Human Services Delivery Research Alliance

CSIRO and the Department of Human Services (DHS) have formed a research alliance to harness the power of science and improve service delivery to more than six million Australians each year.

• 27 June 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Service delivery reform
• About the alliance
• Mutual benefits
• Science for Services

Service delivery reform

The Human Services portfolio has begun a transformation that will dramatically improve its flexibility and effectiveness to deliver services to the Australian community.

Every day, millions of Australians interact with agencies across the Human Services portfolio, including Centrelink, Medicare Australia and the Child Support Agency. The portfolio delivers more than A$100 billion in payments and more than 200 different services.

Human services must keep up with the changing demographics and needs of the Australian community. Australians expect a service that is focused on them, and targeted to their needs and circumstances. This involves access to efficient, high-quality services in an easy and coordinated way.

About The Alliance

The A$20 million five-year Human Services Delivery Research Alliance (HSDRA) is addressing the research challenges and questions arising from, and in support of, the Service Delivery reform agenda.

The Research Alliance is working in support of a national service delivery system that is evidence-based, sustainable, people-centric and harmonised across government and public human service delivery dimensions.

It is using innovative technologies and practices to increase the efficiency of government services, create options for future service delivery and improve the capacity for government to build better relationships with its customers.

HSDRA is leveraging DHS' depth of experience in human services delivery with CSIRO’s strengths in services research to deliver a more efficient and effective national service delivery system.

Mutual benefits

The HSDRA alliance will provide benefits to both organisations.

DHS' world-class capabilities will help identify the current and future challenges for human services delivery including:

• Australia’s changing demographic
• efficiency of government services
• improved service delivery to remote and indigenous Australians
• future input to policy reform and sound information to advise its directions and decisions
• growing its impact in the social inclusion domain.

For CSIRO, the alliance offers research opportunities that will enable us to use complex systems modelling to address the need for integrated service delivery that is connected and focused on citizens.

Science for Services

An evidence-based approach will give DHS more confidence to develop and adapt programs most suited to a changing Australia. CSIRO’s expertise in understanding complex systems has been effectively applied to services.

Science has the tools and methods to model the array of services and programs offered by DHS and the way people interact with them at different points and from different places throughout their lives.

Scientific analysis will help identify when DHS' services are important, predicting which services would work the best for which groups of people, testing scenarios on how to deliver them and plan interventions that enable individuals to help themselves into the future.

The Alliance will focus on a number of research areas in support of service delivery reform including:

• creating a model that estimates the requirements for DHS services on a geographical basis, and then relating that to existing and anticipated service provision
• measuring quality of life and how this is affected by a range of factors such as education, workforce participation, accommodation and social interaction
• working with DHS to determine potential strategies for intensive support and measuring their impact
• modifying existing business rules using evidence based methods to provide better outcomes for customers and greater efficiency
• using novel methods to monitor social media enabling DHS to measure the effectiveness of communications and better understand their customers
• streamlining communications, creating a more personalised web experience and tailoring information delivery to suit the needs of individual customers
• increasing back office efficiency by studying individual work processes and how they interact.

Find out more about some of the HSDRA projects:

Online communities: improving communication with customers

CSIRO is working with Centrelink to develop and trial an online forum with a target group of Centrelink customers.

Social media monitoring: identifying customer needs

CSIRO's social media monitoring tool Vizie is transforming the way The Department of Human Services listens, understands and responds to customer feedback from social media.

Improving social welfare services with powerful data analysis

CSIRO is developing sophisticated technologies to help the Department of Human Services (DHS) understand and respond to unexpected trends in demand for social worker services.

Understanding the full impact of social service delivery

CSIRO and the Department of Human Services (DHS) are working together to gain a more complete understanding of the hard-to-measure impacts of human services.

Pathways: a new approach to social service systems

Mapping and analysing pathways through social welfare systems could show which programs work best.