WORKING GROUP DRAFT – IN CONFIDENCEReport on Government Services 2026
PART F: RELEASED ON 29 JANUARY 2026
F Community services
Community services – sector overview and sections (PDF 8.8 MB)Main aims of services within the sector
Community services provide support and assistance to individuals, families and groups to maximise their potential and enhance community wellbeing.
In the context of government service delivery, 'community services' include services providing assistance to specific groups with an identified need for additional support. This may include children and young people, families, older people and people with disability. Community services can overlap with other sectors, including health, education, housing and homelessness and early childhood services.
Aged care services
This section focuses on government funded care and support services for older people and their carers, which are provided at home, in the community and in residential care facilities.
- Total government recurrent expenditure on aged care services was $36.4 billion in 2023-24.
- The Australian Government provided 98.9% of government funding for aged care services in 2023-24. State and territory governments provided the remainder.
Services for people with disability
This section reports on Australian, state and territory governments’ assistance provided to people with disability and their carers, with a focus on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and social and economic outcomes for people with disability.
- Total government recurrent expenditure on disability services was $46.7 billion in 2023-24, an increase of almost 14% compared to 2022-23.
- In 2023-24, governments contributed $42.4 billion to the NDIS, with a further $1.8 billion in government expenditure on direct service delivery outside of the NDIS.
- The ABS estimates that 5.5 million Australians, or 21.4% of the population, had a disability in 2022.
Total expenditure does not represent all expenditure on services for people with disability. People with disability may access non-disability specific services.
Child protection services
This section focuses on services provided by state and territory governments to promote family wellbeing and support children and young people who are at risk of abuse and neglect, or whose families do not have the capacity to provide care and protection.
- Total government recurrent expenditure on child protection services was around $10.2 billion nationally in 2023 24, a real increase of 6.6% from 2022 23.
- In 2023-24, real recurrent expenditure on all child protection services per child aged 0–17 years in the population was $1,765 nationally. The cost per child is derived based on the population of children aged 0–17 years in Australia.
Youth justice services
This section focuses on services provided by statutory youth justice agencies for the supervision and case management of young people who have committed or allegedly committed an offence.
- Total recurrent expenditure on detention based supervision, community based supervision and group conferencing was $1.5 billion nationally in 2023 24.
- The average daily number of young people (excluding the Northern Territory) under youth justice supervision in Australia in 2023 24 was 3,264.
Total government expenditure
Detailed information on the equity, effectiveness and efficiency of service provision and the achievement of outcomes for the service areas is included in the service-specific sections.
Government expenditure in the sector
Total government expenditure for the community services in this report was around $94.6 billion in 2023 24. For the 2022-23 financial year (the most recent financial year for which data are available across all sections), the community services sector represented around 20.9% of total government expenditure covered in this report.
Government support payments for the sector
The Australian government provides support payments to help with living expenses and provide financial assistance to individuals, families, carers and people with disability.
Aged pension
Financial support for all people aged 67 years and over was $59.1 billion in 2023-24 (DSS 2024).
Support for people with disability
[Drafting note: information about income support and allowances from section 15 Context will be moved here]
Outlays (government expenditure) on income support payments and allowances to people with disability and their carers (on an accrual basis) amounted to $32.7 billion in 2023-24. This comprised of:
- $21.5 billion for the Disability Support Pension
- $7.5 billion for the Carer Payment
- $2.8 billion for the Carer Allowance
- $620.8 million for the Carer Supplement
- $202.7 million for the Child Disability Assistance Payment
- $33.9 million for the Mobility Allowance
- $9.3 million for Essential Medical Equipment payments
- $2.0 million for the Carer Adjustment Payment (DSS 2024).
Carer payments (for child protection services)
[Drafting note: placeholder] Include data on care allowance and other supports linked to the care allowance (if available). (drafting note: this can include the foster carer/kinship carer allowance and additional supports such as establishment allowance, high support needs allowance and regional and remote loading).
Flows in the sector
The community services sector is diverse. Some services are funded and provided by governments, while others are funded by governments but provided by the not-for-profit or private sectors. For example, private residential aged care services, private providers under the NDIS and child protection prevention and strengthening services delivered by not-for-profit organisations. Governments also work with community organisations to provide diversion and early intervention community programs to young people across Australia.
Governments regulate the quality and safety of services across the sector (for example, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and various state and territory entities). Selected information on complaints, service quality and safety are available in section 14 and 15. [Drafting note: a reference to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry Delivering quality care more efficiently interim report will be included here after the release of the report. One of the policy reform areas for the inquiry is the reform of quality and safety regulation to support a more cohesive care economy.]
The sector provides support to specific population groups including children and young people, families, older people and people with disability. Understanding the characteristics of people accessing community services and their journey through the service system and interactions with other services such as the health and housing enables government to plan and provide services. Linked (integrated) data sets such as the National Disability Data Asset that bring together information from multiple data sources can support this analysis (Information Box 1). There are also other linked data sets available or under development, such as:
- The National Aged Care Data Asset for aged care research purposes. Refer to the website for more information: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/nacda
- The Child Wellbeing Data Asset for measuring children and young people’s wellbeing. Refer to the website for more information: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/child-wellbeing-data-asset
Information box 1: the potential of linked data to support cross-sectoral analysis
The National Disability Data Asset
The National Disability Data Asset brings together government administrative data sets to better understand how people with disability use services and programs, and whether these meet their needs. All governments are working together to add data to the National Disability Data Asset and more data will become available over time. The National Disability Data Asset currently includes data sets on:
- National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
- Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)
- Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)
- Demographic information from the Medicare Consumer Directory
- Death Registrations (for all states and territories)
- Social security payments (Centrelink administrative data)
- Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC)
- Admitted Patient Care (South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory)
- Non-admitted patient emergency department care (South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory)
- Non-admitted patient National Best Endeavours (Australian Capital Territory)
- Disability Services National Minimum Dataset (South Australia).
Disability flags in the National Disability Data Asset [Drafting note: language currently being reviewed by the DACWG and data custodians]
In consultation with the disability community, their representatives and experts in disability data, disability indicators, now known as disability flags, have been designed. The disability flags identify people with disability in the National Disability Data Asset. The first set of flags include people who participated in the NDIS as well as people who were eligible for or received disability related government payments and services. This does not represent all people with disability in Australia. People with disability may not access services or may access non disability specific services. The flags do not measure a broad or unified conceptual definition of disability. The addition of more data from states and territories will allow for more groups of people with disability to be identified in the future (Australian Government 2024). Based on data from 2022, the first set of disability flags showed that 1.4 million people, or 5.4% of the population, received disability-related government payments and services during that year. The proportion of people who received disability-related government payments and services by age, sex and remoteness areas are available in the National Disability Data Asset factsheet: https://www.ndda.gov.au/measuring-disability-factsheet.
How information from the National Disability Data Asset can support analysis for the RoGS
Supporting measurement of the potential population of people with disability: Disability flags can be used to support measurement of the potential population of people with disability and provide contextual information on the potential demand for government services and unmet need in section 15 of this report.
Improving identification of people with disability: Disability flags can support the identification of disability status within data sources where this has been difficult, such as in child protection, youth justice and hospital data sets. This will allow the measurement of equity of access to services for people with disability across the community services sector.
Estimating levels of service usage levels by people with disability: Disability flags and linkage to other government administrative data sets can be used to measure the use of mainstream services such as hospitals, housing and homelessness services by people with disability. It will also allow for a better understanding of the differences in service use by location or setting.
The community services workforce
Estimates of the community services workforce are difficult to derive due to overlapping occupations and industries (for example, health and welfare support in education and childcare settings).
According to the 2021 Census, of the 12 million people aged 15 years and over who were employed, around 11.5% worked in the occupation ‘community and personal service worker’, up from 10.8% in the 2016 Census (ABS 2022). The ‘community and personal service worker’ occupation group includes:
- ‘personal carers and assistants‘, which comprises ageing and disability support workers and child or youth residential care assistants
- ‘welfare support workers‘, which comprises youth workers and family support workers.
The 2021 Census showed that 3.0% of employed people worked as ageing and disability support workers, up from 1.2% in 2016. Welfare support workers rose from 0.5% of employed people in 2016 to 0.9% in 2021.
Information about carers enables governments to plan for future service demand for carer support and assistance to the people for whom they care.
The role of carers for people with disability or older people
Carers play a vital role in supporting older people and people with disability to remain in their homes and communities. According to the 2022 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) (ABS 2024, ABS 2019):
- there were 3.0 million carers nationally in 2022, representing 11.9% of all Australians living in households (up from 2.6 million carers or 10.8% in 2018).
- around 1.2 million people (4.5% of the Australian population aged 15 years and over) were primary carers of people with disability or older people, providing support in one or more core activities of self-care, mobility and communication.
- two-thirds (67.7%) of primary carers were female, decreasing from 71.8% in 2018.
Section 14 of this report includes further information on carers of people 65 years or older and Section 15 of this report includes further information on carers of people with disability under 65 years.
The role of carers for child protection services
Carers, often referred to as foster carers or kinship carers, play a crucial role in providing home-based care for children in the child protection system.
[Drafting note: placeholder] Include key data such as the number of foster carers and kinship carers (if available) or links to relevant data reports on carers. Section 16 of this report includes further information on home-based care provided by foster carers or kinship carers.
Carers’ wellbeing
[Drafting note: placeholder] Include key data such as the overall wellbeing between carers and the general population. The data will be for people who provide unpaid assistance (and if possible, specifically for carers who provide care for children, people with disability and older people). Data will be requested from the Carers Wellbeing survey.
A summary of the aged care services, services for people with disability, child protection services and youth justice services performance indicator results are presented. Detailed information is in the service-specific sections.
Compliance with care minutes varied across Australia in 2023-24.
Nationally, in 2023-24:
- 34.0% of residential aged care services met both the total care minutes target and the registered nurse (RN) care minutes target (separately, 52.0% of residential aged care services met the total care minutes target and 50.5% met the RN care minutes target).
- 89.3% of residential aged care services met the 24/7 RN requirement with having an RN on-site and on-duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Serious Incident Response Scheme notifications have increased and complaints for residential aged care services have declined.
Nationally, in 2023-24, there were:
- 55,048 Serious Incident Response Scheme notifications from residential aged care service providers, which equates to 7.7 notifications per 10,000 occupied bed days (an increase from 5.5 notifications per 10,000 occupied bed days in 2021-22, which was the first full year of the scheme).
- 5,424 in-scope concerned with permanent and respite residential aged care services, equivalent to 0.76 complaints per 10,000 occupied bed days, a decrease from a peak of 0.93 in 2021-22.
Unit costs in residential age care, home care and restorative care have increased in 2023-24.
Nationally, in 2023-24 (dollars):
- the average annualised cost per occupied bed day was $109,566, up from $75,486 in 2014-15.
- the cost per recipient of a home care package programme was $22,585, an increase from $18,754 in 2022-23.
- the cost per day of the Transition Care Programme was $461, up from $345 in 2017-18.
More information: section 14 aged care services.
NDIS waiting times for approval of first plan have improved in 2023-24.
Nationally:
- In 2022-23, 50% of applicants to the NDIS received a decision on their application within 5 days of submitting an access request, increasing to 90% of applicants within 13 days, a consistent trend over the three years prior.
- In 2022-23, 50% of NDIS participants had their first plan approved within 27 days (increasing to 60 days at the 90th percentile), an improvement on results reported in 2021-22 (37 days at the 50th percentile and 78 days at the 90th percentile).
- In 2023-24, it took an average of 2.7 days for the NDIA to contact a NDIS participant after being notified of hospital admission.
- In 2023-24, it took an average of 22 days to be discharged from the hospital once medically ready for discharge.
NDIS Complaints and reportable incidents have increased in 2023-24.
Nationally, in 2023-24:
- there were 43.9 total complaints per 1,000 active NDIS participants, an increase from 28.8 in 2022-23.
- there were 39.9 other reportable incidents (excluding unauthorised use of restrictive practices) per 1,000 NDIS participants, an increase from 29.8 other reportable incidents per 1,000 active NDIS participants in 2021-22.
- rates of reportable incidents varied across category types from 1.0 per 1,000 NDIS participants for alleged sexual misconduct to 18.0 per 1,000 NDIS participants for alleged abuse and neglect.
Australian Government funding per user of non-government provided employment services has declined in 2023-24.
Nationally, in 2023-24 (dollars), the estimated Australian Government contribution was:
- $4,349 per user of services (non-government provided employment services), a decline from $4,775 in 2019-20.
- $4,338 per user of open services (employed or seeking employment in the open labour market).
- $15,379 per user of supported services (employed by the service provider).
More information: section 15 services for people with disability.
Over the last ten years, the rate of children who were subjects of child protection notifications have increased. Rates of finalised investigations and substantiations of likely abuse or neglect have fluctuated.
- Notifications increased by 36.2% between 2014-15 and 2023-24 and (39.0 per 1,000 children in 2014-15 compared with 53.1 notifications per 1,000 children in 2023-24).
- In 2023-24 there were 17.0 finalised investigations per 1,000 children. This is lower than the peak of 20.5 per 1,000 children in 2016-17.
- In 2023-24 there were 7.3 substantiations per 1,000 children, continuing the trend of a decrease in substantiations since 2020-21.
Refer to table 16A.1 and the Context section.
Over the last five years, the rate of children in out-of-home care have remained consistent, around 8 per 1,000 children at 30 June.
For children in out-of-home care at 30 June 2024:
- 88.4% of children were in home-based care (including foster care, relative/kinship care and other care), a decline of 3.9% percentage points from 92.3% in 2018-19.
- proportions in home-based care were similar for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (88.7%) and non-Indigenous children (88.1%).
Expenditure on child protection services and unit cost of care for children in out-of-home care and other supported placements has increased.
Nationally, in 2023-24:
- real expenditure on child protection services was $10.2 billion, compared with 9.6 billion in 2022-23.
- the unit cost of care for children in out-of-home care and other supported placements was $374, continuing the trend in increased real costs since 2014 15.
More information: section 16 child protection services.
Between 2014-15 and 2021-22, the 12 month return rates for young people aged 10–16 years released from sentenced supervision fluctuated.
- 56.8% of young people aged 10–16 years released from sentenced supervision in 2021-22 returned within 12 months.
- This was a decrease of 1.1 percentage points from 2020-21 and an increase of 6.0 percentage points from 2019-20.
Expenditure on youth justice services has increased in 2023-24.
Nationally, in 2023-24 (dollars):
- expenditure on detention-based supervision, community-based supervision and group conferencing was $1.5 billion, compared with $1.4 billion in 2022-23.
- the cost per average day per young person in detention ranged from $2,162 to $7,775 across jurisdictions.
- the cost per average day per young person subject to community based supervision ranged from $66 to $517 across jurisdictions.
More information: section 17 youth justice services.
References
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) 2024, Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/disability/disability-ageing-and-carers-australia-summary-findings/latest-release (accessed 3 September 2024).
—— 2022, Occupation (OCCP) by employment (EMFP) and Age (AGE5P) [2016 and 2021 Census TableBuilder] (accessed 18 October 2022).
—— 2019, Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/disability/disability-ageing-and-carers-australia-summary-findings/2018 (accessed 3 September 2024).
Australian Government 2024, Disability Indicators Factsheet, https://www.ndda.gov.au/research-projects/insights (accessed 14 May 2025).
—— 2021, Pilot phase and findings, https://www.ndda.gov.au/research-projects/pilot-phase-and-findings (accessed 15 May 2025).
DSS (Department of Social Services) 2024, Department of Social Services 2023 24 Annual Report, https://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/publications-articles/corporate-publications/annual-reports
NDIA (National Disability Insurance Agency) 2024, NDIS Quarterly report to disability ministers, https://www.ndis.gov.au/publications/quarterly-reports/archived-quarterly-reports-2023-24 (accessed 26 May 2025).
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