NESA Annual Report- 2021/22
We will continue to strengthen our relationships with government, the opposition, key stakeholders, and the business community to ensure our voice on the key issues and priorities are heard.

– Sally Sinclair
CEO, NESA

Question:

After NESA’s achievements over the past year in the employment services sector, what future opportunities and challenges lie ahead?

Hear from Sally Sinclair

Chair's
Report

2021-2022 was a busy and demanding year and many of the challenges that members, the sector, and NESA faced will continue in 2022-2023.

Reform has always played a huge role in the employment services sector and there have been several iterations of reform and change since its inception in 1988, but perhaps none more profound than the transition to Workforce Australia. The impact of the procurement announcements on members’ businesses and subsequent challenges arising from the transition to a new model added stresses on a sector that was still recovering and resetting after COVID.

Read more

CEO's
Report

2021-2022 was once again a year that presented ongoing business and operational challenges as the global pandemic continued to prevail and regional areas were affected by major flooding. For the employment services sector these challenges added another layer of complexity on top of the uncertainty and stresses of transitioning to one of the most significant reforms in Australia’s employment services since 1998, Workforce Australia.

While the underlying principle for the reform is to strengthen and improve, as noted in the Productivity Commission’s, Introducing Competition and Informed User Choice into Human Services: Reforms to Human Services, Inquiry Report, major reform of any human service is complex, often costly and disruptive to users and providers, take considerable time to fully implement, and affect the lives of many (sometimes vulnerable) users with overly ambitious reforms and rollout schedules having potential to lead to issues in implementation.

Read more

Labour market and employment services update

NESA uses labour market and employment services updates to keep informed and gain insights into key workforce trends including measures of participation in the labour market, employment, unemployment, and underemployment.

There are many sources of data and labour market information that NESA uses to obtain material and evidence to support its policy responses to government. These include national sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Government Labour Market Insights, and international sources including the International Labour Organisation and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Read more

Beyond The Headline

Australian’s wanting employment or more hours of work

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Impacts of COVID-19 on The Australian Labour Market:

Source: ABS Labour Force. Detailed. Australia. February 2022

Key job Statistics

The following are snapshots of the types of statistics that NESA uses to inform its advocacy and representation.

Australian Cohort Comparison - jobactive Caseload Index between Feb-20 to Feb22

Source: DESE jobactive data. February 2022

Average Unemployment Rate (%) in Australia between Sept-12 to Mar-22

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, Australia September 2022

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NESA acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land and sea. We pay our respects to their culture and to their elders, past, present and emerging.

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Chair’s
Report

2021-2022 was a busy and demanding year and many of the challenges that members, the sector, and NESA faced will continue in 2022-2023.

Reform has always played a huge role in the employment services sector and there have been several iterations of reform and change since its inception in 1988, but perhaps none more profound than the transition to Workforce Australia. The impact of the procurement announcements on members’ businesses and subsequent challenges arising from the transition to a new model added stresses on a sector that was still recovering and resetting after COVID.

A RESILIENT AND DETERMINED SECTOR

However, these challenges reminded us of how resilient and determined the sector is, and how the sector can adapt to significant change while remaining focused on the core purpose – preparing Australians to participate productively in the labour market and connecting them to employment opportunities.

It is interesting that this reform has seen the government ‘re-enter’ the market by servicing participants through their digital platform -19 years after Employment National the government-owned job agency was dissolved, and all services awarded to employment service providers.

This year reinforced the importance of the work of NESA with advocacy, representation, and leadership more important than ever. This was evident when NESA increased its advocacy and representation in the lead up to the procurement to help influence the expected change, and when the results were announced, engaging with government to address the transitional and financial challenges including branding and caseload numbers. Every effort was made to contact all members once the results of the procurement were announced.

MEMBERS ACTIVELY SUPPORTED

NESA also actively supported members and the sector as they navigated through the continual challenges of working in a COVID impacted economy. Areas of support included representation to government on the difficulties members faced in engaging participants during the shutdowns, and when the economy and workplaces re-opened, the rapid start-ups and pressures to fuel the country’s workforce. These challenges were in conjunction with the pressures of managing the health and well-being of their own workforce in an environment where the virus was still prevalent.

Even with a full advocacy and representation agenda, NESA worked hard to maintain its commitment to ensuring the sector continued to have opportunities to learn and gain relevant sector knowledge and skills. With the impending new era in employment services, the value of our Practitioners Conference was notable. Regrettably the Workforce Australia procurement and the announcement of the results timeline was not conducive to holding a National Conference in the first half of the financial year, and this has resulted in a financial impost for NESA. However, the Board’s focus on ensuring NESA builds a sustainable business model to support our members remained, and the Board will continue to explore opportunities to deliver on that promise.

NESA Solutions Ltd continued its valuable work with the Indigenous Money Health (IMH) program, delivering workshops to targeted communities and evaluating the program with past and current beneficiaries. The IMH program supported the building of financial capability within Indigenous communities and provided frontline staff with the tools and skills to either facilitate further training or provide one on one support and mentoring to their clients.

During this challenging and uncertain year, I am proud to report that Sally and the team at NESA continued to deliver on our mission and be the vision, voice, and support for our members and the sector. On behalf of the Board, I would also like to warmly thank Sally for her continued support, leadership, and commitment to the Board, the members, and the sector.

A special thanks to my fellow Board Directors, current and retired, for their strong support, commitment, and dedication. I wish to formally farewell Board members Nicole Dwyer and Lisa Cunningham and to welcome co-opted Board member Simon Rodgers. I would like to specifically acknowledge Nicole Dwyer for the wealth of expertise she brought to the role, and her extraordinary contribution to both the Board and the Audit and Risk Management Committee over her six-and-a-half-year tenure.

Finally, on behalf of the Board, I would like to warmly thank our members for their unwavering support and their commitment to working with NESA to ensure Australia has a sustainable, effective, and diverse employment services sector to support participants, employers and assist our nation achieve employment participation objectives.

Matthew Little
Chair, NESA

CEO’s
Report

2021-2022 was once again a year that presented ongoing business and operational challenges as the global pandemic continued to prevail and regional areas were affected by major flooding. For the employment services sector these challenges added another layer of complexity on top of the uncertainty and stresses of transitioning to one of the most significant reforms in Australia’s employment services since 1998, Workforce Australia.

While the underlying principle for the reform is to strengthen and improve, as noted in the Productivity Commission’s, Introducing Competition and Informed User Choice into Human Services: Reforms to Human Services, Inquiry Report, major reform of any human service is complex, often costly and disruptive to users and providers, take considerable time to fully implement, and affect the lives of many (sometimes vulnerable) users with overly ambitious reforms and rollout schedules having potential to lead to issues in implementation.

MAINTAINING FOCUS IN CHALLENGING TIMES

Experience has taught us that significant reform in employment services typically creates some disruption for providers, participants and employers so NESA was prepared for the advocacy and representation required to drive home the importance of having appropriate measures and procedures in place to minimise that disruption and to mitigate against any unforeseen challenges so that members and the sector could remain focused on addressing Australia’s employment and inclusion challenges.

In addition, NESA made representations to government around the design of future Disability Employment Services and the Community Development Program, strengthening our resolve to work even more collaboratively with key stakeholders to ensure the design of the new programs provide better access to quality employment assistance, and greater support for people with disability and First Nations People.

As many members deliver multiple employment services programs, NESA was dedicated to supporting members in navigating through the kaleidoscope of reform and proposed reform.

We also continued to perform a significant role to ensure the quality and integrity of Vocational Education and Training in the context of broader efforts to enable Australians to re-skill and up-skill to meet the current and future demands of Australia’s workforce.

This year we were pleased that the easing of COVID restrictions enabled us to facilitate more face-to-face interaction between members and our key stakeholders, including through a successful CEOs Forum and Practitioners Conference leading into the implementation of Workforce Australia.

A STRONG VOICE FOR OUR SECTOR

NESA continued to work diligently to ensure we remained the voice for the sector, that our profiling of the good work that our members do each day reached a wider and broader audience, and that our advocacy and representation was strategic and influential and vigorously supported our members.

Since May 2022, following the election of the Albanese Labor government we have established strong relationships with Ministers and members of the government who are both responsible for and involved in the governance of employment services and the work of our members.

Over the next twelve months NESA will continue to be a strong voice for the sector and we will be engaging with and supporting members through this continued significant reform period. We will continue to strengthen our relationships with government, the opposition, key stakeholders, and the business community to ensure our voice on the key issues and priorities are heard.

I’d like to thank our Chair Matt Little and NESA’s Board of Directors for their unwavering commitment and support, and for setting a strong governance framework that supports the achievement of the organisation’s goals and objectives.

On behalf of myself and my dedicated team, thank you for your continued support.

Together with you, our members, we look forward to working to achieve our shared vision of opportunity for everyone through employment and inclusion.

Sally Sinclair
CEO, NESA

Labour Market
and
Employment
Services Update

NESA uses labour market and employment services updates to keep informed and gain insights into key workforce trends including measures of participation in the labour market, employment, unemployment, and underemployment.

There are many sources of data and labour market information that NESA uses to obtain material and evidence to support its policy responses to government. These include national sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Government Labour Market Insights, and international sources including the International Labour Organisation and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

In NESA’s paper on Reach Beyond the Headlines, NESA used data and labour market information from a number of sources to support NESA’s argument that while Australia’s unemployment rate of 3.9% was worthy of celebration, there was an underlying question on what level of unemployment and underutilisation of labour was acceptable.

Beyond The Headline

Australian’s wanting employment or more hours of work

WEBSITES THAT NESA USES TO SOURCE ITS STATISTICS INCLUDE:

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Supporting People
With Disability
People with disability in Australia face considerable inequity and disadvantage in realising their human rights and ambitions to live a normal life. For many people living with a disability, economic exclusion is experienced alongside social exclusion.

The Disability Employment Services (DES) program was introduced to support people with disability find and keep a job, and from 1 March 2010 the program has undergone transformation through a range of significant changes. These include those introduced in the 2018 reforms which had the objective of increasing program performance. Continuing with this transformation through reform approach, government in consultation with key stakeholders is developing a new disability employment services program to improve the employment outcomes of people with disability.

NESA has advocated for the design of the new program to be evidenced based to ensure it delivers the best possible outcomes for people with disability, their families and their communities.

United with a shared purpose, NESA has been working collaboratively with the other disability employment peak bodies for the betterment of future disability employment supports and policy and program settings.