector under a Labor government,which would also establish a taskforce to ensure transparent indexation of funding.

“Longer-term funding will mean better services for frontline organisations because it’s more time spent helping people and less time bogged down in paperwork to get funding,” Minns said.

“This is a predominantly female workforce,and ensuring certainty will also provide economic security for those employed in this sector.”

NSW Council of Social Service chief executive Joanna Quilty said extending funding arrangements for the sector to a minimum of five years would provide more job security in the fast-growing sector.

The Labor policies will be designed to help women working in areas like domestic violence prevention.Credit:Istock

“We’ve got very inconsistent contract terms across the social service sector,and the social service sector is a growth industry,and it predominantly employs women,” Quilty said.

“What it means is that we cannot offer job security or certainty for this really essential workforce,which has gone above and beyond in recent years with the pandemic and the various disasters that we’ve all been dealing with.”

Quilty warned sporadic funding arrangements meant poor job security for people working in homelessness support,disability and domestic violence services.

“The vast majority of those employees are women,but because of the short-term nature of so much of the funding,women are leaving the sector in droves because there’s no job certainty because the work is exhausting and tiring.”

“Women are leaving the sector in droves because there’s no job certainty (and) because the work is exhausting and tiring.”
NSW Council of Social Service chief executive Joanna Quilty

“This will really help to ensure that we do have our strong robust social service sector.”

Quilty said most government funding arrangements were currently three years,and should be five years at an absolute minimum.

NSW chief executive for Relationships Australia Elisabeth Shaw described the current government funding arrangements as “panic-style funding”.

“The constant,often annual cycle of tendering and responding between government and the social services sector diverts resources from the frontline to the back office,” she said.

The Labor government taskforce would also work to create standard definitions,reporting and contract management across government-funded programs. Relationships NSW spent 744 hours in the last financial year preparing applications for tenders.

The Labor policy was welcomed by Australian Services Union NSW secretary Angus McFarland,who said it would create more stability for workers.

“It also commits to a better way of funding community services - ending the race to the bottom on wages and conditions between providers and upholding award conditions in funding contracts,” McFarland said.

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