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Enabler 1: Sustainable and inclusive workforces
We will fund and employ diverse, skilled workforces in culturally safe workplaces, now and into the future.
We must strengthen the capability of our workforces to do our best work. We must remove barriers to attracting a diverse workforce.
As an employer, this means:
- empowering our staff by widening and deepening their expertise and skills
- supporting them to move between roles and sectors when organisational and community needs evolve
- enabling them to maintain their health and wellbeing on the job.
In addition, to support the funded-agency workforces, we will work with the sector to enable fulfilling and sustained careers in the community services.
To succeed we will:
- support our funded-agency workforces by:
- continuing to develop and grow the Community and Social Services Graduate Program as an attractive, structured and supported early career program for social services workforces
- promoting community services careers through communications and engagement, including targeted campaigns for key subsectors such as child protection
- develop and implement the whole-of-department Aboriginal workforce strategy in 2025, overseen by the Aboriginal Strategic Governance Forum (ASGF), and
- continue to design and pilot other programs or policies that address workforce challenges, such as scholarship programs, more accessible pathways to qualifications and inter-agency collaboration to address workforce shortages
- work with the Aboriginal Sector Workforce Strategy Working Group to support Aboriginal organisations
- support the department’s workforce by:
- developing strategies to support and retain the department’s frontline workforces through professional development, wellbeing services and leadership development
- increasing cultural safety and awareness for departmental staff. This includes implementing the Aboriginal Cultural Safety Framework and its measurement and assessment tool
- promoting diversity, inclusion and belonging in our workforces through the public sector veteran employment strategy and through the Aboriginal workforce strategy 2021–26.
Enabler 2: Modern departmental systems
We will continually improve ways of working to deliver high-quality, evidence-based and sustainable programs and services.
We must have the right processes, systems and cultures in place to achieve the best possible outcomes.
To meet the new risks and opportunities ahead, we will continue to improve how we:
- collaborate with partners
- share knowledge
- deliver programs and services
- demonstrate accountability to stakeholders
- engage communities
- evaluate and review our progress.
As the stewards of a broader social and housing services system, we must also support our funded agencies to consider their own practices and ways of working.
Our staff and the community services sector cannot meet evolving community needs without:
- robust governance and integrity functions
- effective data management and information sharing within the department and across government and the sector
- research and evaluation support
- sustainable, effective service delivery models
- developing clear strategy for the future.
To succeed we will:
- strengthen accountability and integrity functions, including by reviewing our complaints and feedback processes to ensure they are fit for purpose, client-focused, contemporary, efficient and effective
- improve our use of digital technologies by designing a modern, integrated client and case management system for community and family services
- improve our use of digital technologies by enhancing the corporate systems that underpin all our people, process and financial management
- strengthen the cybersecurity capabilities and posture of both the department and our service delivery partners.