Secure Jobs and Funding Certainty - Background

The NSW Government made a 2023 election commitment to deliver more job security and funding certainty for our community services sector. This was included on the list of focussed commitments of the NSW Government. Focused commitments are those that are critical to delivering the Government’s broader strategic agenda. 

The Community Services Sector

The Community Services Sector (the Sector) in NSW comprises over 7,800 non-government organisations who support over one million people. 

Community sector workers are vital in supporting people in our community, including throughout the pandemic, fires, droughts and floods, as well as homelessness, domestic and family violence, and child protection.

The Sector employs more than 240,000 workers; 80% of the workforce are women; a quarter are over 55 years old; half the workforce is on fixed term or casual contracts. The Sector will grow by up to 62,000 jobs by 2030, including a significant proportion in regional NSW.

The commitment will focus on NSW Government contracted services, their contracts and funding arrangements.

Challenges

Short term contracts are contributing to uncertainty around funding continuity. Some of the challenges reported by the Sector include, but are not limited to: 

The Sector is experiencing difficulty recruiting and retaining staff, including degree qualified workers and frontline staff. 

Short-term funding combined with applying for funding, and the different application, acquittal and reporting processes for multiple sources of funding is creating a significant administrative burden on community sector organisations. 

Fluctuations in funding is constraining effective forward planning. 

Funding frameworks, pricing, procurement and competition may be forcing wages down as organisations seek to deliver more services with less funding.

Delivering the Government Commitment 

The SJFC Commitment aims to:

• improve job security for the community services workforce;
• increase funding certainty for key community services providers; and
• reduce administrative burden to secure jobs and funding certainty for community services providers.

The SJFC Leadership Group brings together skilled and knowledgeable Government and Sector representatives to guide the development of a Roadmap that will set out the actions, implementation approaches and timeframes to deliver the commitment.