Benchmarks and Indicators

The Indigenous Affairs Advisory Committee (IAAC), a working group chaired by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, was established to develop agreed benchmarks and the process for linking these to the drivers for government business.

This activity at the State level is reflected at the National level with the development of National benchmarks and indicators to drive change and provide information about progress in policy and service delivery to redress Indigenous social and economic disadvantage.

The benchmarks and indicators project has two tiers. One is the development of headline indicators designed to describe the overall state of Indigenous disadvantage in Australia. These are indicators of the current situation. They are not sufficient to drive change in policy and service delivery in the short term. They will be used to monitor change over the long term.

The second is a set of strategic change indicators designed to drive greater integration of effort within and across government. These are essential to catalyse change in the way of delivering service that will cause positive change in the shorter term.

As part of the second tier the Ministerial Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (MCATSIA) has identified, and agreed on, the following set of strategic areas for collaborative action:

• Early childhood development and growth;
• Early school engagement and performance;
• Breaking the cycle of alcohol abuse and ending tobacco use;
• Functional and resilient families and communities;
• Building on the strength of indigenous culture and communities; and
• Functioning community infrastructure.

This work seeks to achieve two major outcomes:

1. To drive action across governments and portfolios of government required to improve outcomes.
2. To measure and report on the extent to which actions are addressing Indigenous disadvantage.