Launch of FIN info network dealing with Govt funding

2/3/95

Community Development Minister Roger Nicholls today launched a new funding information network which will help non-Government agencies to understand and use the purchase of services model for Government funding of non-Government agencies.

Mr Nicholls said the new funding information network (FIN) would be administered by the Western Australian Council of Social Service (WACOSS) under a $72,218 agreement with the Department for Community Development.

It would operate during the introduction of the new system, which would fund agencies to deliver specific services instead of simply funding the agencies.

Mr Nicholls said he had announced the new system when releasing the Community Services Industry Study last June.

The funding information network was a result of the huge amount of preparatory work that had been going on since then.

"The information network is to help all non-Government agencies make the best use of the new system, and it is itself a good example of that system," the Minister said.

"WACOSS has entered an agreement to deliver a specific service and to deliver the service to all non-Government agencies regardless of whether they are members of WACOSS."

Mr Nicholls said all preparatory work for the new funding system would be completed in time for agencies to be informed about funding by the end of May.

They were currently funded to the end of June.

Agencies would be required to be specific about the service they would deliver, the people they believed would use it, and the benefits that people could expect to gain from it.

This information would be available to the community in each DCD district so that people could make informed choices about the services they wanted to use for themselves and their families.

Mr Nicholls said the new arrangements would give the non-Government agencies the most solid foundation they had ever had for the delivery of Government-funded services to the community.

The system would lift the partnership between Government and the community to a new level of integrity and give the people of Western Australia better services and better value for money.

Media contact:   Hugh Ryan   221 5468