1 month ago
17
Victorian government departments failed to meet their service delivery performance targets more than a third of the time throughout 2024-25, according to the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.
A review into service delivery performance for 2024-25, published in December, found all departments met or exceeded only 65.2 per cent of their targets, and failed to meet them 23.2 per cent of the time by a significant margin.
Premier Jacinta Allan in December.Credit: Joe Armao
The Department of Justice and Community Safety (51.9 per cent) and the Department of Health (53.3 per cent) had the worst performances, meeting a little more than half their targets, while the Department of Treasury and Finance had the best performance (81.3 per cent), followed by the Department of Premier and Cabinet (79.4 per cent).
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) also consistently missed its target to respond to 90 per cent of structure fires within its benchmark response time. Of the fires that brigades did not reach within the target time during the 2024-25 period, 39.6 per cent were missed by less than one minute, while 36.3 per cent were missed by less than three minutes.
Loading
CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said dedicated volunteers worked around the clock.
“CFA is committed to working with brigades to identify opportunities to enhance response times where appropriate,” he said.
A political stoush broke out last week about CFA funding, which both the government and CFA board insisted had increased despite this not being reflected in their annual reports. The dispute was clouded by the delay in publishing the CFA’s most recent report, which will be published on Tuesday.
The most common justification for failing service delivery targets across departments was operational factors such as project delays, scoping or complexity, and policy changes. Resource constraints, including increased demand, funding or workforce availability, was the next most common excuse.
Crimes across Victoria took longer to resolve, with the target for crimes against a person missed 20.2 per cent of the time, and 26 per cent of the time for property and deception offences.
The justice department said this was due to a reallocation of resources, challenges such as workforce availability and an increase in crime.
The Crime Statistics Agency in December revealed that the number of criminal offences increased by 9 per cent in the year to September on a per-capita basis. Theft from a car, car theft, retail theft and family violence order breaches were the biggest increases.
A Victoria Police spokesman said it would be unfairly simplistic to focus on this target alone.
“Property and deception offences, including arson, can also be complex with incidents often involving multiple offenders and forming part of a series of linked offences,” he said.
“Victoria Police made a record 77,911 arrests in the last year.
“The overwhelming majority of serious, high-harm crimes are ultimately resolved and offenders held to account.”
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) also fell short on several child protection measures.
The proportion of Aboriginal children placed with relatives and kin, other Aboriginal carers or in Aboriginal residential care deteriorated by a significant margin in 2024-25.
The department said there had been challenges locating family members in a position to provide care, but that Victoria continues to have the highest proportion of Aboriginal children placed with relatives, kin or Aboriginal carers of all jurisdictions.
“Our priority is to support families and keep them together when it is safe to do so. We take immediate action to protect children in all instances where a significant risk of harm is substantiated,” a department spokeswoman said.
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight said there was a lack of accountability and that child protection needed to work harder to build trust and support parents.
Failures had knock-on effects for First Nations children disconnected from their community and culture, she said, pointing to the high rate of Aboriginal children removed from their families who end up in the youth justice system.
“Family separation continues to have devastating and ongoing impacts for our children today, at rates which should be a national shame,” Waight said.
Separately, DFFH’s performance also went backwards in the number of children abused or neglected within three months of failing to substantiate other allegations. The department missed its target on this measure by a significant margin for the third year in a row.
The number of children who were the subject of a substantiated report within 12 months of a previous allegation being substantiated also worsened.
DFFH said this was because of changes in a child’s circumstances, availability of and engagement with family services and supports, and the impact of COVID-19.
“The Victorian government has invested more than $4.4 billion in the child protection and family services system over the past six state budgets, including recruiting more workers to give every child in care the support they deserve,” a department spokeswoman said.
People on the priority waitlist for social housing, meanwhile, waited an average 17.3 months for a home. This was 64.8 per cent longer than the target.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Bridget Vallence said the report confirmed Victorians weren’t getting the quality health, education, community safety and transport services they deserved.
“Victorians are paying the price for chronic failures, systemic underperformance, and financial mismanagement under Labor,” she said.
A Victorian government spokesman said state Labor was focused on what matters, “good schools, great hospitals, real help with the cost of living and keeping people safe”.
“We know there’s more work to do, and we will continue to invest in the things that matter to Victorians.”
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Most Viewed in Politics
Loading
