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Introduction

How will we know if we’ve achieved success in reducing social exclusion and enhancing social inclusion in Tasmania?

Internationally there has been significant progress over the past decade in measuring the costs of social exclusion and the benefits of social inclusion. Much of this work has been led by the OECD1 and the World Bank2and has been associated with five policy drivers:

1. The strong links between inclusion, productivity and innovation.

2. The desire for internationally comparative data.

3. The importance of social inclusion in developing countries.

4. The development of international measures of wellbeing to balance the focus on Gross Domestic Product as the key indicator of progress.

5. The importance of community owned and generated indicators.

This Chapter canvasses recent developments in measuring social inclusion outcomes, identifies some lessons for the Tasmanian context, and outlines a way forward for a Tasmanian social inclusion evaluation strategy.

Tasmania already has a strong grounding in developing evidence-based frameworks for measuring progress with the Tasmania Together project. The Tasmanian Early Years Foundation Outcomes Framework and the Kids Come First projects are also good examples.

We can also draw on the vast national and international knowledge base on measuring progress and community wellbeing, as well as specific initiatives to measure social inclusion.

Social Indicators

Over the past 10-15 years there has been significant growth in interest in measuring social progress using social indicators.

Social indicators are quantitative statistics that can be monitored over time to identify changes in social phenomena3. They attempt to summarise the most important aspects of these phenomena in a way that is accessible to policy makers and the general public. In this way, indicators not only provide a tool to assess progress and identify problem areas, but also to encourage citizen engagement in policy making and in the process of achieving results4.

1 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Global Project for Measuring the Progress of Societies, accessible

from: http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_40033426_40033828_1_1_1_1_1,00.html 2 The World Bank reports annually on progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 in its Global Monitoring

Reports – the 2009 report is available from: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTGLOBALMONITOR/EXTGLOMONREP2009/0,,menuPK:5924413~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:5924405,00.html 3 The Roeher Institute, 2003 Policy Approaches to Farming Social Inclusion and Social Exclusion: An Overview, Toronto, ON: The Roeher

Institute, p.25. 4 Social Inclusion Unit, South Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2004 Social Inclusion Initiative Evaluation Project, Evaluation:

The Social Inclusion Initiative Big Picture – Roundtables – Background Discussion Paper Two, Social Inclusion Initiative Indicators, January 2004.

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There are numerous examples of indicator frameworks in use around the world and in Australia. These indicators have been developed for a variety of purposes, ranging from measuring the progress of a nation or community or measuring general community ‘wellbeing’, to evaluating the impact of specific policies (such as outcomes for indigenous groups, and more recently, for measuring the effectiveness of social inclusion policies).

A summary of some of the key indicator frameworks for each of these purposes is outlined below.

Indicators for measuring progress and wellbeing

In recent decades there has been a growing recognition among developed nations that measures such as GDP are of limited use for measuring the social and economic progress of nations. As former US Senator Robert Kennedy noted in a 1968 speech, GDP “measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”5 This is apparent from data that indicates that people’s happiness has declined as GDP has increased6.

In response, there are now hundreds of initiatives underway at global, national and sub-national level around the world aimed at measuring societal progress and wellbeing. Many of these are summarised on the website of the OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies, which has been established to promote the use of progress indicators and to encourage discussion and learning among the various communities around the globe interested in measuring societal progress and wellbeing7. The ABS has also sponsored three national conferences on community indicators, the latest held in July 2009 in cooperation with the OECD Global Project8.

The website of the Global Project outlines a number of indicator frameworks in use around the world to measure progress and wellbeing. These frameworks differ in their definitions of progress and organisational framework, use of targets or goals, and governance.

Some initiatives, for example, define their vision of ‘progress’ or wellbeing based mainly on consultation with experts, while others are developed from the views of the community itself. In some jurisdictions the indicators are tied to targets with government agencies assigned responsibility for achieving them, while in others, the indicators are used as descriptive tools to guide policy making and decision making without reference to specific targets. Finally, there is variation in the ways the indicator frameworks are governed – that is, the process used to decide what needs to be measured, how it will be measured, and the structures and systems required to collate, publish and monitor the data9.

Three prominent examples of progress indicators are outlined briefly below, as examples of the ways in which these frameworks differ in those three aspects10.

5 Robert Kennedy 1968 speech, available in audio from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IdKFqXbUY

6 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Measuring the Progress of Societies – What we are doing, accessible

from: http://www.oecd.org/document/5/0,3343,en_40033426_40037349_40038469_1_1_1_1,00.html 7 See http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_40033426_40033828_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

8 The ABS hosted a Community Indicators Summit in Brisbane, Queensland on 22-23 July 2009. More information is available from

http://www.nss.gov.au 9 For a more detailed discussion of these aspects, see Introduction in Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Measures of Australia's

Progress: Summary Indicators, 2009, Cat No 1383.0.55.001 10 More examples are listed on the website of the OECD Global Project for Measuring the Progress of Societies

(http://www.oecd.org/document/15/0,3343,en_40033426_40037349_42607631_1_1_1_1,00.html ) and also on the website of other indicator projects such as Community Indicators Victoria (www.communityindicators.net.au) and also Tasmania Together www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au. Further examples of projects were presented at the ABS Community Indicators Summit in July 2009 – see www.nss.gov.au for the presentations.

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Measures of Australia’s Progress

An influential example of an indicator framework for measuring progress at national level in Australia is Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP), produced by the ABS11.

MAP presents a suite of indicators measuring progress across three domains: social, economic, and environmental. Social progress is defined as “increases in the wellbeing of the population; a reduction of threats to, and increases in social cohesion; and protection and enhancement of democratic rights.” Economic progress is defined as “enhancing the nation's income (broadly real per person levels of consumption) while at least maintaining (or possibly enhancing) the national wealth that will support future consumption”. Environmental progress “equates to a reduction of threats to the environment and improvements in the health of our ecosystems.” The relative importance of progress in each domain is left up to the reader to decide, along with judgements about the extent to which progress in one domain may come at the expense of another.

Under each of the three domains, indicators are organised according to a set of dimensions of progress –such as: health, social cohesion, national income, productivity, and the natural landscape. There are 14 ‘headline’ or key dimensions and five supplementary dimensions (Table 1).

Each dimension is measured by a set of indicators chosen according to a set of criteria, including that they: focus on outcomes; be supported by timely, good quality data; be available at national level and as a time series; and be intelligible and easily interpreted by the general reader. Indicators are divided into headline and supplementary indicators. Headline indicators are chosen to encapsulate the major features of change in the dimensions and are published each year in a web-based summary report12. Supplementary indicators provide additional information on the dimensions of progress. The full MAP suite of over a hundred indicators is published periodically, with the most recent publication 2006 and the next planned for 201113.

The MAP framework and indicators were initially developed by the ABS in consultation with stakeholders and experts in the fields of social, economic and environmental measurement, and further refined through user consultations following the first edition of MAP published in 2002. Further consultation is intended to be undertaken for future editions of MAP.

The ABS notes that MAP is not intended to measure every aspect of progress that is important; rather, it presents an overview of some key indicators of whether or not life in Australia is ‘getting better’, in order to stimulate discussion and debate and inform decision-making. Some of the dimensions and elements of progress not currently covered in MAP include: subjective measures such as life satisfaction or happiness; areas where there are currently no generally agreed reliable measures (eg political freedom); and measures of inequality and multiple disadvantage14.

11

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Measures of Australia's Progress: Summary Indicators, 2009, Cat No 1383.0.55.001 12 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Measures of Australia’s Progress: Summary Indicators, Cat No 1383.0.55.001. More detailed

information is also presented in printed format in Measures of Australia’s Progress: At A Glance, Cat No 1383.0.55.002. 13

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006 Measures of Australia’s Progress, 2006, Cat No 1370.0. 14 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Measures of Australia’s Progress: Summary Indicators, Cat No 1383.0.55.001. More detailed

information is also presented in printed format in Measures of Australia’s Progress: At A Glance, Cat No 1383.0.55.002.

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Table 1 Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP) - Framework

Tasmania Together

The Tasmania Together15 project is an important example of progress measurement at the State-level in Australia. Initially released in 2001 and updated in a Five Year Review in 2005, the project’s framework currently encompasses a vision, 12 goals and 143 benchmarks expressing community priorities for Tasmania’s future. The Tasmania Together vision is:

“Tasmania is an island community, unique for its natural and cultural environment, where people enjoy a prosperous lifestyle based on quality, creativity and opportunity”.

Each of the 12 goals has a headline indicator to provide a summary indication of progress against each goal. The goals and headline indicators are outlined in Table 2. Each of the benchmarks consists of a standard, an indicator with baseline data, and targets set at five-yearly intervals. An illustration of one of these benchmarks (the headline indicator for Goal 1) is shown below in Table 3.

The initial vision, goals and benchmarks in the framework were developed through an extensive community consultation process involving a Search Conference, a call for submissions and more than 60 public meetings held in towns and cities around the State, providing opportunities for all sectors of the community, including business, community organisations and individuals, to give their views.

The Tasmania Together Progress Board, an independent statutory authority reporting directly to Parliament, is the custodian of the project. Its role is to monitor regularly and report publicly on progress towards achieving the Tasmania Together goals and benchmarks; to carry out research and collect data for the goals and benchmarks; to promote the goals and benchmarks in the broader community; to develop coalitions of interest within and between various sectors of the community with respect to Tasmania Together and to coordinate the process of further developing, refining and revising the goals and benchmarks16.

15 See http://www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au 16 See http://www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au

Domains Social - Individuals Social - Living

Together

Economic Environmental

Headline

dimensions

Health

Education and

Training

Work

Family, community

and social cohesion

Crime

Democracy,

governance and

citizenship

National income

Economic hardship

National wealth

Housing

Productivity

The natural

landscape

The air and

atmosphere

Oceans and

estuaries

Supplementary

dimensions

Culture and leisure Communication

Transport

Competitiveness

and openness

Inflation

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Tasmania Together differs from MAP in its ‘bottom-up’ approach to developing the indicator framework through community consultation, and the fact that the indicators are tied to targets to measure progress. More on Tasmania Together and its relevance to social inclusion measurement in Tasmania is discussed further below.

Table 2 Tasmania Together goals and Headline Indicators

Tasmania Together Goal Headline Indicator

1. A reasonable lifestyle and standard of living for all Tasmanians.

Cost of living

2. Confident, friendly and safe communities. Feeling safe

3. High-quality education and training for lifelong learning and a skilled workforce.

Literacy and numeracy

4. Active, healthy Tasmanians with access to quality and affordable health care services.

Avoidable mortality

5. Vibrant, inclusive and growing communities where people feel valued and connected.

Urban/regional population

6. Dynamic, creative and internationally recognised arts community and culture.

Attendance at cultural heritage sites

7. Acknowledgement of the right of Aboriginal people to own and preserve their culture, and share with non-Aboriginal people the richness and value of that culture.

Cultural interpretation at visitor centres

8. Open and accountable government that listens and plans for a shared future.

Local government elections

9. Increased work opportunities for all Tasmanians. Workforce participation rate 10. Thriving and innovative industries driven by a high level

of business confidence. Investment growth

11. Built and natural heritage that is valued and protected. Land protection 12. Sustainable management of our natural resources. Greenhouse gas emissions

Table 3 Tasmania Together – example of a benchmark (headline indicator for Goal 1)

Goal A reasonable lifestyle and standard of living for all Tasmanians

Standard Ensure that all Tasmanians have the economic capacity to enjoy a reasonable standard

of living and access to basic services.

Indicator The cost of food, electricity, housing, transport and health as a percentage of income

for low-income earners.

Baseline 2001 Couples: 72%

2001 Famlies: 73%

Targets 2010: 62.5%

2015: 60%

2020: 55%

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The Canadian Index of Wellbeing

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW)17, like Tasmania Together, is an example of a ‘bottom-up’ approach to progress measurement. It consists of a framework of indicators organised under eight domains of quality of life (Table 4), developed through extensive consultation with both the general public and leading experts and stakeholders, including Statistics Canada.

The eight domains reflect the areas considered by participants in the consultations to be most important to wellbeing in Canada. Together they form the following definition of wellbeing:

“The presence of the highest possible quality of life in its full breadth of expression focused on but not necessarily exclusive to: good living standards, robust health, a sustainable environment, vital communities, an educated populace, balanced time use, high levels of civic participation, and access to and participation in dynamic arts, culture & recreation”18

.

Each domain is measured by a number of indicators including a headline indicator. Reports on three of the domains (Living Standards, Healthy Populations and Community Vitality) have been released to-date, along with a summary report that identifies the connections between data across the three domains. Reports on the other domains will be released as the data for the indicators is collated. Once the CIW has been fully developed, it is intended to include a composite index, that is, a single number calculated from each of the headline indicators, to be tracked over time in a similar way to GDP or headline measures of inflation.

A distinctive aspect of the CIW is its focus on avoiding ‘silo’ approaches to indicator measurement by exploring the relationships between indicators as well as trends in the indicators over time. For example, the summary report on the first three domains includes an analysis of the interrelationship between poor health status (from the Healthy Populations domain) and low income (from the Living Standards domain)19.

The CIW project was initially funded entirely by the Atkinson Charitable Foundation with no government funding; however the project is now supported by the newly-formed Institute of Wellbeing, sponsored by a Funders’ Alliance consisting of a number of charitable and not-for-profit organisations and the Province of Ontario. The Institute’s goals are: to oversee the development and implementation of the CIW; ensure the ongoing and regular reporting of the CIW through a communication and public engagement strategy; ensure ongoing research and development of the CIW and promote better data collection; increase and expand the CIW network with influential leaders and policy makers; contribute to societal understanding and use of indicators; and contribute to a measuring wellbeing movement that will be of benefit to international partners and initiatives20.

17

See http://www.ciw.ca/en/TheCanadianIndexOfWellbeing.aspx 18

Canadian Institute of Wellbeing, see: http://www.ciw.ca/en/WellbeingInCanada/WhatIsWellbeing.aspx 19

Institute of Wellbeing, 2009 How are Canadians Really Doing? The First Report of the Institute of Wellbeing, June 10 2009, p.9. 20

Institute of Wellbeing, 2009 How are Canadians Really Doing? The First Report of the Institute of Wellbeing, June 10 2009, p.3.

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Table 4 Canadian Index of Wellbeing - Domains

Arts, Culture and Recreation Environment

Civic Engagement Healthy Populations

Community Vitality Living Standards

Education Time Use

Other approaches

Two other indicator initiatives of note in the realm of progress and wellbeing measurement are the proposed Australian National Development Index, and the Community Indicators Victoria project.

The concept of an Australian National Development Index (NDI) was first proposed as a priority initiative by the Strengthening Communities and Supporting Working Families group at the Australia 2020 Summit in April 2008. Like the CWI, the NDI is proposed to be an independent community-driven project, with majority funding from philanthropic, corporate and non-government sources and overseen by an independent national body representing experts, the community, relevant government agencies and the ABS. The project would report regularly against agreed dimensions of progress, drawing heavily on MAP but also including other indicators based on expert and community input. Development work on the NDI is currently being progressed via the formation of a national coordinating committee and a detailed business case for the project is being commissioned21.

Community Indicators Victoria (CIV)22 is a suite of local community wellbeing indicators covering five domains of community wellbeing (social, economic, environmental, democratic and cultural – see Table 5), and available for all Victorian local government areas. It is an important example of a community wellbeing project undertaken at local (rather than State or Territory) level. Similar to MAP, the indicators are not tied to targets and are intended to inform decision-making and citizen engagement at community level throughout Victoria. The indicators were developed as part of the Victorian Community Indicator Project (VCIP) over 2005-06 funded through VicHealth and with support from the Department of Human Services. The project team developed the framework and indicators through research and extensive consultation with representatives of Victorian State Government agencies and a range of local governments, academics and the ABS23. The resulting CIV framework is now funded by VicHealth and hosted by the McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne.

21

Salvaris, Mike, 2009 An Australian National Development Index, paper prepared for the Australian Social Inclusion Board, 20 March

2009. 22 See http://www.communityindicators.net.au 23

VCIP Project Team, 2006 Measuring wellbeing, engaging communities – Developing a Community Indicators Framework for Victoria: the

final report of the Victorian Community Indicators Project (VCIP), July 2006.

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Table 5 Community Indicators Victoria (CIV) Framework – Domains and Policy Areas.

Domain Policy Area

Healthy, safe and inclusive

communities

Personal Health and Wellbeing

Community Connectedness

Early Childhood

Personal and Community Safety

Lifelong Learning

Service Availability

Dynamic, resilient local economies Economic Activity

Employment

Income and Wealth

Skills

Work-Life Balance

Sustainable Built and Natural

Environments

Open Space

Housing

Transport Accessibility

Sustainable Energy Use

Air Quality

Water

Biodiversity

Waste Management

Culturally rich and vibrant

communities

Arts and Cultural Activities

Leisure and Recreation

Cultural Diversity

Democratic and Engaged Communities Citizen Engagement

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Measuring policy outcomes

The interest in measuring wellbeing and social progress has coincided with an increased focus on outcome measurement in policy development and planning. This has been mainly led by governments, keen to move away from narrow input or output-based methods for measuring the effectiveness of their investments in communities, but there are also a number of examples from the community and business sectors24.

Some examples in the area of two cohort groups of particular policy interest to government – Indigenous and children and youth - are outlined here to provide an illustration of the goals, governance and frameworks used in these approaches.

Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage

The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (OID) Report has been produced biennially by the Productivity Commission since 2003. Unlike the Commission’s Report on Government Services, which contains a range of indicators focused on measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of government services with a main focus on cost-effectiveness, the OID focuses on outcomes for Indigenous people25. In 2009 the OID report was restructured to incorporate the Closing the Gap framework developed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) for addressing the gaps in wellbeing and achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The OID reporting framework has three levels: the first identifies three priority outcomes which represent the overarching shared vision for improving conditions of Indigenous people in Australia. The second level identifies a set of six headline indicators along with the six high-level targets set by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) for Closing the Gap in Indigenous outcomes. These represent the social and economic outcomes that are necessary to achieve the three priority outcomes in the long-term. The third level of the framework is a set of seven ‘strategic areas for action’, each of which is supported by further indicators which measure the outcomes of targeted policies in those areas. These represent the areas where changes are required in the short-term to achieve change in the COAG targets and headline indicators, and in turn to achieve the priority outcomes26.

This structure represents an interesting example of a framework that combines a larger set of indicators, with a smaller set of high-level targets, rather than assigning targets to every indicator. The framework is also distinctive in the way it explicitly recognises the need for action in some areas in the short-term to drive outcomes in the longer-term. This is an important issue to consider for social inclusion, which has a range of short and long-term policy goals.

Another important component of the OID framework is the inclusion of ‘governance and leadership’ as a specific strategic change area. This recognises the importance of improving governance within Indigenous communities and organisations, as well as the governance arrangements of government agencies servicing Indigenous communities, to improve the community capacity as well as service delivery. Governance is an important issue for social inclusion also, particularly in service delivery to ensure that services work together to address the needs of socially excluded clients.

The COAG framework is outlined in Table 6.

24

Examples include the Mission Australia’s Outcomes Hierarchy for measuring the outcomes of their community programs, and initiatives

by the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to measure outcomes of their Community Bank programs – as presented at the ABS Community Indicators Conference, July 2009, see www.nss.gov.au 25

Productivity Commission, 2009 Report on Government Service Provision 2009, Volume 1, Section 1.1. 26

Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision 2009, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage – Key Indicators 2009,

Chapter 2.

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Table 6 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Framework

1. Priority outcomes

2. COAG targets and headline indicators COAG targets Headline Indicators

Life expectancy Post-secondary education – participation and attainment

Young child mortality Disability and chronic disease

Early childhood education Household and individual income

Reading, writing and numeracy Substantiated child abuse and neglect

Year 12 attainment Family and community violence

Employment Imprisonment and juvenile detention 3. Strategic areas for action

Early child development

Education and training

Healthy lives

Economic participation

Home environment

Safe and supportive communities

Governance and leadership

COAG Reform Council

As part of its role in initiating, developing and monitoring nationally significant policy reforms, COAG has also been involved in developing indicator-based measurement frameworks, notably in the areas of early childhood education (COAG Early Years Learning Framework27) and mental health (the COAG National Action Plan for Mental Health progress indicators28) as well as the Closing the Gap initiative.

Following the advent of the new Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations in November 2008, the COAG Reform Council was established to measure the performance of governments in meeting the agreed outcomes under the six new National Agreements (NA) (in

27 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) 2009, Belonging, Being and

Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, 28

There are 12 progress indicators, reported in: Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council 2008, Council of Australian Governments

National Action Plan for Mental Health 2006-2011, Progress Report 2006-07, February 2008.

Improved wealth creation and economic sustainability for

individuals, families and communities

Positive child development and prevention of violence,

crime and self-harm

Safe, healthy and supportive family environments with strong communities and

cultural identity

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healthcare, education, skills and workforce development, disability services, affordable housing, and overcoming Indigenous disadvantage) among other roles. It is likely that outcome reports will be released from the Council as it develops its work program over the coming year. This may provide a useful resource for consideration in developing a set of social inclusion indicators for Tasmania.

Initiatives in measuring outcomes for children and youth

There has been growing interest in recent years in measuring outcomes for children and youth, as evidence has indicated that the health and wellbeing of children, particularly in the early years, is a crucial determinant of their outcomes in later life29.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has developed a set of key national indicators of children’s health, development and wellbeing30 in consultation with the National Child Information Advisory Group. The set of 56 indicators builds on earlier indicator development work by the AIHW in their 2005 report A Picture of Australia’s Children, and also incorporate a number of relevant COAG performance indicators. The indicators incorporate a set of 19 ministerially-endorsed Headline Indicators agreed by all jurisdictions for measuring priority areas for children’s health, development and wellbeing, such as infant mortality, dental health, literacy and numeracy, and child abuse and neglect. These Headline Indicators will be reported on biennially with data presented at national level and for states and territories and particular subpopulations of interest such as Indigenous children and children living in remote and disadvantaged areas.

Outcomes frameworks for children and youth have also been developed in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Early Years Foundation has developed an Early Years Outcomes Framework31 based on the Victorian Government’s framework and based on an ecological model that puts the child at the centre of family, community and society – see Table 7.

Table 7 Tasmanian Early Years Outcomes Framework – ecological model32

29

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation, 2009 Outcome in the Early Years: The State of Tasmania’s Young Children 2009 - A report on the

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation’s Outcomes Framework. 30 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009 A Picture of Australia’s Children 2009, AIHW, June 2009. 31

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation, 2009 Outcome in the Early Years: The State of Tasmania’s Young Children 2009 - A report on the

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation’s Outcomes Framework. 32

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation, 2009 Outcome in the Early Years: The State of Tasmania’s Young Children 2009 - A report on the

Tasmanian Early Years Foundation’s Outcomes Framework.

Enabling society

Strong and supportive

communities

Confident and capable families

Safe, healthy child

learning

developing

achieving wellbeing

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The framework is based on five main markers of children’s capacity to achieve their potential: health, development, learning, safety and wellbeing. From these markers, 24 outcomes of children’s lives and 86 indicators of progress for these outcomes were identified. Data for the indicators is presented against a comparative benchmark (in most cases the relevant Australian average for the indicator) and is also broken down by LGAs, identifying LGAs that have performed significantly worse or better than the State average on each indicator. The framework was developed by the Foundation with advice from relevant stakeholders including the Victorian Office for Children, the Office of the Tasmanian Commissioner for Children, Tasmania Together, the ABS and Department of Police and Emergency Services (DPEM).

The Early Years Framework has formed the basis of a broader framework measuring health and wellbeing outcomes for children and youth aged up to 18 years. The Kids Come First Project will release its report in late 2009, based on the same ecological model and five markers as the Early Years Framework, but containing a set of 30 outcomes and 92 indicators against these markers. A number of indicators in the framework were populated from data collected in a child health and wellbeing population survey of 1200 households with children aged under 12 conducted in early 2009. The survey was undertaken to fill some of the data gaps in the outcomes framework, including measures of food security, financial stress, family functioning and support, and access to medical services and recreational areas.33

In 2008-09 the Project was funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and overseen by a whole-of-government committee with representatives from the Departments of Education, Premier and Cabinet, Infrastructure Energy and Resources, Police and Emergency Management as well as the Commissioner for Children, the Tasmanian Council of Social Services (TasCOSS) and the Youth Network of Tasmania. The ABS and Tasmania Together provided additional advice on indicator selection and data collection issues, and the State Infrastructure Planning System (SIPS) project within the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources provided mapping support. In 2009-10 the Kids Come First Project will be funded by a partnership between the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s Social Inclusion Unit and the Tasmanian Early Years Foundation.

Measuring social inclusion/exclusion

It is clear there are a large range of initiatives underway in the arena of measuring community wellbeing, and for measuring policy outcomes for specific groups such as Indigenous or children and youth. Now we turn to indicator initiatives specifically aimed at measuring social inclusion. A selection of overseas and Australian initiatives is outlined below. More detailed overviews of social inclusion/exclusion measurement activities have been conducted by Vinson34, the Australian Institute of Family Studies35, the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS)36 and the South Australian Social Inclusion Unit37, among others.

33

Kids Come First Project Report 2009 (unpublished draft). 34

Vinson, Tony 2009 The Origins, Meaning, Definition and Economic Implications of the concept of Social Inclusion/Exclusion, January

2009. 35

Hayes, Alan; Gray, Matthew; and Edwards, Ben 2008 Social Inclusion: Origins, Concepts and Key Themes, paper prepared by the

Australian Institute of Family Studies for the Social Inclusion Unit, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, October 2008. 36

Australian Council of Social Services, 2008 Targeting for Fairness: Setting targets for social inclusion, Background discussion paper for

ACOSS Social Inclusion Conference, April 2008. 37

Social Inclusion Unit, South Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2004 Social Inclusion Initiative Evaluation Project,

Evaluation: The Social Inclusion Initiative Big Picture – Roundtables – Background Discussion Paper Two, Social Inclusion Initiative Indicators, January 2004..

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European Union indicators

In 2001 the European Council meeting at Laeken in Belgium adopted a set of commonly agreed indicators for measuring the performance of member states in achieving social inclusion. These consisted of a set of 10 primary and 8 secondary indicators. In 2006 a revised set of commonly-agreed indicators were adopted by the European Union as part of a broader portfolio of indicators measuring social inclusion and social protection. The indicators are calculated and regularly updated by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency, and made publicly available on their website. EU Member States draw on these indicators along with their own national indicators in developing their National Reports on Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion to the European Commission38.

The indicators were chosen based on a set of criteria which included comparability based on sound EU harmonised data, policy responsiveness, clear normative interpretation, and a focus on outcomes39 – although “the choice of indicators is not limited to outcome indicators in order to better reflect the action and impact of policies”40. They have been divided into three types:

Commonly-agreed EU indicators that allow Member States to assess their progress against the common objectives and to compare their progress against other Member States;

Commonly-agreed national indicators that assist Member States to assess their progress against certain objectives but do not allow for a direct cross-country comparison; and

Context indicators that provide the context for the other indicators in the portfolio, such as demographic information, labour force data and information on social protection expenditure.

Indicators are also divided into primary and secondary indicators. Primary indicators cover all the essential dimensions of the defined objectives, while the secondary indicators provide greater insight into the nature of the issues.

The Social Inclusion Strand of the EU Social Protection and Social Inclusion Indicators consists of 13 primary indicators, 7 secondary indicators and 13 context indicators41. These are outlined Table 8.

Table 8 European Union Commonly Agreed Indicators on Social Protection and Social Inclusion – Social

Inclusion Strand Indicators

European Union commonly-agreed indicators – Social Inclusion Strand

Primary indicators (13) Secondary indicators (7)

38 European Commission, 2008 Portfolio Of Overarching Indicators And Streamlined Social Inclusion, Pensions, And Health Portfolios April

2008 Update, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG, Social protection and social integration, Social and demography analysis, Brussels, April 2008. 39

The common indicators are outlined on the website of the Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity division of the European

Commission, see: http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/spsi/common_indicators_en.htm, accessed on 27 August 2009. 40

European Commission, 2008 Portfolio Of Overarching Indicators And Streamlined Social Inclusion, Pensions, And Health Portfolios April

2008 Update, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG, Social protection and social integration, Social and demography analysis, Brussels, April 2008 41

Listed on the website of Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Commission. Accessed at:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/employment_and_social_policy_indicators/omc_social_inclusion_and_social_protection/social_inclusion_strand on 27 August 2009.

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At-risk-of-poverty rate

At-risk-of-poverty threshold

At-persistent-risk-of poverty rate

Relative median at-risk-of-poverty gap

Long term unemployment rate

People living in jobless households

Early school leavers

Employment gap of immigrants

Material Deprivation rate

Housing

Self-reported unmet need for medical care by income quintile

Utilisation of medical care services

Child well-being

At-risk-of-poverty rate by household type

At-risk-of-poverty rate by work intensity of the household

At-risk-of-poverty rate by most frequent activity status

At-risk-of-poverty rate by accommodation tenure status

Dispersion around the at-risk-of-poverty threshold

Persons with low educational attainment

Low reading literacy performance of

pupils

Context indicators (13)

Inequality of income distribution - S80/S20 income quintile share ratio

Inequality of income distribution - Gini coefficient

Regional cohesion: dispersion in regional employment rates

Healthy life expectancy and Life expectancy at birth and at age 65

At-risk-of-poverty rate anchored at a fixed moment in time (2005)

At-risk-of-poverty rate before social transfers except pensions

Jobless households by main household types

In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate

Making work pay indicators: unemployment trap, inactivity trap, low-wage trap

Net income of social assistance recipients as a % of the at-risk of poverty threshold for 3 jobless household types

Self reported limitations in daily activities by income quintiles.

There is a heavy emphasis on measures of income poverty, unemployment and educational attainment in the EU portfolio, with relatively fewer indicators covering other aspects of social exclusion such as health, housing, deprivation, and access to services. This is in part due to the difficulties in finding effective data to measure these areas, particularly in such a way that could be comparable across EU countries. Generally the EU indicators cover the material and labour market deprivation aspects of social exclusion and inclusion better than the social, political or cultural dimensions42.

UK Opportunity for All indicators

Since 1999, the UK Government has presented an annual review of its strategies to address social exclusion through its Opportunity for All indicator framework43. The indicators have been chosen to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of social exclusion at three different stages of the lifecycle - children and young people, working-age people and older people – along with a set of indicators specifically designed to measure progress in addressing the gaps in outcomes between areas of entrenched locational disadvantage and other areas. Within the children and working-age people life

42

Silver and Miller, 2002 cited in Vinson, 2009 The Origins, Meaning, Definition and Economic Implications of the Concept of Social

Inclusion/Exclusion, paper prepared for the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), January 2009. 43

Department for Work and Pensions, 2007 Opportunity for all: indicators update 2007, October 2007, United Kingdom Government.

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stages there are also indicators that measure outcomes for particular groups at risk such as children living in disadvantaged areas; people with a disability, sole parents, and ethnic minorities.

In total there are 41 indicators in the framework, covering areas such as employment, education, income, health, children in care and protection, housing and homelessness, independent living, and crime. There are no indicators covering other aspects of social inclusion such as social capital and social connectedness, access to services, access to transport, deprivation and financial hardship.

The Opportunity for All indicators are not linked to targets, but their movement against baseline data (1997) is monitored in the reports and an assessment is made of whether or not each indicator is moving in the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ direction: for example, the rate of teenage conceptions has declined since 1997, a move in the ‘right’ direction for reducing teenage pregnancies. Table 9 illustrates the movement of indicators from the ‘Communities’ dimension of the framework against the baseline data.

Table 9 Summary progress report for indicators in the ‘Communities’ dimension of the UK Opportunity for

All Framework, 200744

Indicator Trend since baseline (1997)

Direction of latest data

Employment rates in deprived areas

Crime rates in high-crime areas

Housing that falls below the set standard of decency

Households in fuel poverty ≈

Life expectancy at birth × ≈

Attainment gap at Key Stage 2 (11-year-olds)

Road accident casualties in deprived areas

Key:

data moving in right direction

× data moving in wrong direction

≈ data show broadly constant trend or no significant movement insufficient data available to determine a trend or no trend assessment possible as data not

comparable with previous years

Australian Social Inclusion Board

The Australian Social Inclusion Board has produced a compendium of social inclusion indicators based on the EU indicators but with supplementary indicators illustrating data relevant to the Australian situation45. The compendium consists of 33 indicators organised according to a framework based around five key drivers of social exclusion – poverty and low income, lack of access to the job market, limited social supports and networks, the effect of the local neighbourhood, and exclusion from services – along with a ‘health’ category and another called ‘contextual’. The indicators compare Australia against EU countries (where comparison are possible) and are also broken down by characteristics such as age, sex, and household type to explore trends for particular segments of society and to identify at-risk groups. The compendium identifies certain groups that appear repeatedly in the analysis of the most socially excluded groups – these include: aged persons,

44

Department for Work and Pensions, 2007 Opportunity for all: indicators update 2007, October 2007, United Kingdom Government, p11. 45

Australian Social Inclusion Board, 2009 How’s Australia Faring? A Compendium of Social Inclusion Indicators, May 2009

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public housing renters, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, one-parent families, and people of non-English speaking backgrounds.

The compendium has been designed to encourage discussion and debate on social inclusion and will provide the foundation for a report by the end of this year by the Australian Social Inclusion Board on a social inclusion measurement framework for Australia.

South Australia

Unlike the EU, UK and Australian Social Inclusion Board initiatives outlined above, the South Australian Social Inclusion Initiative has not developed a dedicated set of social inclusion indicators. Instead, individual evaluation plans are developed for each area of policy advice or action (called a ‘Reference’) assigned to the Initiative. These plans are developed from the beginning of work on a particular Reference, and involve monitoring of both quantitative and qualitative data to assess progress of the Reference against its stated outcomes. In particular, all Reference evaluations must46:

Focus on outcomes for people, with a particular focus on benefits for three priority groups: Aboriginal people, children and young people, and the most disadvantaged and socially excluded;

Focus on system outcomes, including an assessment of joined-up working, partnerships with community, early intervention and effective prevention, innovation and investing wisely;

Include both quantitative and qualitative data (including case studies and individual stories).

Each Reference has an action plan that is monitored with targets. Some of these targets have been further refined and embedded in South Australia’s Strategic Plan47, which provides a direct means of relating the social inclusion strategies to South Australia’s overarching objectives.

An example of the South Australian approach is the evaluation of the School Retention Action Plan, developed in response to the School Retention Reference aimed at exploring ways to support the retention of young people (particular disadvantaged young people) to Year 12. The evaluation incorporated three stages including: a profile of participants and programs and preliminary achievements against a set of priority School Retention indicators; a more in-depth evaluation assessing outcomes for young people, systems change and joined-up working; and a final stage which involved focus groups and interviews with program participants, analysis of statewide statistical data and of enrolment data, and a summary of findings48. A set of 35 School Retention Priority Indicators have also been established and updated with 2007 data. These indicators incorporate two sub-suites of indicators to monitor outcomes for Aboriginal young people and young people living in regional areas, in line with the priority given to these groups by the Social Inclusion Board for the School Retention Reference work49. The School Retention Indicators align with indicators in South Australia’s Strategic Plan as well as with indicators used in reporting to the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).

46 Social Inclusion Unit, 2006 Social Inclusion Initiative - Approach to Review and Evaluation, Department of the Premier and Cabinet

South Australia, Working Paper May 2006.

47

Social Inclusion Board, People and Community at the Heart of Systems and Bureaucracy: South Australia’s Social Inclusion Initiative,

Government of South Australia, February 2009. 48

Social Inclusion Unit, Making the Connections: School Retention Action Plan - Experiencing Success: SRAP Stage 3 Evaluation Report,

November 2007, Department of Premier and Cabinet, South Australia. 49

Social Inclusion Unit webpage, School Retention Reference - http://www.socialinclusion.sa.gov.au/page.php?id=97

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City-level studies

In addition to the above national and state-government-led approaches to measuring social exclusion, there are also initiatives underway to measure social inclusion and exclusion for smaller geographic areas. An example are two recent initiatives undertaken in Sydney and Melbourne respectively.

The 2009 Common Cause Report into Sydney’s Key Social Issues50 draws on a range of data from sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, government and academic reports, to assess social exclusion and disadvantage across various areas within Greater Sydney. Data is organised according to six main areas – housing, economic wellbeing, health, education, crime and safety, and accessibility and participation, and is analysed by geographic area and for key social groups at risk including Indigenous Australians, migrants, people with a disability, children and youth, older people and women. The report was the output of a three-stage project being undertaken by the Common Cause Initiative, consisting of partner organisations from the government, academic and community sectors including the Centre for Social Impact, United Way Sydney, Sydney Community Foundation, the Perpetual Foundation and the Community Relations Commission for a multicultural NSW.

In a similar vein, the MacroMelbourne Initiative led by the Melbourne Community Foundation in partnership with a range of organisations including Deakin University and the Victorian Council of Social Services has also produced a study on disadvantage51 across Melbourne. The aim of the study was to stimulate discussions towards developing strategies to address disadvantage as Melbourne continues to undergo significant urban growth in coming years. This project is distinctive in its focus on analysing data that paints a picture of disadvantage in Melbourne at present, in addition to analysing data that contributed to an assessment of risks and challenges for the future. Current social inclusion issues in Melbourne are illustrated via data on income and financial stress, household expenditure, housing stress, SEIFA, education, occupation and unemployment, and health. Future challenges are assessed by examining data on projected population growth (including population ageing and projected growth in households) along with information on projected public transport infrastructure and urban growth boundaries to 2030. The report identified the significant challenges facing Melbourne ensuring that plans to limit urban growth do not unfairly impact on the most socially excluded groups.

Studies of social exclusion and social capital

In addition to the indicator frameworks outlined above, there have been some specific studies of social exclusion undertaken in Australia that have a particular focus on the social capital aspects of social exclusion. These studies are outlined briefly below as they provide an important counterpoint to the indicator frameworks such as the EU indicators, which due to data limitations provide less of a focus on the social capital and social networks aspects of social inclusion.

Social Exclusion in Northern Adelaide

This project , conducted over 2004-05, was an intensive study aimed at developing a model for measuring change in social inclusion/exclusion over time in the Northern Adelaide region, a region of persistent socio-economic disadvantage52. The project was funded by the South Australian Department of Health with in-kind support from the Office of the North and the South Australian Social Inclusion Unit. The project incorporated a telephone survey (the Northern Adelaide Social

50

Leventhal, Debbie; Lyons, Mark; and Adams, Sarah 2009 The Common Cause Report into Sydney’s Key Social Issues 2009, accessible

from: http://apo.org.au/research/common-cause-report-sydneys-key-social-issues-2009 51 Hancock, Linda and Horrocks, Lucinda, 2006 The MacroMelbourne Initiative: Developing Strategic Responses to Disadvantage in

Melbourne: Today and Towards 2030, Melbourne Community Foundation, April 2006. 52

Spoehr, John; Wilson, Lou; Barnett, Kate; Toth, Tania; and Watson-Tran, Amanda, 2007 Measuring Social Inclusion and Exclusion in

Northern Adelaide, A Report for the Department of Health, Australian Institute for Social Research, University of Adelaide, February 2007.

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Inclusion Survey – NASIS) of approximately 2000 Northern Adelaide region residents to gather quantitative data about their perceptions of social inclusion and exclusion. The survey was followed by three discussion groups with 35 survey respondents who volunteered to participate in discussions about further issues arising from the survey.

The research team used data from the NASIS to construct three indicators: a Social Networks Indicator, a Community of Interest Indicator, and a Social Inclusion Indicator. Each indicator measured different aspects of social connectedness – respectively: support from family and friends, participation in clubs and societies and networks, and aspects of social cohesion and perceptions of acceptance of diversity.

By cross-classifying these indicators with data on respondents’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics, the researchers were able to identify patterns. For example, the study found that while people from more disadvantaged areas within the Northern Adelaide region received high levels of support from family and friends (Social Networks Indicator), they were less likely than more affluent areas to participate in Communities of Interest and were more likely to perceive lower levels of social cohesion in their neighbourhood (Social Inclusion). The results from the focus group discussions reinforced these quantitative findings as well as identifying some issues that were not as evident in the quantitative survey data, such as fear of crime, and concerns about lack of information about available services and other supports perpetuating disadvantage.

Urban Locational Disadvantage, Social Capital and Health project

The Urban Locational Disadvantage, Social Capital and Health project53 examined differences in the health, wellbeing and social capital of residents of four postcodes in suburban Adelaide. The project used data from a 2003 statewide telephone survey measuring aspects of residents’ health status, social capital and demographic information. The researchers examined data from this survey for each postcode in conjunction with additional data from the Census and administrative sources on aspects of the local neighbourhood that may contribute to health outcomes. The addition data included measures of income levels and crime rates, through to the availability of public and private transport and local amenities such as libraries and recreational facilities. From this initial analysis, the researchers selected four postcodes for more detailed study. Two of the postcodes were socio-economically disadvantaged, while the other two were more advantaged.

These four postcodes were the subject of a more detailed study which included: a mail-out survey (to collect detailed information from residents on social capital and perceptions of the quality of the local environment); in-depth qualitative interviews; photo-essays of the local environment taken by residents; a food basket survey (to compare the average cost of food between postcodes) and a survey of local community groups and organisations. The results provided further evidence for the social determinants of health, finding that residents in the more advantaged postcodes had better health outcomes and better levels of social capital, and benefited from a better-quality neighbourhood environment (better facilities, less crime etc), than those in the less advantaged postcodes.

Tasmanian studies

Similar studies of the link between social capital and health have been undertaken in Tasmania by the Department of Health and Human Services, with the 1998 Healthy Communities Survey, and the 2001 Tasmanian Health and Community Capacity Survey. The 1998 survey54 was a major statewide survey with approximately 19 000 respondents, and collected data on eight topics: Your Health; 53

Baum, Fran; Ziersch, Anna; Zhang, Guangyu; Putland, Christine; Palmer, Catherine; MacDougall, Colin; O’Dwyer, Lisel, and Coveney,

John 2007 People and Places: Urban Location, Social Capital and Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, March 2007. 54

Department of Health and Human Services, 1999 Health and Wellbeing in Tasmania – First Results of the Healthy Communities Survey

1998, Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Unit.

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Subjective Quality of Life; Personal Background; Beliefs and Behaviours; Health Conditions and Use of Services; Employment and Income; Community Involvement; and Voluntary Work. As well as finding a link between better health and higher income and financial capacity, the survey found a positive association between subjective quality of life and satisfaction with one’s neighbourhood environment (as measured by agreement with statements such as ‘people in my neighbourhood are very willing to help each other out’, and ‘it is safe to walk around the neighbourhood at night’), providing further evidence that individual and community wellbeing is linked to social capital. The 2001 Health and Community Capacity project55 surveyed approximately 2 500 residents in four LGAs (Hobart, Brighton, West Coast and Break O’Day) chosen to represent a cross-section of relatively advantaged and disadvantaged, and rural and urban, LGAs within Tasmania. The study found further evidence of a strong association between socio-economic status and health, as well as a link between rural location and social capital. The rural communities included in the survey were found to have significantly higher levels of resourcefulness, co-operation, entrepreneurship, and network development than urban communities.

A Tasmanian Approach

The above overview is only a brief sketch of the enormous number of initiatives being undertaken around the world and within Australia aimed at measuring progress, wellbeing and/or social inclusion. They illustrate the diversity of approaches taken with respect to the frameworks used, governance modes, use of targets, and use of quantitative vs qualitative data.

From reviewing these examples, and considering the Tasmanian context, it is suggested that an evaluation strategy for social inclusion in Tasmania could consist of the following four elements:

1. Development of a set of quantitative social inclusion indicators, to measure progress against the key outcomes of the Tasmanian social inclusion strategy;

2. Development of a statewide community survey to fill in data gaps;

3. Qualitative studies to complement the quantitative information and help us understand more about the drivers, causes and modes of social exclusion and

4. A study of the economic benefits of social inclusion.

Tasmanian social inclusion indicators

A set of social inclusion indicators for Tasmania will focus attention on priority areas for social inclusion, highlight the issues faced by socially excluded groups and engage citizens in the process of addressing social exclusion in the State. Supported by a statewide survey and qualitative data, the indicator framework will provide an important tool for assessing our progress in achieving social inclusion.

Drawing on the experience from the indicator initiatives outlined above, there are a number of issues that will need to be addressed in developing such a framework for Tasmania. These are:

Governance

A vital first step in developing a social inclusion indicator framework for Tasmania will be to establish the governance for the project: that is, to identify the stakeholder/s who will have overarching

55 Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services, 2003 Health & Community Capacity Survey, 2001, Report No 12, March 2003.

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responsibility for developing, maintaining and publicising the indicator framework, and establishing the supporting structures and resourcing for the project.

The governance model should ideally involve participation by all sectors (government, business and the community) to ensure that the evaluation process is able to obtain sustainable funding, is sufficiently distanced from political interference, and has the support of all the key players involved in addressing social exclusion in the State. It will also assist in ensuring accountability for results is shared across all sectors and includes the general community. In the process of defining and developing the social inclusion indicators, involvement of all components of society “is a necessary condition if it is to be trusted by citizens and recognised as shared knowledge.”56

It can be a highly-resource intensive process to develop, collate, monitor and report on sets of indicators of social inclusion/exclusion. This is why it is especially important to galvanise support from all stakeholders from the beginning and to share the load across agencies and sectors, as social inclusion strategies are the responsibility of all spheres of government, business and the community. It will also be important to establish a mode of governance that will provide a sustainable means of funding not only the development but also the ongoing maintenance of the indicator framework.

In developing the indicators, organisations with responsibility for, and an interest in, collecting, monitoring and reporting on data relevant to social inclusion should be included in the process. The ABS will be a primary stakeholder given its leading role in developing concepts, frameworks and classifications for measuring progress and in supporting improvement of the range, quality and availability of data through the National Statistical Service57. Similarly, Tasmania Together should be included in the process from the beginning to draw on the project’s extensive body of knowledge and experience in developing and maintaining a community-led benchmarking process and to ensure the social inclusion indicators align where possible to Tasmania Together goals. Commonwealth, State and local government agencies, business and community organisations will also need to be engaged in the indicator development process to ensure the most comprehensive range of data is canvassed.

The governance process for the social inclusion indicator framework should also specify how they will be reported on, how often and how they will be disseminated to the general public. It will be essential to ensure the indicators are available in an easily accessible form including to most socially excluded groups, in order to obtain citizen buy-in into the process. There have already been a number of advances in the presentation of statistical information using ICT tools such as interactive graphical tools and online publication of statistics. Many of these are summarised on the OECD Measuring the Global Progress of Societies website.58 A local example is the development of the Tasmania Together Online Benchmarking System, which presents all 143 indicators in an online format with graphical illustrations and detailed explanations of data sources and methods.59 Another example is the Community Indicators Victoria website, which allows users to generate their own custom reports for their communities60.

56

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2008 Measuring the Progress of Societies: What is the relevance for

Asia and the Pacific?, report presented to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Committee on Statistics, 19 December 2008, p.5 57 Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2009) submission to “A Social Inclusion Strategy for Tasmania: Consultation paper”. The National Statistical Service is an initiative which brings together the community of government agencies led by the ABS as Australia’s national statistical organisation to build a rich statistical picture for a better informed Australia. More information is available from: www.nss.gov.au 58

http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_40033426_40033828_1_1_1_1_1,00.html 59 See: http://www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au/obr/ 60 See www.communityindicators.net.au

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Due to the high levels of digital exclusion in Tasmania, it will be important to ensure that non-web-based dissemination strategies are used along with web tools, to ensure all Tasmanians have a chance to view the social inclusion indicators.

The proposed Social Inclusion Commission could take responsibility for these Governance matters.

Goal setting and framework

The first task in developing the indicators will be to reach a consensus on the end goal – that is, what would a socially inclusive Tasmania look like? The framework articulated in Chapter 2 provides a good starting point for this discussion. The goal of “A fairer Tasmania where all Tasmanians have access to the personal, social, economic and civic resources and relationships that make life healthy, productive and happy” represents the high-level strategic outcome of a Tasmanian Social Inclusion Strategy. Beneath this goal, a set of sub-outcomes or objectives could be identified. The choice of these will depend on the particular strategies and initiatives adopted, and the extent to which the strategies and initiatives are targeted at particular groups, issues and/or places.While the framework for the social inclusion indicators should reflect the Tasmanian context, it will be useful to align the framework where possible with the Australian Social Inclusion Board’s forthcoming measurement and reporting framework for social inclusion in Australia (due out towards the end of this year).

It will also be important to align the outcomes where possible with relevant Tasmania Together goals, in recognition of its role as the community led vision for progress in the State. There are a number of goals and indicators in Tasmania Together that are relevant to social inclusion (many are referenced in Appendix 1) and many more that could provide useful information on social inclusion if disaggregated for groups at risk of social exclusion, such as people living in disadvantaged communities, Tasmania Aborigines and others61.

Like Tasmania Together and MAP, the Tasmanian social inclusion indicator framework should reflect

the fact that progress in achieving social inclusion needs to occur across not only the social domain

but the economic and environment domains also. Social inclusion is more than a social policy

initiative: its causes and effects are also related to productivity and economic growth and

environmental sustainability.

Identifying appropriate indicators

Criteria for indicators

Once a framework has been developed, the next step is to populate it with indicators. A number of the indicator frameworks outlined above have specified criteria for choosing appropriate and reliable indicators. These include MAP62, Tasmania Together63, the EU indicators,64 and the CIW65. Common elements of these criteria include that indicators be:

Relevant and valid

Based on good quality, reliable and timely data

Sensitive to change

61

Already some Tasmania Together benchmarks are broken down for people with a disability and older persons – for example,

Benchmark 5.1.1 Supportive living for older persons and people with a disability. 62

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Measures of Australia's Progress: Summary Indicators, 2009, Cat No 1383.0.55.001 63

Tasmania Together Progress Board, Benchmark Development and Review Process, endorsed 1 March 2007, available from:

www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au 64

Outlined in Social Inclusion Unit, Department of Premier and Cabinet, South Australia, Evaluation: The Social Inclusion Initiative Big

Picture – Roundtables – Background Discussion Paper Two, Social Inclusion Initiative Indicators, January 2004. 65

Institute of Wellbeing, 2008 Canadian Index of Wellbeing, Foundational Document, November 9 2007 revised August 25, 2008.

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Responsive to policy levers (but not subject to manipulation)

Relatively easy to obtain and update regularly

Intelligible, transparent and accessible to the public

Comparable across jurisdictions where appropriate/possible

Capable of disaggregation by geographic areas and population groups of interest.

Some criteria also specify that the indicators be focused on outcomes, rather than input or process measures – for example, measures of the number of children reaching minimum literacy standards, rather than the numbers of teachers in schools or amount of funding for literacy initiatives. Input or output measures are still useful, however, where reliable outcome measures are difficult to obtain, or where the desired outcomes are changes in actual processes. For example, because regular data on the outcome of reducing the numbers of homeless people is difficult to obtain66, output measures such as the number of supported accommodation places created, may be required as substitute or supporting measures. And if the target of policy action is changes in processes or structures, input or output measures may be the only measures available: for example, measuring the number of whole-of-government committees as a measure of joined-up government. In selecting the EU indicators on Social Inclusion, “the choice of indicators is not limited to outcome indicators in order to better reflect the action and impact of policies.”67

Some frameworks specify that only objective rather than subjective measures should be included, that is: measures of the numbers of people accessing required services, rather than community perceptions of the accessibility of services. However, there are also areas where subjective measures are appropriate: for example, data has indicated that perceptions of safety are an important indicator of social cohesion in communities. Subjective measures can also highlight situations where movements in objective measures may not truly reflect improvements in individual circumstances. The decline in subjective life satisfaction in countries where GDP has increased is an example of this.

In choosing indicators, we can draw on the extensive work that has been undertaken by existing indicator projects containing data for Tasmania, such as MAP, Tasmania Together, the Kids Come First Project and Tasmanian Early Years Outcomes Framework, in identifying appropriate and high-quality measures of social exclusion in Tasmania.

It is important that indicators be capable of showing changes in the circumstances of the most socially excluded groups in our community68. An increase in the school retention rate for the population as a whole does not measure whether or not retention rates for the most excluded groups – eg. indigenous, rural youth etc. – have also risen, and to the same extent as for the whole population. For this reason it is important to identify data sources that are capable of disaggregation for geographic areas and/or population groups of interest, such as Tasmanian Aborigines, sole parents, the unemployed, and others. Indicators that can be broken down for small geographic areas are also a useful resource for individual communities who may wish to use the Tasmanian social inclusion indicators to measure social exclusion for their own communities. However, finding reliable data that is able to be reliably disaggregated for small geographic areas and small population groups is an ongoing issue for Tasmania (see next section).

Data gaps and limitations

66

Data on the number of people who are homeless is collected in the five-yearly ABS Census. While other data on people accessing

Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) is available yearly, this data only counts people who access those services, thereby excluding homeless people who do not approach services. 67 European Commission, Portfolio Of Overarching Indicators And Streamlined Social Inclusion, Pensions, And Health Portfolios, April 2008

Update, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG, Brussels, April 2008, p.2. 68 Social Inclusion Unit, Department of Premier and Cabinet, South Australia, Evaluation: The Social Inclusion Initiative Big Picture – Roundtables – Background Discussion Paper Two, Social Inclusion Initiative Indicators, January 2004.

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There are some gaps and limitations with the currently available data that will need to be overcome in developing a comprehensive set of social inclusion indicators. Some of these data gaps can be seen from reviewing the data included in Appendix 1. The gaps include a lack of reliable, sufficiently detailed and/or timely information for Tasmania on the following, among other areas:

Deprivation (data only available from a one-off survey to-date)

Financial exclusion (limited data available)

Digital exclusion (more recent data on access to digital technology other than the internet is needed)

Homelessness (five-yearly Census is the only comprehensive source)

Adult literacy (data only available every 10 years)

Mental health (lack of precise estimate on prevalence of mental illness in Tasmania)

Discrimination and acceptance of diversity (lack of quantitative sources)

Access to transport (more detailed data on barriers to accessing transport required)

Access to services (lack of reliable data on barriers to accessing services in Tasmania)

Personal resilience and life skills (further research required to identify data sources)

Family functioning (no regular state-wide data source)

In addition, there are also difficulties in finding reliable data to measure social exclusion across space (locational disadvantage), across time (intergenerational disadvantage) and for measuring multiple disadvantage.

Measuring social inclusion across space

The two main sources of data on social exclusion for geographic areas smaller than State level are the Census, and administrative data held by government agencies or other organisations.

The Census collects a range of data that is useful for identifying some aspects of disadvantage, such as being on a low income, having low educational levels, living in social housing or having no motor vehicle. However it does not measure a range of other aspects of disadvantage and social exclusion, such as: access to services, access to transport, health, crime and safety, social interaction, and non-income-based measures of financial hardship such as deprivation or financial stress.

Administrative data collections, such as those from the state government departments of health, police, justice and others, may help fill in some of these gaps; however data is not often available for geographic areas smaller than LGA due to data quality issues or confidentiality concerns. For example, in the case of suicides or youth justice data, the number of cases in a particular community may be so small that there is a high risk that people may be able to identify the particular individuals involved.

More work is required to identify administrative data sources that can reliably identify aspects of social exclusion at the community level; to draw maximum value from analysis of Census data; and where necessary, to develop survey instruments to fill in the data gaps.

Measuring social exclusion across time

Most of the quantitative statistics presented in Appendix 1 measure people’s current experiences of social exclusion. Statistics on unemployment rates, qualification levels, income and others are able to illustrate current trends but not how people’s experience of social exclusion changes over time, and the factors that drive that change. Nor do they provide insights into the transmission of social exclusion over generations.

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However, it is often difficult to find data robust enough to support measurement of change over time. Due to survey error, some changes in indicators between years are not ‘statistically significant’ – that is, it cannot be stated with certainty whether the change in the measured figure is due to real-world change or a function of survey error69. This is a common issue with measuring change for indicators that show only small movements, or have high survey errors. Because of this it may sometimes take several years before statistically significant changes appear in indicators.

Longitudinal studies such as the Household Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey70 and the Longitudinal Study of Australia’s Children (LSAC)71 can provide some insights into the experience of social exclusion over time - but due to their survey design they are not able to provide reliable data at state and territory level. There is a need to develop a means of measuring social exclusion across time, both within groups and within geographic areas, in Tasmania.

Identifying multiple and complex barriers

The statistics in Appendix 1 identified the proportions of Tasmanians facing particular barriers to social inclusion – such as poverty, unemployment, ill-health or disability, or digital exclusion. However, none of the statistics identified the proportion of the Tasmanian population facing more than one barrier at once: for example, the proportion of the population who fit all of the following characteristics: deprived, in housing stress, unemployed and lacking access to the internet.

The Social Policy Research Centre’s (SPRC) study on deprivation and social exclusion found that multiple deprivation was widespread. More than one-quarter of the general community sample reported being deprived of two or more essential items, while over 11 per cent were deprived of at least 5 essential items simultaneously. Rates of deprivation were much higher for the clients of community welfare organisations with more than two-thirds experiencing two or more forms of deprivation and close to half being deprived of five or more items72.

Analysis of the 2006 ABS General Social Survey (GSS) by the Australian Government Social Inclusion Unit73 has found that approximately 5 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over experienced multiple disadvantage, defined as people who fell into three or more of the following categories:

in the bottom three deciles of equivalised household disposable income who would not be able to raise $2000 in a week for something important;

persons aged under 65 living in a household where no person was employed;

persons whose self-assessed health status was fair or poor;

persons aged 20 or more who had not completed year 10 or higher at school;

persons who felt unsafe or very unsafe at home after dark; and

persons who were not able to get support in times of crisis from persons living outside the household.

A similar analysis based on either GSS or Census data would provide useful insights into multiple disadvantage in Tasmania.

69

An explanation of standard errors and their use in interpreting statistically significant movements between survey years is outlined in

Appendix ‘Standard Errors’ in Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, Australia, Cat No 6202.0. 70

See http://melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/ 71

See http://www.aifs.gov.au/growingup/ 72 Saunders, P., Naidoo, Y. and Griffiths, M., Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage: Deprivation and Social Exclusion in Australia, project report from the ARC Linkage Project, Left Out and Missing Out: Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, November 2007. Accessed from: http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/reports/index.htm, p.ix. 73

Social Inclusion Unit, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2009 The Australian Public Service Social Inclusion Policy Design and

Delivery Toolkit, 2009, Commonwealth of Australia.

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Addressing the above three data development areas will be important if Tasmania is to continue to develop a strong evidence base for social inclusion strategies.

Accountability and targets

Some jurisdictions have chosen to link indicators to targets and assign responsibility for achieving those targets to particular agencies or organisations, as a means of achieving this.

Targets provide a clear signal to stakeholders and the community about the importance of social inclusion initiatives and the level of commitment to achieving results. The use of ‘gap’ targets in particular is a useful means of focusing attention on the need to reduce the difference in outcomes for socially excluded groups against the general population eg. the Closing the Gap target of closing the life expectancy gap of indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians within a generation.

However, the setting of targets can be one of the most difficult aspects of indicator development as it requires attaining agreement between different stakeholders on what represents a sufficiently ambitious but achievable target for a given indicator. This may be particularly difficult for some areas of social inclusion policy that are particularly contentious or which involve multiple stakeholders with different views on what needs to be done to achieve results.

One of the most contentious aspects of target setting is assigning responsibility for target setting to one or more agencies or other organisations. In a complex policy area such as social inclusion which covers such a wide range of inter-related and overlapping social policy issues, it is difficult to assign sole accountability for achieving targets to one or few stakeholders.

For example, achieving a reduction in long-term unemployment will require efforts not only of the government departments at State and Commonwealth level with responsibility for employment policy, but of the other agencies (both government and non-government) with responsibility for addressing the multiple and complex barriers faced by the long-term unemployed, which may include health and disability services, education services, family support services, child care agencies, and many others. In addition, the business sector and local government have a role in generating investments that will provide sustainable employment for the long-term unemployed. In a globalised economy, it may also be difficult to determine the extent to which improvements in social inclusion are generated by the efforts of specific agents in the Tasmanian community versus changes in global conditions. It has been argued that policies “to promote social inclusion will create greater change in indicators in a boom than a recession.”74 In assessing changes in indicators it will be important to understand the links between indicators and where improvements in one may come at the expense of another, or conversely, improvements between indicators may be linked.

As outlined above, data quality issues may also mean that for some areas it may be difficult to find data that is reliable enough to discern whether or not the target has been met, taking into account sample error. Even when the data itself is reliable, there may be interpretation issues that make it difficult to determine whether or not a change in the indicator represents a movement away or towards the target. For example, while the Tasmania Together Indicator 2.1.8 Reported Level of Family Violence has shown an increase and therefore has not met the stated target for 2005, the increase has been partly attributed to “an enhanced reporting process; the community’s attitude that family violence is no longer acceptable; and an increased confidence by the community in the police response to incidents of family violence.”75 This highlights the importance of taking into

74

Feres et al 2002 quoted in The Roeher Institute, 2003 Policy Approaches to Farming Social Inclusion and Social Exclusion: An Overview,

Toronto, ON: The Roeher Institute, p.26. 75

Tasmania Together Progress Board 2008, Progress Report 2008, p.34.

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account contextual information and policy changes in assessing the performance of indicators against targets.

It is also important to consider the timeframe for targets. The social inclusion perspective is a long-term vision: it will take many years to defeat entrenched barriers to social inclusion faced by many in our community. From this point of view short-term targets may be self-defeating. Both short-term and long-term targets may be required to achieve the necessary balance between accountability and sustainability – as recognised in the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage framework.

Ultimately, there needs to be a mechanism for ensuring accountability for achieving social inclusion outcomes, and this must be borne by all major stakeholders across government, business and the community. This may be best achieved by working with all these sectors to develop an agreed set of indicators of social inclusion outcomes, and encouraging citizen engagement in monitoring the results, rather than setting specific targets. In developing these indicators, it should be recognised that the ability to affect outcomes in indicators at the population-wide level will depend on the scale, scope and sustainability of the social inclusion strategies adopted (as outlined in Chapter 1). For example: a program to improve unemployment rates for socially excluded groups will only impact on a statewide unemployment indicator if the program is: (a) implemented on a statewide basis, (b) covers all the socially excluded groups identified in the target, and (c) is funded over several years to allow time for results to be achieved and for the movements to be reliably measured in the indicator data. Without this scaling-up, it would only be realistic to measure the unemployment indicator for the particular community or target group for which the program is implemented. The scale and scope of the indicators chosen should therefore reflect the scale and scope of the actions adopted in the Tasmanian Social Inclusion Strategy.

1. A statewide baseline data set

Some of the data gaps on social exclusion outlined above – particularly in the arena of social capital,

access to services and community cohesion – will only be able to be filled by data from a dedicated

state wide survey, as there are currently no data sources able to provide comprehensive and regular

data on these aspects on a statewide basis and for small geographic areas. There have been a range

of surveys conducted in recent years capturing elements of social capital and social cohesion,

including the Department of Health and Human Services’ Tasmanian Community Capacity and

Healthy Communities Surveys outlined above; and the recent survey on child health and wellbeing

outcomes conducted by the Kids Come First project. The Tasmania Together Progress Board has also

commissioned a statewide community survey to collect data for benchmarks not currently able to be

measured by existing data sources, such as: community connectedness, subjective quality of life, and

acceptance of diversity. Data from the survey will be released in coming months.

Such a survey would require a governance model that involves all levels of government, business and the community to ensure apolitical results. It will also be essential to secure ongoing funding to ensure the survey can be run at regular intervals into the future, as without time series data it will be impossible to track progress over time.

It would also need to have a sample size sufficient to produce data that is reliable at State-level, and ideally, also to produce data that will allow for analysis of differences between areas below State level, such as local government areas. Alternatively, a statewide survey could be accompanied by more detailed oversampling in selected local government areas of particular interest from a social inclusion perspective. These areas could coincide with the communities chosen for the qualitative study outlined below.

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2. Qualitative studies

The South Australian studies outlined earlier represent examples of social inclusion evaluation methods that incorporated qualitative research as well as quantitative analysis to build a better picture of the drivers and dynamics of social exclusion. The Tasmanian evaluation strategy should similarly incorporate focus groups or other qualitative research techniques in assessing outcomes for particular groups at risk of social exclusion, or in particular geographic areas. As Appendix 2 outlined, it is important to capture the stories of people who are socially excluded in assessing social inclusion strategies.

A qualitative approach will also be required to assess the governance aspects of social inclusion that are difficult to capture using quantitative data: that is, are programs and agencies working together to provide joined-up solutions for clients?

Given the high level of place-based disadvantage in Tasmania, it would be useful to conduct in-depth analysis in a small number of areas to measure the effectiveness of social inclusion initiatives and also to test the effectiveness of our social inclusion indicators for capturing the real experiences of our Tasmanian communities. A range of areas could be chosen to represent the different types of challenges faced by particular communities – for example; an urban community facing high population growth and industrial change, contrasted with a rural community in decline with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage. An evaluation strategy in these areas could involve analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, along with data from a statewide survey.

3. Measuring the Economic Benefits of Social Inclusion

There has been extensive debate over the past decade about how to frame and measure the

economic benefits of social inclusion and the economic costs of social exclusion and the bibliography

contains numerous references to this topic. In general, the economic benefits of social inclusion can

be categorised as:

Direct benefits: for example, through social enterprises increasing levels of economic activity

and more efficiently producing and distributing goods and services;

Indirect benefits: for example, the benefits of increased employment and skills associated

with inclusive communities; less likelihood of illness; increased motivation; and stability of

the workforce ; and

Avoidable costs: for example through prevention and early intervention increasing levels of

wellbeing and reducing outlays on tertiary health, education and justice strategies.

From early work on social capital by the OECD76 and the Productivity Commission in Australia77

through to more recent studies on social inclusion78 the evidence seems to be that:

Supportive networks have a direct positive influence on labour productivity and

employment levels;

Trust and supportive networks can increase productivity by facilitating the spread of

knowledge and innovation and reducing transaction costs;

80 Healy, Tom; Sylvain Cote, 2001 The well-being of nations: the role of human and social capital, Organisation for Economic Co-operation

and Development. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), Paris: OECD, 2001. 77

Productivity Commission, 2003 Social Capital: Reviewing the Concept and its Policy Implications, Commission Research Paper, 2003. 78

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009 The Origins, Meaning , Definition and Economic Implications of

the Concept Social Inclusion/Exclusion. Australian Government, Canberra.

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Inclusion positively influences aspects of human capital, such as educational participation

and attainment which in turn positively influences economic growth;

Inclusion positively influences health status and positively influences workforce participation

and productivity;

Increased trust, civic co-operation, networks and active group membership may serve to

increase overall Gross Domestic product; and

Voluntary labour reduces costs of government service provision

The issue remains contested both in terms of the actual cause mechanisms (for example, how do

government investments in say, leadership, translate into economic benefits?) as well as

opportunity cost arguments.

There are, of course, many costs associated with social exclusion other than economic costs. As is

discussed in the body of the Report, these costs play out both individually ( for example through

increasing rates of mental illness) and socially ( through higher levels of uncertainty and lower levels

of trust).

Given the potential costs as well as benefits from adopting the proposed strategies and actions in

this report, it would be useful for Tasmania to undertake its own investigation of the economic

benefits of social inclusion and the costs of social exclusion. This investigation could be undertaken

by the Parliament as this may facilitate a bipartisan approach to the issue and and help raise its

profile.

Conclusion

Drawing on recent practices in measuring progress, wellbeing and social inclusion around the world,

this chapter suggests an evaluation strategy for Tasmania’s social inclusion initiative that engages all

spheres of government, business and the community in measuring results and in being accountable

for making a difference. Evaluation will involve a set of social inclusion indicators, supported by a

statewide baseline survey to plug data gaps, qualitative data to facilitate more in-depth analysis of

social inclusion in the State and a study of the economic benefits of social inclusion.

Relative to other jurisdictions Tasmania has the benefit of the Tasmania Together benchmarks as a

reference point for what could be measured. Tasmania Together indicators provide statewide data

on a range of areas relevant to social inclusion, such as employment, education and training, social

connectedness, crime and safety, health, access to services and transport, and many more. Table 10

outlines a selection of benchmarks from Tasmania Together that are most relevant to social

inclusion.

These provide a starting point for consideration – however, as previously mentioned, the specific

indicators and outcomes to be included in the final set of Tasmanian social inclusion indicators will

depend on the following:

1. which strategies and initiatives are adopted

2. the extent to which strategies and initiatives are targeted at particular groups, issues and/or

places; and

3. the scale, scope, sustainability and connectivity of the investments.

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Table 10 Tasmania Together benchmarks relevant to social inclusion

Goal Standard Benchmark

Goal 1

A reasonable

lifestyle and

standard of living

for all Tasmanians

1

Ensure all Tasmanians

have the economic

capacity to enjoy a

reasonable standard of

living and access to

basic services

1.1 The cost of food, electricity, housing, transport and health as a percentage of income for low-income earners 2001 Couples: 72% 2001 Families: 73% Source: Anglicare (Cost of Essentials Benchmark Figure)

1.4 Housing stress experienced by low-income earners in Tasmania within the private rental market Nov 2002: 20.6% Source: Department of Health and Human Services

1.6 Public housing waiting times for priority applicants 2005: 38 weeks Source: Department of Health and Human Services

1.7 Transport accessibility 2002: 87.5% Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0)

Goal 2 Confident, friendly and safe communities.

1 Support safe and responsible behaviour and ensure that community facilities and spaces, transport systems, workplaces and private homes are, and are perceived to be, safe environments.

1.2 Percentage of people who feel safe at home 2001/02 92.5% (day) 80.0% (night) Source: Department of Police and Emergency Management

1.3 Percentage of people who feel safe in public places 2001/02 86.1% (day) 40.6% (night) Source: Department of Police and Emergency Management

Goal 3 High-quality education and training for lifelong learning and a skilled workforce

1 Support pre-school children for an equal start.

1.1 Proportion of children meeting the Kindergarten Development Check 2005: 72% Source: Department of Education

2 Support improved levels of community literacy.

2.1 Proportion of persons (15 -74) who are considered to be functionally literate. 1996 Prose literacy: 51.7% Document literacy: 46.8% Quantitative literacy: 47.5% Source: Aspects of Literacy: Assessed Skill Levels, Australia (ABS 4228.0)

2.2 Student performance against national literacy & numeracy benchmarks Reading (2000) Year 3: 91.2% Year 5: 81.4%

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Year 7: 87.5% (2001) Writing (2000) Year 3: 86.2% Year 5: 88.2% Year 7: 85.9% (2001) Numeracy (2000) Year 3: 92.8% Year 5: 87.6% Year 7: 79.7% (2001) Source: Department of Education

3 Access to and participation in life-long learning that is responsive to individual and community needs.

3.1 Retention from Year 10 to 12 2000 Tas: 71.6% NSW: 69.8% Vic: 79.7% Qld: 78.7% SA: 69.5% WA: 71.6% NT: 62.2% ACT: 88.7% Source: Schools, Australia (ABS 4221.0)

4 Ensure education and training provides our workforce with the skills to support our business and industry.

4.1 Proportion of Tasmanians with high level skills/qualifications (Certificate III +) 2001: 33.4% Source: Education and Work (ABS 6227.0)

4.2 Participation in post-secondary education and training 2000: 13.7% Source: Department of Education

Goal 4 Active, healthy Tasmanians with access to quality and affordable health care services

1 Improve Tasmanians' health through promotion and support of healthy lifestyle choices.

1.4 Proportion of Tasmanians over 18 who eat at least 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables a day Fruit (2 or more serves) 2001 Tas: 50.6% Aus: 52.4% Vegetables (5 or more serves) 2004/05 Tas: 20.6% Aus: 14.3% Source: National Health Survey (ABS 4364.0) previously National Nutrition Survey, Food Eaten Australia 1995 (ABS 4804.0) (Previous data was for 4 serves of vegetables)

Goal 5 Vibrant, inclusive and growing communities where people feel valued and connected.

2 Tasmania will have viable rural communities.

2.1 The proportion of Tasmanians residing in socially disadvantaged regional areas 1996: 66.7% Source: Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) (ABS, 2033.6.55.001)

3 Recognise and value the many contributions that volunteers and unpaid workers can – and do – make to their community.

3.1 Per capita voluntary participation in community and service activities in a 12-month period 1995: 22.2% Source: Voluntary Work, Australia (ABS 4441.

4 Access and utilisation of communications

4.1 Public access to Internet services 2000: 2.8 computers per1000 households

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technology.

Source: Department of Education

4.2 Percentage of households with Internet connections 2000 Tas: 25% Aus: 32% Source: Household Use of Information Technology (ABS 8146.0)

5 A valued role in community life for Tasmania’s young people now and in the future.

5.3 Participation of young people in community groups Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0)

Goal 6 Dynamic, creative and internationally recognised arts community and culture.

2 Increase participation in the arts and cultural activities.

2.1 Percentage of people participating in cultural activities (ie people who are actually involved in activities, not audience) April 2001: 18.1% Source: Work in Selected Culture and Leisure Activities, Australia (ABS 6281.0)

2.2 Attendance at cultural venues April 1999: 610,500 Source: Attendance at Selected Cultural Venues, Australia (ABS 4114.0)

Goal 7 Acknowledgement of the right of Aboriginal people to own and preserve their culture, and share with non-Aboriginal people the richness and value of that culture.

1 Recognise, promote, share and celebrate Aboriginal culture and heritage, encouraging mutual recognition and respect between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

1.1 Percentage of teaching staff who have received professional development specifically related to their role as teachers of indigenous studies 2001/02 - 2003/04: 114% Source: Department of Education

Goal 8 Open and accountable government that listens and plans for a shared future.

1 Provide an opportunity for all Tasmanians to participate in decisions that affect their lives.

1.1 Proportion of people who think there are opportunities to have a real say on important issues Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0) 2006

1.2 Proportion of people participating in a decision-making process. Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0) 2006

1.4 Involvement in community action to improve or protect local services or activities Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0) 2006

2 Support the participation of young people in decision-making.

2.1 Percentage of councils with youth advisory committees 2001: 65.5% Source: Department of Premier and Cabinet, Office of Youth Affairs

2.2 Performance of students against national benchmarks for civics and

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citizenship 2004 (data released late 2006) Source: Department of Education

3 All levels of government are accountable.

3.1 Number of State Government Regional Community Forums 2000: 8 Source: Department of Premier and Cabinet

4 Government services are accessible and responsive and information is available.

4.1 Level of satisfaction with government services provided through Service Tasmania 2001: 95% Source: Department of Premier and Cabinet

4.2 Number of Service Tasmania over the counter, over the phone and online government services provided to local communities 2000 Over the counter: 250 Over the phone (bill payments): 23 Over the Internet (bill payments): 13 Source: Department of Premier and Cabinet

4.3 People who feel comfortable contacting someone in government for information Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0) 2006

4.4 Proportion of people who have difficulty accessing government services Baseline to be established in 2007 Source: General Social Survey (ABS 4159.0) 2006

Goal 10 Thriving and innovative industries driven by a high level of business confidence.

3 Increase the rate of economic growth.

3.1 Growth in Gross State Product June 1999 (3 year rolling average) 1.72% Source: Australian National Accounts: State Accounts (ABS 5220.0)

Actions

1. Develop a set of Tasmanian social inclusion indicators and a baseline data set of quantitative

and qualitative data.

2. A Parliamentary Inquiry into the economic benefits of social inclusion and the economic costs of

social exclusion

All spheres of government, business and the community should be involved in the development of the social inclusion indicators to ensure whole-of-community engagement in the process. This will engender trust, avoid politicisation of the indicators, and help to ensure the sustainability of the evaluation process. It will also reinforce the principle that responsibility for achieving social inclusion outcomes rests with the whole community, not just government.