
Issue No 33		01 October 1999

News

Social Audit Backed by Community Groups

Key community groups representing the welfare and community sectors have backed the Labor Council's call for a social audit into the needs and distribution of government resources.


	Panel Addresses Social Audit Confernce last Thursday

The NSW Council of Social Services, the Ethnic Communities Council and the Labor Council of NSW released a Joint Communique following a half-day conference on Social Well-being.

"We note the continual pressure upon governments to be fiscally responsible, whilst at the same time responding to the ever increasing demands for government services," the Communique says..

"We recognise that governments should not just be responsible for the economic, but also the social well-being of the community.

"We accept that in a complex, modern and culturally diverse society demands for the provision of government services are limited by the community's willingness to sustain the taxation base.

"This raises two issues that governments must resolve:

- the level of resources required to maintain a cohesive society.

- and the distribution of these resources.

"We believe that a social audit would be a useful tool in resolving these issues by mapping:

- new quality of life indicators

- the community's expectations in terms of the provision of government services, including the special needs of particular groups such as from NESB, indigenous Australians and those with disabilities

- the current level and distribution of these services

- any gap in the above

"Accordingly, we call upon the federal and NSW governments to implement a wide-ranging social audit to map the demands and priorities for social infrastructure and services across NSW."

A similar resolution is expected to be debated at the State Conference.

Panel Discussion: edited extracts of the panel discussion

1.What is a social audit?

2. What are the priorities and objectives of social development?/

3. What can we do and who should be doing it?

Tony Vinson, UNSW

1. The idea should be to audit resources available in NSW, then match them with needs - of people (individuals and families), and areas. This is not that difficult. On October 20 I'm releasing a report with the Jesuit Society Justice Unit on the distribution of disadvantage via postcode areas -it looks at indicators like low birth weights, mortality, child abuse, court convictions, leaving age from school, etc.

I would hope a Social Audit would look at cultural and social practices, both formal and less formal services such as the frontline services provided in South-Western Sydney by relief agencies like St Vincent de Paul. It should also look at how those services are organised as well as mapping where all the money has gone.This could be done historically, looking at where was the money going 20 years ago and where they go today. Other factors to look at include outcasts (prisoners, refugees etc) and outcomes - "generosity, diversity and respect".

2. At the State level, there's an educative function as well as a need to decrease the amount of blatant discrimination that exists in society. Three suburbs, for instance, account for 30 per cent of female prisoners. There needs to be less social control - a move away from concentrating the State's policing where we're turning our backs on the communities' needs. There is also the need for stronger communities. This means objective and ongoing measurement of the strength of social bonds.

3. There are four questions Neville Wran always asked - what is it? why should we do it? who's going to do it? and how much will it cost? We should bring together all the groups involved .The way forward for a social audit is to build a broad campaign in support of it.

Linda Burney - NSW Reconciuliaiton Committee

1.I'm not sure what a Social Audit is, but I do know that unless people work together, and across government, nothing will change. The present situation for indigenous people is unacceptable and seems unending, and without answer. Such complex situations are so huge and so challenging, people don't know where to start, but there's certainly no bloody need for more research. It's not just an issue of social justice for aboriginal people - it's about all of us, and how we see ourselves. There'll never be a feeling of peace in unless we come to terms with how this country came about. And how this country still is, especially the racism and paternalism rife in the way business is done with indigenous people. Two things are fundamental: equality and "the peace of the soul of this nation".

2.Equal outcomes, and finding a way to do things differently - there's been a lot of money spent, but not much change (as far as indigenous issues go). This leads to the notion of regional agreements, to pool lots of money. Partnerships and proper alliances are the way forward.

3. The answer lies in partnerships, proper and equal alliances in terms of stakeholders. It starts with indigenous people being able to meet with and reach out to Trades and Labour Councils, NCOSS and ECC-type groups. The very prevalent (and wrong) attitude when it comes to indigenous issues is one "hands off". Governments and NGOs also need to recognise symbols eg, flying flags, acknowledging country. Indigenous people also have a responsibility to get involved, and there's a reciprocal responsibility for agencies to give the indigenous people a voice. We have to bring people in from the margins, make indigenous issues part of the mainstream agenda. Consultation is no longer good enough - there has to be negotiation. Finally, another step we can take right now is to look at what joins us, not what divides us.

Chris Sidoti - Human Rights Commissioner

1. The starting point is the question "what is social?" Social has to have a hard edge, but it's clearly not economic. Social is human rights, and tangible things - health, education, nutrition. We must ask whether we are we getting better or worse? We must ask these questions both in global and micro terms, as the audit needs to be able to identify pockets of disadvantage. It's a progressive process, not immediate, but there is an obligation to go forward - so are we? Three steps are necessary: define benchmarks - life expectancy of individual groups, determining targets and measuring progress against the benchmarks and targets.

2. Priorities must be directed towards the attainment of four values - inclusion, participation, equality (true equality, that is not just treating everyone the same but making allowances if need be so that some people have a chance to get what others have), and community.

3 We should get community groups together to determine what are the key indicators for us. The Federal Goernment is committed to a National Action Plan on Human Rights, and reporting to the International Committee on economics and human rights. This would be a good place for communities to start contributing.

We should be aware of exactly what we are measuring.For example of a school bus run in the Northern Territory: one company did it in very efficient time, because if the kids weren't waiting it moved on, reaching the school with hardly any kids. Another driver stopped the bus, went and checked the kids were washed, fed and dressed, packed them on the bus and delivered them to school. Of course, he took longer (and was therefore less time-efficient), but achieved the purpose, which was to get aboriginal kids to school.

Percy Allen - Council fo the Cost of Government

1.. The Social Audit should be broader than a poverty or injustice inquiry, but narrower than a "spiritual" inquiry like that referred to be Clive Hamilton.. It should start by identifying the needs of a cross-section of the community , and - with the communities' help - assess the extent of provision. It should try to identify what people really need. And then look at how to fund them.We need to put in place a system to monitor outputs: performance indicators, social indicators, setting targets. We should also examine likely future changes in demand such as looking at the ageing of the population.

2.The market economy is here to stay. We have to become more efficient and clever, but the new knowledge economy means increasing inequity. The priority must be the "4 Es" - Balancing equity, efficiency, economic growth and the needs of the environment. The social priority must be to address poverty, especially amongst children. The recently released Blair Government report on poverty in the UK has some very useful indications to measure poverty that we could apply in a social audit.

3.There's a problem in that different groups are only interested in their own thing - you never see community organisations at a business lunch and vice versa. There needs to be more balance between the 4Es. You do have to identify areas of neglect, or the wider community won't realise there's a problem - unless it gets measured it won't get done. But the medium to longer-term outlook is also important. We should beware of making a Social Audit so big that nothing gets achieved. We should be asking clients what they want, then working backwards.

Eva Cox - UTS

1. Has recently worked on a social audit for The Body Shop . She fiound that 80 per cent of workers were proud of working there, and that's because The Body Shop "does good things". She introduced her notion of a "triple bottom line" - looking at financial, environmental and social indicators. The concept of the third bottom line is about making organisations acceptable to stakeholders - workers, customers, clients, suppliers, funders - amd asking what effect does the organisation have on the stakeholders?

2. A new debate is needed to put ethics back into work, we need action on the lack of leadership being shown and more respect for diversity, not tolerance.

3. Politicians don't want the information because it ruins a good policy! Disagrees with Percy and Tony - doesn't think tagging places as poor helps improve their situation leads to adhesion. Pouring resources into those identified areas doesn't give them a sense of control, but stigmatises them. We need to steadily build into those communities the idea that they're part of the wider community. We need to get up the idea of what is a society, not what is an economy.

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 33 contents

Interview: The Boys
Labor Party heavyweights Eric Roozendaal and Damian O'Connor will lock horns this weekend. They fire their first shots.

Economics: Reasons to Be Cheerful
Can we change the way we look at the economy to better reflect community happiness and well-being?

Unions: Breaking the Wave
ACTU President's submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Workplace Relations Act.

International: The Wisdom of Solomon
A disturbing case from the Pacific where corporate lawyers are playing a deadly game.

History: Groundhog Day
Ghosts of Conferences past: some strangely familiar debates and decisions from previous state ALP conferences

Legal: Bad, Bad Things
Some of Australia's leading industrial lawyers argue that the Workplace Relations Act breaches basic international obligations.

Review: Tailing Out
As the BHP steelworks close in Newcastle a special book chronicles the stories of working live that have just become history.

Satire: Police Cut-Backs Lead To Drop In Organised Crime
An audit of the NSW Police has revealed that they have been seriously cutting back their operating budgets to ensure that they will be able to afford the increased security costs of the Olympics.

Work/Time/Life: It's Official: Aussies Work Harder
Australians continue to work long hours in contrast to a world-wide trend in industrialised countries that has seen hours at work remaining steady or declining in recent years.

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