A new model of inclusion? Centrelink's development of income support service delivery for remote Indigenous communities
Will Sanders
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
Contact Email:   William.Sandersanu.edu.au

When Centrelink was established in 1997, it inherited from the Department of Social Security a model of service delivery for Indigenous communities in remote areas built around relatively large social security offices based in urban centres and agents based in Indigenous communities. Some dissatisfaction with this model has led Centrelink to experiment with additional ways of delivering income support services to remote Indigenous communities. In particular, it has piloted the development of some very small Centrelink offices, or Customer Service Centres (CSCs), with just one or two Centrelink employees, located in some of the larger Indigenous communities.

This paper will report on a consultancy undertaken in 2002 which provided a formative evaluation of the first two such small CSCs. It will also outline plans, originating in the 2001 budget, for the establishment over the next five years of another twelve such small CSCs servicing Indigenous people in remote areas. It will argue that these small CSCs are a significant development in the way in which Indigenous people in remote areas have been included in the social security system over the last forty years. While perhaps not an entirely new model of inclusion of Indigenous people in the social security system per se, they are a significant development in the service delivery model through which, in practice, this inclusion occurs.

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Copyright © 2003 Social Policy Research Centre.