Cost of Providing Specialist Disability Services and Communities Services in Queensland: Summary Report

Abstract

The research investigates the expenditure and funding of the services provided by NGOs (Non-government Organisations) funded by Disability Services Queensland (DSQ) and Department of Communities (DOC) in Queensland. The research tasks are as follows. 1. Identify the resources and tasks associated with all aspects of service provision that incur a cost 2. Determine the current expenditure of providing services (in existing service models) through analysis of a representative sample of organisations 3. Test the validity of service clustering for costing purposes 4. Identify changes in the cost of service delivery over time using historical service delivery expenditure and where possible, future cost projections 5. Examine the reasons for and extent of variation in service expenditure 6. Review current revenue streams for funded non-government organisations (NGOs), the reliability of the revenue streams and their impact on the viability of the organisations 7. Undertake research to identify expenditure benchmarks used by other Australian jurisdictions when delivering similar service types and activities.