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Assessment details Assignment 1: Policy report – 2500 words (Harvard referencing) The purpose of this assignment is twofold; first to gain experience in conceptualising policy problems, and second, to gain experience in providing advice to policy makers. A policy report is a succinct document that provides Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Directors with high quality advice on a policy issue. A policy report aims to set out clear information about the issue or problem. It is important that you identify the audience for the report, and you consider what questions will be at the forefront of their minds. To undertake this assignment, you must address the following: · Select a policy problem of your interest (there does not have to be a current policy on the issue): Compulsory Income Management in Australia · Explain why you believe the issue/problem needs further exploration (point to evidence or data to support your position; consider the types of failure that have led to the expansion of the problem. · Provide background detail on the issue or problem (how has this issue been addressed previously; or why have policy makers ignored this issue; what is the current approach, consider the policy design mix and intersection with other policy domains · Identify a range of possible options to address the issue; look at what is currently in place; why isn’t this strategy working? Consider if a change in policy implementation tools, institutional and regulatory changes might be effective. · Discuss the implications of these options; does one stand out as the most effective? What is the political context, are there powerful interests at play? Look at other jurisdictions to see what has worked. · Develop a list of recommendations. Format for the Policy Report: 2500 words This assignment is to be written in report format, grammatically correct sentences are integral to good report writing, dot points should be kept to a minimum. The following format provides a guide. 1. Executive Summary (or abstract). State the problem and identify why the audience must pay attention to the issue, outline your methods and analysis and point to the findings. 2. Table of contents (not counted in the word limit) 3. Introduction. Outline why this issue is important and why the intended audience needs to pay attention to the issue; include an outline of the structure of the report. 4. Background. Summarise the problem paying attention to research in the area. It is important to demonstrate what your report will add to current perceptions on the issue. In this section it is really important to bring your audience with you; you want to convince the audience that this approach is indeed necessary. 5. Policy options. In this section is it important to highlight the current options and to provide any necessary arguments to alter these options. You may consider how the proposed changes will improve policy outcomes (look at what other jurisdictions have done) or you may want to demonstrate there will be significant cost savings involved. 6. Discussion and implications. This section requires you think through the policy issue, consider the implications of these changes; perhaps identify critiques of your suggestions and provide some counter arguments. 7. Recommendations. From the above discussion the recommendations should be clear and concise. 8. References (not included in the word limit) Harvard Compulsory Income Management – Current status and a more generally accepted future Policy Report to the Federal Minister for Government Services Executive Summary Since its introduction in 2007, the Compulsory Income Management programme has faced and continues to face serious criticisms. Over the past 14 years, two of the key areas of criticism have been its apparent racially discriminatory nature and the lack of consultations with impacted communities. Despite numerous reviews, evaluations and highly publicised positive gains, these concerns continue to linger in the public. This report examines the current state of Compulsory Income Management in Australia and present policy changes that are necessary in helping to move toward a more generally accepted model that reduces the level of current public outcry. The report relies on key published Government data, peer-reviewed journals and articles, and independent rights groups research reports to address these key public concerns. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction3 Background3 Policy Options5 Discussion and Implications6 Recommendations8 Introduction Compulsory Income Management (CIM) generally refers to a conditional welfare system in which a portion of welfare recipients’ benefits is mandatorily quarantined to allow those recipients to spend on essential items and services and to also restrict how they would otherwise spend on alcohol, gambling and other non-essential goods and services (Peterie et al., 2019). While the Government continues to argue that CIM is yielding positive intended results, there exists a number of concerns from Indigenous organisations and welfare lobby and human right groups about the overall impact of the policy. Since its introduction in 2007 as a key component of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) by the Liberal-National Coalition Government, there have been quite a few reviews as a result of some of those concerns and the apparent racially aligned nature of the CIM (Mendes, 2012). The succeeding report will outline the existing issues of CIM in Australia, options and considerations around establishing more inclusive national consultation and harmonisation framework in CIM, and finally a brief consideration of alternative views. The report ends with recommendations for the establishment of a more inclusive national consultation and harmonisation framework aimed at co-designing a genuine community development process. Background In the Liberal-National Government’s quest to address claims of widespread child sex abuse and neglects in the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was implemented in 2007 without any consultation (Ball & Carpenter, 2019). In 2008, the new Australian Labor Government mandated an independent review board to present a progress report on NTER; which found that some positive changes had been made between 2007 (June) and 2008 (October) in relation In 2012, a review was conducted that uncovered multiple areas where providers were failing to uphold the Standards, including a lack of acceptance towards those with special needs seeking mainstream education (Cologon 2013a, 7). In 2014 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found that Australia is failing in the area of upholding the rights of children to inclusive education, highlighting the ongoing segregation of students from mainstream classes into support classes or schools and low high school completion rates (Cologon 2013b). These criticisms and concerns have been echoed by advocacy organisations that work with families seeking mainstream education options (National Council on Intellectual Disability (Australia) 2013, 8). The quality of inclusion in Australian schooling, particularly in terms of the system demonstrating welcome and capacity to ensure educational outcomes for all children, requires improvement to meet the nation’s stated ideals and commitments (NCID 2013, 8). Lack of inclusion is occurring despite evidence showing that inclusive education is better for all. No review conducted over the past forty years comparing segregation and inclusion has come out in favour of segregation (NCID 2013, 5). This has been shown to be due to some key findings including: · students with intellectual disability draw significant benefits both academically and socially from inclusion in mainstream classrooms; · the inclusion of students with severe disabilities is not shown to significantly impact engaged time, or increase interruptions as compared with non-inclusive classrooms; and · students without disability have been shown to make better academic progress in mathematics and reading in inclusive settings (NCID 2013, 5). Additionally, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study has shown that the costs of inclusive systems are lower than segregated (OECD 1995). There is a demonstrated need for government to address the poor practical implementation of inclusion in the Australian education system. Policy Options Moving towards greater acceptance of students with disability in mainstream schooling requires cultural change in terms of changing perceptions and facilitating openness to students with disability in mainstream settings. However, there are systemic issues that can be addressed to assist in this process. Australia lacks guidelines at the state and national level to measure the success of inclusive practices (Anderson and Boyle 2015, 4). Students with disability are under-represented in national and state testing and reporting, and where reporting does take place it is inconsistent and does not capture the overall value that students gain from schooling (ARACY 2013, 5). There is no guarantee that two students with largely the same disability and educational needs will receive the same quality of education, even within state systems, and little ability to include the needs of students with disability in decision making regarding national and state testing or planning (Gordon 2016; ARACY 2013, 28). This results in an environment of reduced accountability for students with disability, exacerbated by the lack of any sort of consistent definition of what constitutes inclusive education or agreement on the way students with disability are identified (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations 2010, 8). Issues like these indicate a role for the Australian Government in providing coordination through development of a national approach to inclusive education. Australia can make the commitment to inclusive education principles explicit through a national policy statement that promotes consistent understanding and bolsters cultural change. A high level statement by the Australian Government provides the framework for consistent expectations, for both the education systems operating across the country and students seeking to access mainstream education settings, and flexibility of locally directed implementation. Such a policy statement would be accompanied by practical elements that support these two goals of consistency and local flexibility, including a common definition of inclusive education, nationally consistent principles, an outcomes framework that considers the value of education for students with disability, and targeted funding to support pilot projects that facilitate inclusive solutions at the local and regional level. An initiative to this end would uphold the responsibility of states and territories to manage school systems. There is no such thing as a single model of education that is effective for all pupils with disability, and an emphasis on empowering local solutions to inclusion challenges has the best chance to facilitate the transfer of effective practice between schools (Hegarty, Meijer, and Pijl 2002, 157). Education systems that perform well when compared internationally, like Finland, emphasise giving high quality teachers and school staff the autonomy to make decisions (ARACY 2013, 26). Additionally, research drawing on case studies from each Australian state and territory has shown that a critical success factor in positive inclusive education experiences is the leadership by school principals to welcome students with special needs and work flexibly to achieve outcomes for the student and the school (NCID 2013, 11). There is an opportunity to build such a policy statement into the current National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) roll out, which intersects children with disability and education settings. National inclusive principles could be considered by the Council of Australian Governments and built into the NDIS Principles to Determine the Responsibilities of the NDIS and Other Service Systems (Council of Australian Governments 2015). Integrating with the current disability reform agenda provides an efficient opportunity to redefine the relationship between education