Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 6:10:55 to 6:14:32
Discussion regarding the average cost of home care packages, comparing department estimates of $28,000 against industry reports suggesting higher figures.
Topics: Social services, Government spending
Speakers: Senator The Hon Anne Ruston, Mr Greg Pugh, Ms Sonja Stewart
Okay, well I look forward to seeing that. So can um in terms of the 727 million dollars um under utilisation in relation to the supported home programme, is that able to be broken down into categories, clinical independence and everyday living?
We can we can seek to address that as part of the taking that on notice, Senator.
Yep, okay, thank you. Um and is it in terms of the the status levels, the full status levels of of people's um determination in terms of what their contribution has to be? Um are you able to break it down into those statuses as people who are full pensioners as an example more likely to be underutilising their package than fully self-funded retirees as an example? Is that is that data able to be provided even on notice?
Yes.
Um what's the average budget or a package level for somebody? I mean, like overall, what's the average cost of a package at the moment?
Uh I think we've um had this conversation previously, and we weren't able to give you an answer to your satisfaction, but I thought that we had provided on notice that when the um 4.3 billion dollar additional investment into the support at home program was announced in the 2425 My EFO, the average assumed package cost was approximately 28,000.
So what date was that? The 25 My EFI.
24, 25, my EFO, because we would have had to have assumed uh an average package cost um uh to basically build up the the total costing amount.
Yeah. But I'm actually asking you for real costs. You've got X amount of packages, yeah. You spend X amount, divide one by the other, what's the number?
I don't have that, I will take it on notice, Senator. I think we tried to do this last time and I tried to take an average across all package levels, and that wasn't a satisfactory response. And in hindsight, it wasn't a satisfactory response. So I'd rather take them a notice and give you something that um is is validated.
Yeah, um I probably can decide whether it's a satisfactory response because I'm asking the questions that you're um you told me it wasn't. Well, maybe I didn't like that answer, but it may not have been the same question. So I'm asking these questions now. Um so I'd be keen to understand what was the average cost of a of a package, um, a home care package, say let's go for the 31st of December um 2024, um, the 30th of June 2025, the 1st of November 2025, and the 30th of June 2026. Is that possible?
We will take those under Senator.
As close as you can get to those if you've got um numbers that relate to that. Um really keen to understand, has the average value of a package increased or decreased since you've moved to the single assessment and the automated assessment tool that has not got human override. Has there been a difference in the average amount of packages subsequent? There may not have been.
So we'll, as Mr. Pew said, we'll take that on notice. I think in providing that a response to you, we'll also um highlight the key differences between the home care packages program and support at home, because I think that's also important um in our response to you.