Towards Community-Controlled Budgeting and Commissioning for better local outcomes

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Yuwaya Ngarrali policy paper "Making government finances make sense for communities"

We have published two research and policy papers to assist public servants in meeting their Closing the Gap commitments in working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations:

• Creating Better Futures with Contracts covers how to improve access to information and participation in government procurement and grants
• Making Government Finances Make Sense for Communities covers how governments can improve information and participation around government budgeting and spending.

These papers provide insight into the experience of an ACCO trying to access information about government spending in their local community, shares case studies of positive practice in Australia and internationally and provides guidance on increasing government transparency and accountability, in line with Closing the Gap Priority Reform 4 commitments to operationalise Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles.

Like many Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), the Dharriwaa Elders Group has for many years requested and advocated for more information and accountability from governments around resources allocated for their community. Through this research we have learnt that details about what funding has been committed and where it is going is difficult to identify, even for those working in government.

Moreover, despite commitments through Closing the Gap and evidence about the greater impact of Aboriginal community controlled led change for Aboriginal communities (for example, explored in the Productivity Commission’s 2024 Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap), priorities and resource allocation continues to happen far away from community control.

However, it does not have to be this way. Making Government Finances Make Sense for Communities also highlights positive examples in Australia and overseas of participatory budgeting or Indigenous-led commissioning (as a more holistic approach to allocating spending and making contracting decisions) as well as transparency and effective access to information about budgets or spending in place.

Through this work, the Dharriwaa Elders Group and its collaborators at UNSW through their Yuwaya Ngarra-li partnership would like to extend an invitation to the NSW Government to work together on a community-controlled budgeting and commissioning pilot to support children and young peoples’ wellbeing in Walgett.

Since 2020, the building and centring of Aboriginal community capabilities and control in Yuwaya Ngarrali’s work has been a key enabler of all other areas as well as an area of significant achievement in itself. During the 2020-2023 period evaluated here important DEG-led efforts resulted in 32 outcomes relating to ACCO capability and control, with a further 51 outcomes associated with community-led emergency response and community troubleshooting. Walgett Elders and community voices have been prominent in national media stories on topics as varied the government’s response to COVID, food and water security, floodplain harvesting and homelessness. DEG and YN’s agenda-setting on food and water security in particular has led to Ministerial visits to Walgett and commitments to long-term solutions to safe drinking water that is having systemic impact. Within our team we have embedded important learning about how to recruit, develop and retain Aboriginal staff members that provide a model that could be shared. And we are developing an ACCO capability unit that could provide an innovative model enabling ACCOs to flourish and lead change in communities across NSW nationally, thereby contributing significant progress in Closing the Gap targets and self-determination.