Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 17:55 to 25:56
Witnesses discuss the efficiency of block funding for community services and the potential administrative burden of individualized meal subsidies.
Topics: Social services, Grants administration
Speakers: Hon Anne Ruston, Claudia Odello, Leeanne Wright, Unknown Speaker
that end, so if somebody isn't hasn't gone through the assessment process, are they still able to get access to Meals on Wheels services if they just pay? Yeah. And how how how often are you servicing people who just, you know, either on a waiting list or, you know, just have decided they
can't be So, currently I've got 7% waiting. Yeah, sitting there waiting to
are you So, So, you've got you you are servicing those 7% while they're waiting. So, all you're getting back from them into they you charge them for the cost of the food. And so, and you charge them the same price as they would charge
>> Uh no. Commonwealth Home Support is subsidized. They would They would be paying the full rate. However, we don't apply that. We apply at that point we apply the Commonwealth Home Support
rate. Okay. So, you you So, for the all intents and purposes, the person who's receiving your services is only paying the same as somebody who You're absorbing that into your administration costs. Yeah. So, how often do you when you're providing a service to somebody, the only service that they're receiving is actually assistance with meals? Is that very common that it's just meals they
get? Yeah, there's quite a few out there that just receive the meal. Okay. When
you say quite a few, I mean, would it be
1 10 Oh, well, I'd say with our caseload, you're probably looking about
30%. 30% are just food. Like, so they're just receiving the Meals on Wheels services. Okay. So, in that sense, I'm I'm going to It seems to me to be a a sort of situation where it it's completely inefficient to provide the services in many instances that you're providing by any other means but block funding. So, first of all, you've got a situation where you're providing services to people that haven't been assessed because they might be waiting for an assessment or waiting for a an allocation, but you're also only providing services to a large number of people who are only receiving your services. So, I mean, to add an administration fee to each and every one of those, yeah, yeah, it'd be crazy. It sounds the reverse engineering that's going on with the NDIS with Thriving Kids. Thought it was a good idea until they implemented and then it wasn't, so we need to avoid that. Um okay, so just in terms of your interaction as Meals on Wheels with the government at the moment in relation to what's happening about the transition. What interaction or what advice have you had from the federal government or from the Department of Health and Aged Care about what is actually happening over the next 18 months? So, there's been
very little in terms of any clarity [clears throat] of what's going to happen in the next 18 months. We keep hearing that um CHSP will fold into Support at Home no sooner than the 1st of July 2027 and that's what we've heard. We've written to the department, um spoken to the department on multiple occasions for clarity and we get um very vague and ambiguous responses, so we have no clarity.
Okay, so for all intents and purposes, you've not received any correspondence or information that would suggest that the government is considering the concerns that are being expressed not just by you, by the way. We've had many submissions and obviously there's been a lot of concern about the impact of removal of CHSP. You have had no indication that the government's considering any of those concerns. They still appear to be intent on getting rid Okay. Um so, in terms >> in terms of your understanding and funding um post 2027, have you had any advice or any directions in terms of how that funding will occur or you're just assuming you're going to have to be a Support at Home provider? Yeah. So, you currently So, you provide meals to Support at Home as well as
CHSP? We do. So, nationally all of the Meals on Wheels services, there's about 590 of them. They're all independently run and the majority uh associated providers for the Support at Home
administration of your clients that are um on Support at Home and the cost of the administration of your clients that are on CHSP or you're providing a private service to, what's the difference in terms of the administrative burden on the two?
Um it's a a much bigger administrative burden because when the clients see what they're being charged for meals under the Support at Home program, they tend to reach out to that Meals on Wheels service to complain, not to the not to the actual service provider. So, as an example, we one of our branches receiv- received a call when um Support at Home started who had a client who was on the CHSP that had transitioned into Support at Home and they were being charged $23 per course. Sorry, yeah, per for for each main entrée, dessert, so $69 for one sitting. >> I'm sorry? $69 for one sitting, a lunch that they used to purchase directly from that Meals on Wheels provider in their local community for about $10 to $12. So, the amount of complaints and inquiries Meals on Wheels services have uh getting locally, I'm hearing are through the roof um and it's not just an isolated example, it's happening across the
board. So, in terms of the determination of that $69 or whatever it happens to be for that that meal, Yeah. who determines the the charge for that?
The provider, the Support at Home provider. So, they each have their price list.
>> Okay. So, you I'm the Support at Home provider. I've decided I'm doing a package for Wendy, so I've contacted you as Meals on Wheels and said, "Can you please provide Wendy with her lunch every day?" Um and >> [laughter] >> um and then this the provider then provides you with what? How much do you get paid for that
>> Well, that all varies across the board. I could get you a range. It'd be really
interesting to understand. You as the Meals on Wheels provider provide that for $10 or $12. You would obviously have an amount that you are being subsidized for that, which would amount to whatever it is. Do you know what the Do you know what the administrative cost that you absorb via um your block funding of the that meal? So, what what is the meal actually costing you to produce, the one that you're selling for $12? So, I'm funded
$14.13 per unit.
$14.12 per
per unit. And that ranges across the country from about $8.80. So, is that
per unit um per course or per meal? Per unit, so
it's a unit is a meal. So, it's what
they determine as a meal. So, you get soup, um main course and dessert and you get $14.30 subsidized
the department, if we charge um the three units
out there. No, but what I'm saying is how much are you provided as Meals on Wheels What I mean, if you uh you know, like on on average per per meal, not how much does the Support
at Home subsidize you? So, I get paid uh per unit, two units for the three meals.
Two units, so you get $28.60 for
the two meals. For not generally a soup and a main. Yeah, they don't class a dessert as a