Last Friday, the ACT Auditor-General released a much-anticipated audit in the Safer Families Levy, an eight million dollar a year bucket of money collected by the ACT Government in the name of preventing and responding to violence.
Every ACT rate payer has contributed to the levy since 2016 and to date, it has accrued 46 million dollars. The ACT Auditor-General’s recent audit paints a damning picture of ineffective planning and a stark absence of a territory-specific strategy.
In auditing the program, the ACT Auditor General stated that “planning and development of domestic and family violence initiatives has been undermined by the lack of a Territory-specific strategy for responding to domestic and family violence and up-to-date understanding of what the needs of the ACT are in responding to domestic and family violence”.
For the women’s safety sector, the report has delivered a welcome level of transparency and disclosure over the use of the levy.
For YWCA Canberra, the report is a particularly significant reflection on our advocacy work. Since 2018, two years after the introduction of the Levy, we have been dogged in understanding how the levy was distributed and what it was delivering to women leaving violence and the services they rely on. The question we constantly asked ourselves was “why are we turning women away when millions a year is accrued in the name of this Levy”.
Every Budget submission, Budget debrief, Estimates testimony or sector roundtable we attended we asked about specific Budget line items, and when we couldn’t get answers there, we engaged members of the Opposition to ask questions for us: How many consultants are paid with the levy? How many staff are working in the ACT Government safer families team? Why can’t staff training be funded through standard revenue streams? It was a long game.
The truth is, that when the Auditor General began this review, the only reason some basic information about Levy even existed was because my team chased it down over years.
Mr. Harris says ‘public reporting of the safer Families Levy is not transparent or effective in informing the community how the levy is being used or the performance of domestic and family violence initiatives, both individually and as a whole, in addressing domestic and family violence across the Territory’.
In releasing the 2024-2025 ACT Budget, the ACT Government tried to get ahead of the Auditor General’s report; for the first time in eight years of the levy, public servants would no longer be paid by it and finally, funding would flow direct to the frontline. Pardon my tongue in cheek cynicism, but what an achievement.
During her address this year to the National Press Club, Rosy Batty said something which stood out to me. Speaking of journalists she said ‘you are committed to holding governments to account on their promises. We share a refusal to be silenced, we speak truth to power, and we demand change’. The same can and should be said about civil society. We are not here to stroke the egos of governments. Or to simply keep quiet and carry on in the face of much needed reform or oversight because our funding models indirectly muzzle us.
We are here to serve Canberra in a way that reflects the values and needs of the community. At YWCA Canberra, that includes women and children trying to live safe lives and to get back on their feet after violence.
It is difficult for us to see how those asking for help were sufficiently and sustainably served by this levy.
There is absolutely a role for government to have a coordinating role in responding to domestic, family and sexual violence on a systems level.
Particularly as we have a National Plan to end violence against women and children it is critical that the strategy of the ACT aligns with the National Plan.
The Audit report found this isn’t happening.
What is not acceptable to us however is how such a large proportion of the levy goes to government-led projects that are not informed by any strategic oversight, evidence base or planning.
It’s even more frustrating that for eight years the Levy paid for the salaries, training resources and overheads of ACT government employees and contractors.
Funding envelopes that provided support for women leaving violence, such as the Safer Families Assistance payment, which provides up to $2000 for clients to assist with urgent relocation or other expenses, were quickly exhausted and supplementary funding was not immediately made available for those women who had the misfortune of being simply too late to reach out.
Demand for YWCA Canberra’s Domestic Violence Support Service, which until recently received no funding from the levy, is constant. During the past years, we were forced to put a hold on police referrals as referrals to our service nearly doubled in the short timeframe.
We have a palpable sense of relief from the release of the Auditor Genral report, to finally have the wake-up call for accountability and transparency and importantly sensible and easy to implement recommendations.
Secondly and abundantly, we ultimately want to see a front-line sector that can meet the needs of everyone who needs help.
Frances Crimmins
she/her
YWCA Canberra CEO
Frances Crimmins is the Chief Executive Officer of YWCA Canberra. Frances has a passion to see women achieve their potential and shape their communities. Having started her career in hotel management she soon developed strong leadership and management skills which saw her take on senior human resources roles in the health sector.
Frances’ natural drive and pursuit of excellence resulted in her former employer gaining accreditation as an Employer of Choice for Women, and ACT Employer of the Year for Apprenticeships & Traineeships.
Frances was drawn to YWCA Canberra in 2010 as she had always identified as a feminist, and has a strong belief in social justice, which she attributes to her mother’s influence. Having faced discrimination during her own career journey, she is now committed to being a strong voice for women.
Frances has been the CEO of YWCA Canberra since 2013. She has led YWCA Canberra through a significant change process in integrated services delivery, corporate service review and evaluation frameworks. In response to identified community need, including during the COVID-19 crisis, Frances has spearheaded a range of new programs in the areas of addressing domestic and family violence and women’s homelessness, as well as empowering women to take authentic leadership journeys.
Frances is currently a Council Member for the ACT Work Safety Council as appointed by the Minister and the ACT Work Safety Commissioner. Frances also volunteers on a variety of boards and committees, including Homelessness Australia. Frances was formerly on the board of ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS), is a former Board Director of WESNET, former Chair of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Committee for Women and former Co-Chair of Anti-Poverty Week in the ACT.
In 2015, France received an Edna Ryan Award for advancing the status of women in the ACT. In 2016, Frances was named ACT Leader of the Year at the Australian Leadership Excellence Awards run by the Australian Institute of Leadership and Management. She also attended Commission for the Status of Women in New York in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
In 2021 Frances was selected to participate in the inaugural Social Impact Leadership Australia (SILA) program, where she completed a 10-month program on leadership development and capacity building for CEOs of for-purpose organisations in Australia.
